The Golden Rule Has Been Downgraded

Being raised a Christian I thought I knew what the "Golden Rule" was. Both the church I attended and my parents taught me to, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And neither my parents nor the church used any qualifiers to restrict me from applying that rule to everyone I met.

As I grew older I discovered that Christians were not the only people who had this philosophy and that it could be found in almost every religion. Of course the other religions used their own words like, "That which is hateful unto you, do not impose on others" (Judaism) and "Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you" (Confucianism).

Today however I learned that there are now several golden rules. There is a Golden Rule savings rate, a Golden Rule (fiscal policy), Fermi's golden rule and Ronen's golden rule for cluster radioactivity. And what I used to call the Golden Rule is now called the ethic of reciprocity.

Now to be sure I knew the correct new name I searched online and found several places that defined the ethic of reciprocity as:

The ethic of reciprocity, more commonly known as the Golden Rule, is an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others. Reciprocity is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, though it has its critics. A key element of the golden rule is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people, not just members of his or her in-group, with consideration.

It looks like the Golden Rule has been downgraded from a religious Rule to a moral Ethic!

Now I have a few issues with this downgrade.

1. Did anyone get their God's permission?
   
   
2. Where as God's rules have to be obeyed or you suffer the consequences, ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality and often change significantly over time.
   

Of course making the Golden Rule an ethic does offer some benefits. People now control it's definition and

1. They can control who it applies to. In other words they can say the ethic only applies to people like themselves..
   
   
2. They can change it's definition to something like, do more for those who have the most in the hope they'll give you some.
   
   
3. They can decide it's no longer an moral ethic since it no longer applies to anyone.
   

I read somewhere that only those without power and those who have sympathy for them have moral ethics. And while I didn't initially believe this, the more I think about it the more I tend to agree.

Take the current arguments over health care reform that are going on right now. As I see it the arguing camps are:

1. Those who have health care and don't care about anyone else. (See number 1 above.)
   
   
2. Those who don't have health care and think things will get better if we leave our health care system alone. (See number 2 above.)
   
   
3. Those who do/don't have health care and think everyone should have it. (The current ethic of reciprocity.)
   
   
4. Those who make the decisions about health care and think keeping it a major, for-profit business is the most important issue. (See number 3 above.)
   

So I'll go back to one of my questions about making the Golden Rule an ethic -

Did anyone get their God's permission to make this downgrade?

If no one did then those who aren't following the rule are in big trouble and need to start preparing for their consequences.

Susan

Canadians talk to Americans about health care

So how bad is Canada's health care system? Watch the video to hear what the people using it think.

The right to life does not stop at birth

On July 6, 2009, Badtux the Snarky Penguin wrote a short article titled "The right to life does not stop at birth." The article is about Eric De La Cruz who died because he needed a heart transplant.

And while the article is very good and I encourage you to read it, I found Badtux's answer to 1 of the most common misunderstandings about how our country's and other countries' health care systems work to be outstanding.

So rather than re-post the article I'm posting 1 of the comments where the misconception that " government healthcare has more exclusions and limitations than private insurance" is cited as a good reason for not having a universal health care system in America. Below the comment you can read the response left by Badtux where he refutes this arguement with solid facts.

The Comment:

"I don't understand why you advocate government run healthcare when you simultanously evoke the memory of Eric De La Cruz? I hope you realize that entities like Britain's NHS and Canada's Single-payer system are known to deny procedures that private insurance carriers commonly approve. In other words, government healthcare has more exclusions and limitations than private insurance.

Additionally, in a single payer system, you cant turn anywhere else after a denial. At least in a private healthcare industry there is redundancy and overlap, which reduces the amount of people who "fall through the cracks."

My concern is that you equate government run healthcare with GUARANTEED healthcare, and this is sadly not the case. Not by a longshot. When nations collectivize food production, people get hungier, not fatter. When nations collectivize transportation, more people have to walk or bike to work. When nations collectivize housing, more people end up homeless. And when nations collectivize healthcare, more people will die of medical conditions."

Badtux's Reply:

"Eric would have gotten his heart transplant under the Canadian system. The Canadian system does *not* ration healthcare. There are waiting lists for voluntary procedures, but critical procedures are done immediately -- indeed, 50% of ALL procedures are done immediately. See BC health service website for example of the reality.

Eric would have also gotten his heart transplant under Medicare For All. Heart transplants are covered by Medicare. So once again he would have been saved by Medicare For All.

My preferred system is the French system, which is roughly Medicare For All plus Medigap. That is, Medicare covers all critical/expensive procedures, and you can buy Medigap to cover anything not covered by Medicare. This both gives you health care choices and assures that there are no more Erics. And they do this WHILE providing all the same advanced treatments as the US system, for 40% LESS MONEY!

As for the British, nobody proposes the British system for America. In the British system, all doctors are salaried employees of the state, and all hospitals are owned by the state, and private insurance is illegal. It is cheap -- 1/3rd the cost of the U.S. health care system -- but that is all that can be said for it.

As for your assertion that government-run healthcare will impoverish the people and result in more deaths, that has not happened in any of the other 19 OECD states that have adopted universal healthcare systems. Indeed, they pay much less of their GDP in healthcare costs -- see the OECD statistics. I fail to see how paying less for health care can IMPOVERISH a people. It just makes no sense.

- Badtux the "Facts are facts" Penguin"

I applaud Badtux for his great article and his even better response.

Susan

Which State Has the Lowest Health Insurance Premium?

Good question and the answer may surprise you.

According to the state affordability reports by the HealthCareforAmericaNow, Hawaii has the most affordable health insurance premiums. And in case you're wondering how they arrived at this incredible discovery, I've listed where they got their information at the bottom of this article.

