Laugh if you want. Insurance is not a fundamental right. If you want to argue the counter point, the stage is all yours.
We are not talking about freedom. Or the broader concept of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We are talking about insurance. Something that was create protect against the risk of losses posed by known or appreciable risks. By definition it is not something that everyone is entitled to. It has always been something that has been bought.
Also, I disagree with your equivocation of health care and health insurance. I know for a fact that they are not the same. I mentioned that my father has no health insurance, right? Yet he is able to obtain health care through a free health clinic run by a number of doctors in my town. They ask their patients to "pay what they can," even if that is "nothing." So there are options out there for folks to obtain basic medical care without insurance, and they are (or at least can be) affordable. Maybe there are not enough of those options. But they are there nonetheless.
Oh gosh a big out of context number! Did you know the Sun is 1,391,000 km wide? That seems like a big number! Surely that means it will destroy us all in its flame, since we're basing things solely on how big the numbers seem.
FYI the US debt is probably marginally larger relative to GDP than is ideal, and should absolutely be brought down in the long-term, but poses absolutely no threat to the United States in the short- or medium-terms, and is absolutely manageable. Cutting in the face of recession is a proven terrible strategy that caused the Great Depression, yet it's brought up every time because it fits ideological goals, not because it actually works. The 1990s would have benefited greatly from us paying down the debt with our surpluses, rather than huge tax cuts and throwing endless money into wars.
Dude if you do not think the fiscal deficit is one of the biggest threats to U.S. national security and sovereignty, I have nothing to say to you except "open your eyes." Eventually our creditors are going to want to get paid. And I'm betting that will happen sooner rather than later.
And where did I argue that we should be cutting in the face of recession? Precisely nowhere. What I am arguing for is fiscally responsible policy - something we haven't seen in this country for almost 40 years. Oh and protip - spending money we don't have in the face of recession is not a wise decision either.
Hahahaha, oh okay, it's just a joke post. No one could actually think the US government is or should be run like a business, despite their fundamental and enormous differences.
Here's another funny joke: Your family isn't a charity. It needs to be run like a business! If employees (children) aren't producing surplus value, they need to be fired immediately! If our family isn't making an annual profit to distribute to shareholders, our management could get fired, so downsizing is probably in order.
Both of those analogies fail to exactly the same degree.
So the government is my family? Oh happy day. We should be thrilled to have this hulking idiot big brother looking over our shoulder.
And yes, from an economic standpoint government should be run like a business or a non-profit, particularly because we live in a consumerist society. Laws and regulations should be passed because they make sense economically as well as socially. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that all social considerations should go out the window during lawmaking. Rather, I'm arguing that the benefits of a law need to be weighed against all of the costs, taking into account the fiscal position of the nation as a whole. It simply does not make sense to institute expensive social programs when our "leaders" can't even agree on a budget.
Congrats on being in an area where there's legal work to be done starting at age 13, and that you were hired to do it, and the money didn't have to be immediately spent on putting food in your family's mouths. Not everyone has that good fortune. But feel free to shit on them anyway, since surely your life circumstances are applicable to everyone else.
Who said I was doing legal work at 13? My first job was working as a house painter with my father, where I made a whopping $5 an hour. I then moved on to become a lifeguard and pool operator, where I made ~$6 an hour. Yet I still managed to save money. After high school I worked my way through college, where I earned a chemistry degree. After working as a bench chemist and contract manager for the government for a few years, I left to become a patent examiner. I then went to law school full time at night while working full time during the day.
FWIW, I have posted at other times that my parents were not exactly well off. We had a home and so were fortunate. But the memories of my parents fighting (and ultimately divorcing) over money (because they had none) are burned very clearly in my mind. And they taught me the value and power of saving money at a young age. As for starting my investments early, I have my aunt to thank for that as she was the one who introduced my to the power of compound interest. So yes, I know what it is like to be "poor." Do I have first hand experience of what it is like to be impoverished? Thankfully not and I suspect you do not either. I can appreciate what it is like, however.
In any event, I think my life history is particularly relevant to a lot of people in the U.S. Because it demonstrates that through hard work and careful planning, one can improve their situation dramatically in this country. I was not born with a silver spoon in hand. I just had parents that showed me the value of honest hard work and fiscal responsibility at a young age.
Regardless, we are not talking about taking food away from the poor and huddled masses. We are talking about health insurance. If someone is in the position of choosing to buy food or choosing to buy health insurance, which do you think they will buy? Yet Obamacare would penalize (er., tax) them for that decision. Please explain to me how that makes sense.
Because no one else has the resources, social position, taxing power, enforcement mechanism, and absolute faith and full credit of the United States government. Also, we know that businesses and non-profits don't perform these roles, because in real life history - not libertarian fantasy free market solves all problems theory land - they absolutely did not. Social Security was the reaction to generations of the vast majority of American citizens dying in poverty. A tiny minority do now. Did we just jump the gun, and the Free Market was going to fix the problem the following year?
So you are saying that there is no other alternative to those problems (poverty, etc.) than large government? Perhaps I am naive, but I have more faith in people than that. You and I would probably agree that the solutions to the problems you mentioned are in and of themselves a collective action problem. I.e., lots of people recognize the problem, but the solution requires lots of people to work together, which is hard (though not impossible) to accomplish. You would argue that government adequately addresses that problem by forcing people to work together. I would argue that it is possible with appropriate leadership to accomplish the same thing without government involvement. We would both probably agree that government is the "best" solution,
provided that the solutions were implemented in a cost effective manner. Because if they are not, all the government is doing is substituting one (potentially more serious) problem for another.