SB 107-02: Hospitals Act (Rejected)

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The issue that I would be considered a far-left winger on is healthcare, and I believe that healthcare is a human right which shouldn't be used for the intent of making profit and shouldn't be considered an industry.

Here's an amendment to the Act.

Hospitals Act

1. All hospitals, clinics, hospice facilities, and nursing homes within the boundaries and under the legal jurisdiction of the Republic of Atlasia shall become property of the Republic of Atlasia effective January 1, 20223.
    1a. The owners of said properties shall be fairly compensated under all relevant law concerning the purchase of said properties.
2. All persons currently employed in the facilities mentioned in Section 1 shall become employees of the Republic of Atlasia effective January 1, 20223.
    2a. Employees covered by this Act shall elect a works council tasked with the day to day operations of the firm in question.
3. $1,000,000,000,000 will be allocated toward the construction of new hospitals, clinics, hospice facilities, and nursing homes over a period of five years, effective January 1, 20223.
4. Upon the passage of this legislation, no privately owned hospital, clinic, hospice facility, or nursing home may be built or opened in the Republic of Atlasia or in any area subject to its jurisdiction.
5. The AtlasCare program shall end on January 1, 20223.
6. Effective January 1, 20223, private hospital companies, insurance agencies, hospice care companies, and nursing home companies shall be placed under public ownership.
    5a. The owners of said properties shall be fairly compensated for any losses incurred as a result of said purchase of facilities.

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To be clear - I would support this bill if at least one of two things happened:

a.) a broad majority of respondents to the poll I made indicate they support this bill
b.) an amendment was added to this bill allowing for SOME private hospitals to exist and for the wealthy to seek medical treatment there if they can afford it and want to do so

My office may draw up an amendment regarding the latter in a few days, while the former is ongoing.

Why should the wealthy be the ones who get better healthcare while the masses gets normal healthcare? I support a healthcare system that makes sure that all Atlasian citizens have the same quality of healthcare regardless of their income, and I would be willing to expand the amount allocated towards building new healthcare facilities and I'll introduce an amendment that'll allocate money to renovate/modernize existing healthcare facilities to improve the quality of those facilities.

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Reserved for post I'll make later today after school.

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I puked earlier today so my response to Yankee's post will be posted tonight.

I suppose I'd vote Aye, but if I am going to compromise on this bill, I plan on introducing a big amendment this weekend.

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What about this bill is “literal communism”? What do you think communism is?

Since you don't seem to know the meaning of communism, this Wikipedia page should help, particularly this quote (the bolded should be particularly helpful):

[Communism is] a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production [in this case, the healthcare industry] and the absence of social classes [everyone would be forced into the same healthcare regardless of their social class], money, and the state.

If this isn't helpful in your understanding the definition of communism, try Google.

This bill works towards none of that. And I know what communism is, thank you very much.

Actually, it does, since it intends to allow public (i.e., common) ownership of the entire healthcare industry (not exactly a means of production, but in essence the same point). It will destroy an entire industry and make it 'publicly owned' and will in fact blunten (though not actually remove) social class by forcing everyone regardless of whether they can afford better healthcare or not into the same healthcare.

Would you say that nationalization of Rail, an industry which were nationalized in the UK for 40 years destroyed rail?

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aye