There is plenty of money to pay for a universal healthcare system without raising taxes. American workers are already paying, they just aren’t getting their monies worth. A worker earning $40,000 a year is now an annual tax of:

Unemployment tax: $2,380

Medicare tax: $1,113

Social Security tax : $4,761

ANNUAL TAX $8,254

Paying $8,254 in annual taxes just for "personal security" is a lot of money. There is plenty of money in this pool to pay for a good heath care plan and a savings plan. Right now Congress borrows this money each year leaving behind IOU’s. There is a better way !!!!!

 OF, I'm going to resist the temptation to poke fun at your suggestion that we emulate the practices of Hamas (presumably, they don't extend healthcare benefits to the Jews injured by their rocket attacks).  Instead, I'd like to ask you some serious questions about the notion of making healthcare a fundamental human right:

1.  If healthcare is a fundamental right that should be made available (presumably without charge) to our citizens, why can't the same argument be made for food, shelter, water, maybe even transportation?  Now you might reply that we already provide many (but not all) of those things to many (but not all) people who need them through welfare, food stamps, etc.  But the quality of what we give the needy is below what most of us would be willing to accept so that brings me to my next questtion...

2.  Should everyone be entitled to "the best healthcare available" or should wealthy people be allowed to supplement their care by paying more to get "premium" doctors, faster service, etc.?  If we did that, one could assume that poorer people would die as a result of getting sub-premium care.  But denying people the opportunity to pay for improved service if they can afford it seems like an un-American infringement on our freedoms.

3.  When something is given freely, without charge, people often lose respect for it and tend to abuse it.  When 25% of our healthcare expenses are generated by people who fail to take responsible steps to maintain their health, what would be done to discourage these behaviors (e.g., smoking, over-eating, etc.)?  Since nobody would be paying for healthcare, those irresponsible people would be relieved of the burden of higher doctor bills, making them even less likely to eliminate their irresponsible behaviors than they are currently.  And that would raise healthcare costs above what we're already paying.

4.  I'm assuming that you don't envision asking doctors to work for free or drug companies to offer free meds so that brings us to the issue of paying for this "fundamental human right".  If the government will be footing the bill, they'll presumably do so with tax money.  People at all income levels already complain about their high tax burdens.  Upon whom would you place the burden for the additional taxes needed to pay for UHC?  Would it be the top 1% of wage earners who already pay for 40% of all government expenses?  That may raise some fundamental issues of fairness, given that these folks already have a substantially better track record of responsible health management but would be asked to pay a disproportionate share of the cost of your "fundamental human right".  Perhaps you subscribe to the philosophy that says, "From each according to their ability;  to each according to their need".  (That's a rather famous quote from Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the father of Soviet communism.)

I think there's a danger in advocating changes without considering the consequences of those changes.  Healthcare as a fundamental human right has a stirring popular appeal, similar to statements like, "How can America allow anyone to go hungry?  We're the richest nation in the world!"  But it's hunger that motivates people to drag themselves out of bed every morning to earn a living.  The Soviets provided an opportunity to see what extending fundamental human rights to the extreme can do and it wasn't a pretty picture.  Motivation is the engine of social progress and it dies when everything is a fundamental human right.

So help me better understand how you'd make this fundamental human right thing work.

I believe the premise, "Health care: Choice or mandate?" is misstated and distracting to the real question.  It should be, "Health Care:  A basic right of citizens provided by their government or not?"

Once that question is answered to the benefit of the citizens, the problem is essentially solved.

It seems the leading countries of the world have determined long ago that health care is a basic right or their citizens.  Even Hamas, a terrorist organization, representing the people of Palestine, deems health care a right of their Muslim brotherhood.

Only the United States with many of its representatives beholden to special interests continue to focus on the participation and profits of the health care  insurance industry rather than the health care of citizens.

 I posted two threads on this forum, describing what I believe to be AARP's 1) failure to present important data on healthcare to its members and 2) continual misuse the number of uninsureds (47 million, in case you've forgotten) in an effort to overstate the magnitude of our healthcare system's deficiencies.

Rather than continuing to ask for feedback from your members, perhaps you might first provide your members with AARP's take on the data that I presented.  Absent that, it almost looks like you're simply collecting tragic, anecdotal examples of our system's shortcomings in an effort to prompt government solutions that wouldn't otherwise be seen as justified by a more reasoned and dispassionate analysis of the facts.

Don't have an AARP.org profile? Then

to share your questions with us.