I think your premise is essentially correct, even though I disagree with your evaluation of the likely outcome of HCR (no surprise there I'm sure!)
I also think that "you're a critic of reform, therefore you don't care about people" can be a counterproductive argument for us liberals to make, because it takes an operational discussion and ratchets it up to a moral knifefight. If our goal is to convince people -- or to evaluate the quality of their ideas in good faith -- there's no sense getting their backs up right out of the gate.
On the other hand, certain policy issues should be moral knifefights, and no one should shy away from those. Desegregation and universal suffrage are two from American history that I can think of offhand.
That implies an interesting question: is health care an economic issue or a moral issue? Where (and more importantly, how) should we make that distinction in political thought?
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Critics of Health Care Reform do Care About People
- October 16, 2009 20:56:41
- Read all 23 comments
- +5 raves
The debate about Health Care involves an emotional issue of caring for others.
Supporters of a government/public-option insist that we need to care about everyone, not just the wealthy who can afford medical coverage and insurance. They paint critics of reform as non-caring, pro-business, heartless people who don't care about the poor or "47 million without insurance."
That argument does a great disservice to the debate. The majority of people on both sides of the debate care about others. Only the fringe -- a fringe on both sides -- doesn't care about other people as much as they should.
Many opposed to the government option cite costs - that it will raise taxes and cost a lot to provide medical care to more people. Supporters argue that we need to spend the money because we care -- and those who don't want to spend the money don't care.
I disagree with that logic, and to illustrate my point, consider this...
Seat belts save lives. The government requires seat belts on all cars and trucks. Many state governments require wearing seat belts. And we "can't put a price on the life of a child." So should government pay to install seat belts on all public school buses?
26,000,000 schoolchildren take the bus every day. So why not spend $1,500 - $2,000 seat belt cost per bus? If someone doesn't want government to spend the money, do they not care about the 26 million children -- "our future"?
No. It costs too much.
Sadly, an average of seven to nine children will die in bus crashes in an average year.
However, that statistic represents an incredible safety record considering the 4 billion miles of school bus travel each year. And, seat belts may not have saved each of those precious lives.
It would cost $37,500,000 to $60,000,000 annually to install seat belts in the 25,000 to 30,000 buses produced each year. This does not include the cost of retrofitting existing buses. The money would save far more lives if spent on hospitals, medical research, safer highways, etc...
I encourage eveyrone to believe that critics of a government plan do care about people and health care. In fact, I care so much about other people and quality of care that I don't want a government option because it will reduce quality and coverage.
Supporters of a government/public-option insist that we need to care about everyone, not just the wealthy who can afford medical coverage and insurance. They paint critics of reform as non-caring, pro-business, heartless people who don't care about the poor or "47 million without insurance."
That argument does a great disservice to the debate. The majority of people on both sides of the debate care about others. Only the fringe -- a fringe on both sides -- doesn't care about other people as much as they should.
Many opposed to the government option cite costs - that it will raise taxes and cost a lot to provide medical care to more people. Supporters argue that we need to spend the money because we care -- and those who don't want to spend the money don't care.
I disagree with that logic, and to illustrate my point, consider this...
Seat belts save lives. The government requires seat belts on all cars and trucks. Many state governments require wearing seat belts. And we "can't put a price on the life of a child." So should government pay to install seat belts on all public school buses?
26,000,000 schoolchildren take the bus every day. So why not spend $1,500 - $2,000 seat belt cost per bus? If someone doesn't want government to spend the money, do they not care about the 26 million children -- "our future"?
No. It costs too much.
Sadly, an average of seven to nine children will die in bus crashes in an average year.
However, that statistic represents an incredible safety record considering the 4 billion miles of school bus travel each year. And, seat belts may not have saved each of those precious lives.
It would cost $37,500,000 to $60,000,000 annually to install seat belts in the 25,000 to 30,000 buses produced each year. This does not include the cost of retrofitting existing buses. The money would save far more lives if spent on hospitals, medical research, safer highways, etc...
I encourage eveyrone to believe that critics of a government plan do care about people and health care. In fact, I care so much about other people and quality of care that I don't want a government option because it will reduce quality and coverage.
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January 24, 2007 04:53:33
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Let's have some common sense, can anyone really afford a tax rate in the 45-60% range? And only to reduce quality of care, watch docs walk away and still have 15 million people not covered. Face facts this shouldn't be about controlling 1/6th of the GDP, it should be about Health Care.