But just in case you're not living in Hawaii and not planning to move there soon I've compiled the date from all 50 state reports so you can see how your state is doing. And because the charts are too small to read you can click on them to see a larger version on a new browser window.

The 1st chart shows how much of your income dollars were being spent on health insurance premiums in 2006. And while this data is a few years old the next chart shows how much health insurance premiums have gone up from 2000 to 2007 for each of the states.

Remember the good old days when health insurance costs were less than 30¢ per $1 of income?

Click on images to see a larger version.

And while the rates don't look too bad for 2006 here's a graph of US health care costs vs time (2000 - 2007).



Now you may think that these rate increases are understandable because of inflation. And as the cost of things went up so did our wages.

The 3rd graph shows how much our incomes went up from 2000 to 2007.



And while the last 2 graphs may depress you, putting them together as I have in graph 4 is worse.




And now for the really bad news.

The country is now in a state of economic crisis where we have a high unemployment rate, a high home foreclosure rate and millions of people who can't afford health insurance. And while more and more are losing their jobs or taking cuts in pay, prices, including health insurance premiums, continue to rise.

With the current state of the economy, knowing how to project health care costs is uncertain. So while these costs may not continue to rise as much as they have in the past, I haven't seen any indication that they won't. In fact, because they continued to rise this year even when the average income fell, I think the following graph that projects how much of your income dollar will go to health insurance premiums may be optimistic.




As you can see, the projected cost for health insurance is still lower in Hawaii that the other 49 states. So maybe everyone living where health insurance premiums are going to be taking 50% or more of their income (Alabama, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia) should move to a state where health insurance premiums are less.

Not ready to move and think the insurance rates should be the same for everyone? Well, I don't know how we can convince the insurance companies to have an across the state rate but if we did it would be 45.5% of your income. And that 45.5% is on top of the federal, state, county, social security and Medicare taxes!

Now the 1 thing I forgot to mention about all these health insurance charts is that all the numbers are based on employer sponsored insurance. And that's important to know since there are so many unemployed right now and non-employer sponsored insurance rates are higher.

To Your Good Health,
Susan

Reference Material Used By HealthCareforAmericaNow to compile these health insurance statistics:

1. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Health Insurance Coverage of the Total Population, states (2006-2007), U.S. (2007).” Accessed at
   http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=125&cat=3.


2. United States Department of Labor, “Economy at a Glance,” 2009. Accessed at http://www.bls.gov/eag/.


3. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The Employment Situation: May 2009,” June, 2009. Accessed at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.


4. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Kaiser Health Tracking Poll,” February, 2009.
   Accessed at http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/upload/7866.pdf.


5. Todd P. Gilmer, Richard G. Kronick, “Hard Times And Health Insurance: How Many Americans Will Be Uninsured By 2010?” Health Affairs, 2009, 28, no. 4, 573–577.


6. Families USA, “Premiums versus Paychecks,” September 2008. Accessed at
   http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/publications/reports/premiums-vs-paychecks-2008.html.


7. New America Foundation, “The State of State Health: The Cost of Failure (2007).” Accessed at http://statehealth.newamerica.net/.


8. Peter Harbage, Ben Furnas, “Health Care in Crisis,” Center for American Progress, May 4, 2009. Accessed at
   http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/working_uninsured_map.htm


9. The State Health Access Data Assistance Center, “State Profiles,” Robert Wood Johnson Program. Accessed at http://www.shadac.org/content/state-profiles.


10. Families USA, “Premiums versus Paychecks,” September 2008. Accessed at
    http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/publications/reports/premiums-vs-paychecks-2008.html.


11. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Health Insurance Coverage of the Total Population, states (2006-2007), U.S. (2007).” Accessed at
    http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=125&cat=3.


12. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Local Area Unemployment Statistics.” Accessed at
    http://www.bls.gov/web/lauhsthl.htm.


13. David Himmelstein, et al., “Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study,” The American Journal of Medicine, 2009. Accessed at
    http://pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study/Bankruptcy-2009.pdf.


14. US Bankruptcy Courts, “Table F2: Business and Nonbusiness Bankruptcy Cases Commenced, by Chapter of the Bankruptcy Code: During the Twelve Month Period Ending Dec. 31 2008.” Accessed at
    http://www.uscourts.gov/bnkrpctystats/statistics.htm.

Tie (or Tape) a Blue Ribbon On Your Trees, Mailbox, Door, etc.

Just yesterday I was mentioning to my daughter that singlepayer health care supporters needed a way to show their support for health care reform all the time. You know, like the yellow ribbons used to support our troops coming home and the breast cancer awareness pink ribbons.

Today I got an email from the Health-Justice.org that included this.

A couple of weeks ago, Rick Ford in Florida proposed that supporters of single payer start wearing a blue bandana as an armband to rallies. In Washington DC on June 25, all the single payer people that came with HealthJustice wore blue armbands. We put blue armbands on hundreds more of the people there. We used strips of blue cloth, but even better, we used blue painters' masking tape. It's just the right color, it's cheap and it goes anywhere without leaving a mark when removed.

Go to home Depot or the local hardware store today. Buy a roll of blue painters' masking tape. Tape a few turns around every tree, maibox or lamppost in your neighborhood. And when people ask, tell them it symbolizes the demand for REAL health reform. It means single payer Medicare For All. Without REAL health reform, we will all have the 'HealthCare Blues."

This is exactly what I was talking about!

So today I'm off to get my rolls of painters tape to show my support and will be giving some to those I see so they can show their support too.

Let's show everyone how may of us there are that support a REAL health care reform.

Susan