I the US had socialized medicine, do you think the government could force people to take preventative medicine?
by on May.15, 2010, under Preventative Medicine
Gardisil vaccine, birth control pills, etc. If the government ran our health care, could they force people to take preventative medicines?
May 15th, 2010 on 6:17 am
The government already does in some cases force people to take preventive medicine, e.g., chidlhood vaccines.
May 15th, 2010 on 7:09 am
No but, I’d bet that the health insurance companies are working on legislation to do just that. That way they can exclude people who might cost them more money from a policy.
May 15th, 2010 on 7:53 am
Look around … the goverment is already forcing you to take vaccines … Try getting your kids into school without shooting them full of mercury …uh …I mean vaccines
May 15th, 2010 on 8:02 am
Force? No. But it could use other methods. What is the government’s goal? To protect people, essentially. To look out for our best interests. The more we know than the more complicated that things get. Freedom isn’t about doing whatever you want whenever you want. It’s not. Freedom comes with heavy responsibility. If people aren’t willing to take it up then the government has to take a stand. We all aren’t the same. Some are more sophisticated than others.
I am 100% for prevention. I am for personal responsibility. I have the freedom to do it for myself and I will take care of myself. I recognize that I am part of a community. I’m not stubborn or anti-social.
Education – why prevention is important. The government can make a compelling case to people to get them to care about it too.
May 15th, 2010 on 8:21 am
Forcing people to take medicine would be a loss of freedom. People should have the right to decide what they do and don’t want to do. I’m not arguing against preventative medicine, but it can’t be forced.
May 15th, 2010 on 9:04 am
to find the answer, let’s ask this question: what programs does the government already run? how does it encourage people to comply with its edicts?
public education is an example of how our government uses laws to encourage participation in the program. i feel it’s also important to note that customers are free to opt out of the publicly funded school system if they desire, by attending private schools, or home schooling. but for the vast majority of americans, the public school system provides most if not all of their k-12 education. through truancy laws, compliance is mandated. standardized testing attempts to ensure a certain level of quality. but taken locally, there is a wide variation in the quality of schools depending on geography, income, and other factors. it’s likely that this would also hold true for a socialized medical program, but i expect that we would be free to choose other than our local facilities if we wished to.
the version of preventive medicine found in the education field might be equal to head starts, preschools, WIC programs providing sound nutrition, and things like that. are they required? are they desirable? do they help? often it depends on the individual, and the locality. the verdict is still out on these programs’ overall effectiveness, but on the whole i think most of us would argue that they have some benefit. the mandated preventive medicines you speak of similarly have some benefits for some of us some of the time, but again, the jury is out.
another program the federal government basically runs for us is the national highway program. it mandates compliance of its laws, in one case, by the allocation of its funds: states wouldn’t be the beneficiaries of federal highway funds unless a prescribed drinking age was set, for instance. new road projects couldn’t be approved unless certain economic and environmental standards were met.
in another case, the military draft isn’t presently in effect, but registering for it on your 18th birthday is. watching how we are encouraged by our government to act in a certain manner, it becomes clear that there are ways of making people comply with the spirit of a law, without doing it explicitly. there might not be one certain red pill or a blue one that we might be required to take to participate in a federal medical program, but there will certainly be some course of action that will be expected of all of us.
May 15th, 2010 on 10:02 am
First let me point out a glaring and primary error in your question, preventative medicine is not a substance, but a practice. Preventative medicine helps people adopt and practice healthier lifestyles leading to decreased needs for different medicines and greater economy and return on the national health care dollar. The myth of forced treatment is one of the greatest lies of American propaganda against socialized medicine. It quite simply does not exist. There are always alternatives. We already legislate certain appropriate vaccinations and health care practices without socialized medicine, and force people to pay for them and take the risks.