Why raise the price of healthcare and raise taxes when there will still be 30 million people without insurance. With the fact that people will go to jail under Pelosicare if they don't have insurance, does it mean that the 30 million that aren't going to be covered will go to jail as well.
This bill from Pelosi is too much beauracy, to much paperwork and too high for Americans to pay for.
A simple plan would be a better plan for America, but Democrats are only simple when it comes to their minds.
I also think that "you're a critic of reform, therefore you don't care about people" can be a counterproductive argument for us liberals to make, because it takes an operational discussion and ratchets it up to a moral knifefight. If our goal is to convince people -- or to evaluate the quality of their ideas in good faith -- there's no sense getting their backs up right out of the gate.
On the other hand, certain policy issues should be moral knifefights, and no one should shy away from those. Desegregation and universal suffrage are two from American history that I can think of offhand.
That implies an interesting question: is health care an economic issue or a moral issue? Where (and more importantly, how) should we make that distinction in political thought?
I like your question -- go ask it!
http://www.sodahead.com/quest...
As free people -- as Americans -- we love the principle of democratic governance: one person, one vote. But a _livable_ free society requires certain things to be outside the realm of majority rule. One of the reasons our founding documents are so precious is that they affirm that on some issues, the majority does _not_ get a vote.
For example, our Constitution prevents us from either enshrining or forbidding a particular religious belief even if the majority wills it. I also mentioned desegregation and universal suffrage in my previous reply; you could argue that the majority of voters opposed these reforms at the time they were enacted. I'm sure you'd agree that the anti-establishment clause, the outlawing of racial segregation, and the enfranchisement of women have all enlarged and improved -- not degraded -- American democracy.
Likewise, as citizens of a free market society we love private enterprise -- but a practical society in which free markets can operate requires certain things to be outside the sphere of private enterprise. We can agree that one of these things is a robust government with a monopoly on the use of violence -- for obvious reasons.
But we also need a neutral judicial system, a network of civil court...
As free people -- as Americans -- we love the principle of democratic governance: one person, one vote. But a _livable_ free society requires certain things to be outside the realm of majority rule. One of the reasons our founding documents are so precious is that they affirm that on some issues, the majority does _not_ get a vote.
For example, our Constitution prevents us from either enshrining or forbidding a particular religious belief even if the majority wills it. I also mentioned desegregation and universal suffrage in my previous reply; you could argue that the majority of voters opposed these reforms at the time they were enacted. I'm sure you'd agree that the anti-establishment clause, the outlawing of racial segregation, and the enfranchisement of women have all enlarged and improved -- not degraded -- American democracy.
Likewise, as citizens of a free market society we love private enterprise -- but a practical society in which free markets can operate requires certain things to be outside the sphere of private enterprise. We can agree that one of these things is a robust government with a monopoly on the use of violence -- for obvious reasons.
But we also need a neutral judicial system, a network of civil courts, and an army of bureaucrats to enforce property law and and arbitrate business disputes. It should be self-evident to any good capitalist (I hope I'm one!) why that function can't be trusted to private enterprise or the free market.
At the local level we need police and fire departments, which, in a safe and functional society, should not operate in what we would think of as a profitable way.
If you manufacture computers, things are going well if your workers are always busy and your factories are operating near their maximum capacity.
By contrast, firefighters should be sitting around most days; that means your city isn't burning down around your ears! If all your police officers are working flat-out all the time, you have a serious crime problem bordering on a dissolution of the social order.
My argument is that a health care system is the same sort of beast: the healthier your society, the less such a system needs to be employed and therefore the less profitable it is. Not to mention that, in an age of credible bioterrorism threats, a robust public health care system more than a network of facilities and care providers; it's a national defense asset. Looked at in that light, a future in which healthcare providers are mostly private companies and there is one government-sponsored player in the market is perfectly compatible with practical (as opposed to ideological) free market capitalism.
Sorry for the long-winded answer!
No conservative has offered an argument against government-run first-responders, who were (deservedly) universally praised for their work on 9/11.
On that same day, by the way, the "government-run" FAA pulled off a full nationwide ground stop -- all planes in the air grounded, some thousands of aircraft -- without mishap by 6pm. Has the government ruined the world's largest, most complex, and safest air traffic system? Even the question is absurd.
Conservatives also don't seem to have problems with "socialized" weapons systems, the government-employed special operators who work for the Navy Seals or Marine Force Recon or Special Forces, the government-run postal system that is the envy of the developed world, or the government-run interstate highway system that feeds the leviathan of American domestic commerce.
