Guiliani and the right wing thinktank speak on health care

I have been talking about Google's Gapminder as a way to test the Socialized medicine being better theory at: http://freedemocrat.blogspot.com/

The United Nations Data here:
http://bp2.blogger.com/[…]/healthlifechart3.jpg
Tells the story. All the countries with better stats than the US are the usual suspects as one ticks off the countries with European Socialism that was the New Deal Democrats legacy to the World. It was they who reworked Europe's recovery and made that part of it. It is too bad they were not more successful in the US.

"Government cannot take care of you, you must take care of yourself."

This is classic conservative framing, we should all be strong enough to take care of ourselves, regardless of the misfortunes that befall us, just tuck it up and cope with it!
To point out the absurdity of their position, ask them if the government should take care of the blind?
In reality, whenever anyone gets sick, they must rely on others to care for them, but tough guys don't like to admit that. Its interesting you never hear these arguments from people with chronic diseases, or whose savings or ability to make a living has been wiped out by a medical condition.

The first thing to do is use the word "society" instead of "goverment" in arguments like this. The government is an outside agency interfering with your life and limiting your freedom. Society is the voluntary contract we all have with one another. So, the question becomes should society take care of its weaker members?

To reframe it, ask them "Who is the government?" In a democracy, it is us;

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There are things we as a society have decided we must do. As with justice, domestic tranquility, and common defense, the task of maintaining the general welfare is too large to be undertaken entirely by individuals, so the founders realized this too should be a society responsibility. Families can and do take care of their sick members, but a major medical crisis can quickly bankrupt all but the wealthiest individuals, so the only entity big enough to fund health care is the government.