You Get What You Pay For
With regard to the ongoing SCHIP debate, I think this article at Booman Tribune does the best job of summarizing the issue:
It’s the wrong question. We should not have insurance at all. We should have coverage. And when I say that, I mean all of us should have health coverage…even Bill Gates…even Brittney Spears. It should be basic. We don’t want people clogging the health system over headcolds and stubbed toes. And if people want better health coverage…insurance, if you will, then they can buy it.
No citizen of this country should lack health coverage. Canadians understand this. And it really isn’t that hard to understand. But the right-wing Republicans think people’s health care should be tied to their success. They’re currently pretending that they support health care for poor people, but only for really poor people. Anyone that’s not really poor should just work harder so that they can afford health care. But they actually feel that anyone that cannot afford health care has something wrong with them, like: sloth, stupidity, or the worst of all moral failings, a preexisting condition.
George Lakoff discusses the boldfaced text in depth in his book ,a href=”http://www.chelseagreen.com/2004/items/elephant”>Don’t Think of an Elephant: it’s the model of the authoritarian parent in which hard work is rewarded with success, and anything less than success is an indicator of moral failings. It’s pretty much the foundation that the modern GOP is built on.
The argument actually shouldn’t be about “who deserves health insurance” as crazy Malkin (who’s now attacking two-year old SCHIP recipients) wants to think.
The argument boils down to “what are we as a society willing to pay for”, and its lost in distracting arguments about the government telling people what to do.
Fact: when “the government” spends “your taxes”, what’s really going on is WE are choosing how the money will be spent. We do this indirectly by electing representatives to do the business of apportioning and arguing in favor of this policy or the other.
Fact: the representatives we choose to send to Congress determines how the money will be spent (or should: I’m deliberately not factoring the power of corporations and lobbyists).
When we Americans are ready to pay for health coverage, maybe we’ll get it. But these days it seems we want to spend our money on a useless and failing war, to the detriment of us all.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I HATE HATE HATE the idea that tax payment is some sort of a la carte menu and that we are not paying for living in a homogenous society, that we can decide our tax money should not be used for stuff that doesn’t directly benefit US.
For example, I do not mind paying for a fully functional fire department despite the fact that I’ve never had to use one. It’s society, it’s what society is for.
But if I get to knock one item off the list, can it be the president’s security detail? Given what the dude makes and his unwillingness to spend down assets, or submit to means testing, I am not sure he is deserving of the social welfare we give him. Plus, it’s security, not like it’s food or water. Can’t he just protect himself like almost every other man in this country is expected to do?
October 17th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
for that matter ellen, I’d be a lot more sympathetic to these congressmen and senators bleating about the horror of socialized medicine if they were paying their own way liek the rest of us.
But no: US taxpayers pay for Congress’s healthcare, and once their vested in the program (5 years) it extends into retirement, I believe for the rest of their lives.
So when you see someone like Mitch McConnell decrying socialized medicine, remember that he benefits from the same thing he denies the rest of us.