Conservative s...
No conservative has offered an argument against government-run first-responders, who were (deservedly) universally praised for their work on 9/11.
On that same day, by the way, the "government-run" FAA pulled off a full nationwide ground stop -- all planes in the air grounded, some thousands of aircraft -- without mishap by 6pm. Has the government ruined the world's largest, most complex, and safest air traffic system? Even the question is absurd.
Conservatives also don't seem to have problems with "socialized" weapons systems, the government-employed special operators who work for the Navy Seals or Marine Force Recon or Special Forces, the government-run postal system that is the envy of the developed world, or the government-run interstate highway system that feeds the leviathan of American domestic commerce.
Conservative skepticism about the capabilities of government, though often well-earned, is selective at best. If you think something's wrong with a government health care option, you guys need to stop making assertions and start making arguments.
The government did well in the first responders at NYC. They bravely rushed up the stairs and helped many survive.
Private first responders would work, but our government basically discourages it. We have private ambulances and security guards, but both have sever limitations because of legislation. Private security can't carry weapons or have full law enforcement powers, like using sirens to move traffic out of the way. But, as a former resident of Los Angeles City, I would prefer private response over LAPD because of response time. Bel Air, part of LA City and LAPD, has a private security force.
The government doesn't make weapons systems -- they buy them from private enterprises, like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc..
I'd rather have private roads with tolls than our public freeway system in California. Traffic will outpace construction and controls and we'll have gridlock in a few years. The government does a horrible job of building and managing the freeways. We do have private toll roads, and they save a lot of time bypassing traffic.
It should be self-evident to anyone (but especially to a conservative) why privately-owned law enforcement is a terminally bad idea in a democratic republic.
The government doesn't make weapons systems -- they buy them from private enterprises, like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc...
True. The government just writes the specification and the contractors set about building the system. If conservatives are OK with that model, then they need to inform their talk-radio brethren, many of whom started braying about how they'd never buy a "socialist" American car after Obama bailed out the auto industry! To say nothing of the howls of rage that erupt when anyone dares to suggest that maybe the government should ask for higher mileage standards.
To be fair, I'm not even saying that it's always a good idea for government to lean on industry in such a way. It's not lost on me -- or other liberals who are paying attention -- that by ...
It should be self-evident to anyone (but especially to a conservative) why privately-owned law enforcement is a terminally bad idea in a democratic republic.
True. The government just writes the specification and the contractors set about building the system. If conservatives are OK with that model, then they need to inform their talk-radio brethren, many of whom started braying about how they'd never buy a "socialist" American car after Obama bailed out the auto industry! To say nothing of the howls of rage that erupt when anyone dares to suggest that maybe the government should ask for higher mileage standards.
To be fair, I'm not even saying that it's always a good idea for government to lean on industry in such a way. It's not lost on me -- or other liberals who are paying attention -- that by the end of the Cold War, the Western democracies of the US and NATO had much cleaner air and water, on average, than the command economies of the Warsaw Pact. That says a lot about the importance of free markets, but it says just as much about the importance of government's ability to broadcast appropriate price signals within a free-market context.
What I'm really arguing against is free-market fundamentalism. Vibrant markets require infrastructure and rulesets, and in many cases the government is in the best position to create and maintain them. I'm on board with healthy skepticism WRT government (or any large institution). Unthinking cynicism and/or outright hysteria, not so much.
Those who oppose ANY health care reform have made very clear that they do not care in the least about the American people. All they care about, no matter what the cost, is making the President fail. They want to create a "Waterloo" and they have made clear that the 40,000 people a year who die because of the failure of our health care system are meaningless to them as long as Barack Obama cannot be seen as helping anyone. They have turned thousands, if not millions, of lives into a political game, and they have proven over and over again that nothing is more important than adherence to an extremist philosophy that rejects all considerations other than the dominance of their own political party.
Do you think I don't care about Americans?
I care about people and don't want the health care proposed by President Obama. I don't think we (as a nation) can afford it and it will worsen care.
Supporters have made it a political game because they discount all arguments against the bad idea of public option believing that people care more about "Waterloo" than helping each other.
I suggest people supporting the bill either don't care about quality health care for everyone and want to win a political game or they believe that government can solve problems only under Democratic leadership (and otherwise complain the government sucks when someone like President GW Bush holds office).
