Universal healthcare

I won't argue with you that MOST goods should not be socialized, like housing, clothes, etcetera. But doesn't there exist goods that ought to be? What about fire service? If your house is on fire, are the firefighters going to discriminate between those who have firefighter's insurance and those who do not? If the person in the apartment below you has firefighting insurance and you don't, should they only extinguish the fire on the floor below you? Police service follows the same argument, and arguably speaking, our government in general is a sort of socialism in itself, since the poor have an intrinsic right to it whether or not they can afford it. I have the utmost respect for the concept of Laissez-fare capitalism, however there are areas in which it works well, and areas in which it does not. Monopolies, for instance, represent one of the peculiar areas in which Laissez-fare must be controlled. If our Government were purely capitalist, it would be equal in corruptness to a purely socialist one. The technique of forming an effective government, therefore, lies in knowing what areas to capitalize and what areas to socialize. I am arguing that healthcare is an area best socialized. I have no health insurance at this time. I'm not trying to whine, I just want to use myself as an example. Last year I got sick, went to the hospital, and got treated. I was unable to pay for my visit, so the bill went to a collections agency(I did eventually get it paid, but my credit was harmed and I had to postpone payment of other important bills). My situation is reciprocated countless times throughout the country, and it is logical to presume that many people will never get to paying that hospital bill. Medical assistance is a fundamental need, and should be guaranteed by any modern country whether or not you have the ability to pay. When you cannot pay, your credit is ruined as if you went out and bought some product you can't afford. My friend recently went to secure a car loan, and was denied due to an old medical bill on his credit report, so even though creditors are supposed to give you a little extra leeway because it is medical in nature, this clearly does not make that much of a difference. We are harming our citizen's credit histories with these medical bills, and those who do pay their hospital bills can be crippled financially. When you make your monthly budget, you usually aren't going to have extra money set aside for medical emergencies. Health insurance is a complete ripoff, expensive, and hard to get for students (like myself) who cannot afford to work full-time. I sustain enormous pressure right now to drop out of school and go work for some crappy employer who will offer me health insurance at an affordable rate. Even when you have health insurance, you are still going to be hit with hundreds of dollars of bills if you get sick, and you're lucky just to break even with what you have already spent on the health insurance payments. This whole situation is simply a disaster that does not need to be an issue if we simply switch over to universal health care. And I don't mean the insurance kind. .. The insurance companies have been preying on our citizenry long enough and it is about time we free our citizens from the deceitful practices that these outfits engage in. I personally do not have any plans to obtain health insurance in the near future, not because I don't want to, but because I cannot afford it. If something happens to me anytime within the next four-five years then my credit will be destroyed and I will never have the chance to secure a loan in the future. The only chance I possibly have is to pray that one of these democrats gets elected and enacts universal healthcare, and does it SOON. So handsoff, I'll pose you a hypothetical. A poor person is sick, and does not have health insurance, and is definitely not going to be able to pay the bill. Do we let the person bleed to death on the sidewalk, and then clean it up and send the family the cleaning bill? Or do we let the person in to be treated, and absorb the cost. As it is now, the person will not be left outside to die (thankfully), but the person's credit history will be destroyed, and it will be that much harder for them to climb out of poverty. What good does it do you to ruin this person's credit? Your not going to suck the money out of this person no matter what your policy suggestion, so why perpetuate this problem? I hear the Republicans saying that we will "destroy the best healthcare system in the world", and without even going to statistics, how are we "saving" the healthcare system right now as it is? We still have to treat the person anyway, so it doesn't make any sense that we are saving it at all. The only possible way we can save it is to deny treatment to sick people, and let some rich people in who are better off. Sure, we can coerce these poor people to not get treated in the first place (threaten them with a crippled credit rating) but their long-term health detriments will multiply in old age and they will end up costing the system even more money when they eventually do get treated. I'm sorry, handsoff, but universal healthcare is the only just way to approach this issue. Please explain to me how your argument is not terribly immoral. Please explain to me how these european countries are so bad that we have to stoop down to their level, those dirty socialist europeans. And finally, please explain to me how I am not entitled to healthcare. Thank you!