There is no suggestion whatsoever, from me or anyone else, that "only under Democratic leadership" can anything be solved. The RESULTS of the bush administration's policies speak for themselves. Tell me, in eight years did the...
There is no suggestion whatsoever, from me or anyone else, that "only under Democratic leadership" can anything be solved. The RESULTS of the bush administration's policies speak for themselves. Tell me, in eight years did the bush administration do ANYTHING to improve health care in this nation? A prescription drug plan that most seniors needed a lawyer just to understand? A plan that poured billions into the pockets of Big Pharma while providing no additional coverage for 99% of Americans? The American people would WELCOME rational and coherent leadership from the Republicans, if only they would show some instead of basing their entire political strategy on "making Obama fail."
Do you agree with me on that?
Comparing health care coverage to school bus seat belts is like comparing apples to oranges.
School bus safety is perhaps the most regulated 'industry' in America. And rightfully so. School bus drivers must have a perfect driving record, school buses must have warning lights, drivers must stop for stopped school buses--etc. etc. And personally, I think they should all have seat belts, with mandatory compliance. Just like every other vehicle on the road. The privilege to travel upon Our roads has been determined to be just that--a juristic benefit--and not a right. The government created roads, regulates them, and thus can dictate to us what we can do upon them.
Health care on the other hand is an involuntary option in Our country. Here is an example:
No one forces you to go to the hospital. If your kitchen explodes and you are burned in the explosion, EMS shows up, scrapes you up off the floor, and transports you to the hospital.
You are treated whether you want to be or not. Should you refuse, the hospital will obtain a court order declaring you mentally ill and still treat you.
Then, after they have treated you, the bills start rolling in.
In my opinion, if the government takes control of an aspect of your life, they have assumed responsibi...
Comparing health care coverage to school bus seat belts is like comparing apples to oranges.
School bus safety is perhaps the most regulated 'industry' in America. And rightfully so. School bus drivers must have a perfect driving record, school buses must have warning lights, drivers must stop for stopped school buses--etc. etc. And personally, I think they should all have seat belts, with mandatory compliance. Just like every other vehicle on the road. The privilege to travel upon Our roads has been determined to be just that--a juristic benefit--and not a right. The government created roads, regulates them, and thus can dictate to us what we can do upon them.
Health care on the other hand is an involuntary option in Our country. Here is an example:
No one forces you to go to the hospital. If your kitchen explodes and you are burned in the explosion, EMS shows up, scrapes you up off the floor, and transports you to the hospital.
You are treated whether you want to be or not. Should you refuse, the hospital will obtain a court order declaring you mentally ill and still treat you.
Then, after they have treated you, the bills start rolling in.
In my opinion, if the government takes control of an aspect of your life, they have assumed responsibility for that aspect. Including the cost. Government in Our nation has been out of control for decades, and I blame both parties, and the American People who put those parties into power. We the People elected them to do this to us. We are Our greatest enemy. And then we cry about it when 'Our' Party is out of power. Here is another example.
Our government has decided that felons should not be allowed to possess firearms in any respect. When the thought came up to ban felons, there were less than 20 felonies on the books, and all of them were related to violent crimes such as murder, rape and armed robbery, and premised upon common law. Today, there are hundreds if not thousands of alleged 'felonies' on the books. Yet, what is a felony? Is it when a man secretly tape records a telephone conversation on his home telephone? (felony--federal law, you lose your rights). Is it when someone takes shellfish at night? (felony--you lose your gun rights).
Yet, the government then refuses to provide protection to the Americans who they have disarmed. Case example: A man is convicted of a non violent felony and forfeits his firearms rights as a result. Two months later, an intruder invades his home. The intruder has a gun, takes the man hostage, an ravages the mans family. The man can do nothing as he was disarmed by the government. Did not the government which disarmed this man have an obligation to then protect him? Case in point: the Virginia Tech Massacre. The government disarmed every student in that school through legislation. How many were killed because the government failed to protect them after having disarming them?
The same is true with health care in America. The government regulates health care just as they regulate every thing else. Accordingly, they have assumed liability in my opinion. To regulate one part of an industry without regulating ALL of the industry (yes, health insurance is part of the industry) is a disservice to the American People. Most health insurance companies enjoy what is nothing less than a monopoly in the states in which they sell policies. This is an anti-trust violation. And they earn billions in the process, use those funds to influence Our supposed 'representatives' and we all suffer as a result.
And THAT is my opinion.