Don't let them confuse you. Health doesn't pick sides. Disease isn't going to go hide in the same place Conservatives think Gays will eventually disappear to.
This is a really good diary that I wrote. I reread it so many times, and each time, I laughed at a different part. I want to HUG this diary.
On Monday we were treated to the spectacle of Andrew Breitbart accusing the MSM of being radically liberal. In the Washington Post. And he expressed some confusing logic to support the idea that the Holocaust Museum shooter was more liberal than conservative. Other people have addressed his rant more adequately.
There's also a lot of talk on both sides of the much-vaunted "culture divide" about individualism versus corporate thinking (and by "Corporate", I don't mean "Big Crayola Says COLOR INSIDE THE FUCKING LINES, CHILDREN").
Yeah, conservatives focus on individual freedom -- supposedly. 'Cept for during times of threat or disaster, during which individual freedoms become somewhat bothersome. During those times, liberty is something individuals must sacrifice for the sake of the team -- even if the entire concept of liberty could ONLY be threatened by conflict. And yeah, sure, liberals tend to keep a sharp eye on 'the greatest good for the greatest number'; except in Congress, where they have always shown a perfect talent for MicroFocus.
But aren't we sick of all these generalities? I've been on the left since 1789, and I can't really find a good reason to avoid punching David Broder in his succulent shorts. Fuck it. Never mind. There ARE clear differences between right and left. How anyone could be confused regarding the distinction, as nebulous as it may be, is beyond me. I know that if I want to make a joke about farm laborers, I would get a more positive response at a rodeo than in the cafeteria at Brown. [Why does Howard Dean have to sit so fucking ramrod straight? Relax the shoulders, pal. I love you.] So, when a man storms into the Holocaust museum and starts shooting, of course it's going to be politicized. The shooter was a decidedly political animal. But each time an angry white man with a gun shoots someone with whom he disagrees, liberals gloat a little too smarmily and conservatives feign shock. The spectacle is fucking horrid. The security guard did not exit this earth muttering, "I hope this is confusing."
Anti-semitism is certainly not an issue that belongs solely to right or left. It's been a European issue for centuries, and there is no way to parentheticize the historic Asian violence associated with anti-Semitism. Guns, however, are nearly exclusively prized by the right. Interpreting violence as courage is also a problem the Left doesn't seem to struggle with. When "tolerance" is a controversial topic at your caucus, you are probably not at a Democratic gathering.
All of these cultural underliers should serve to simplify, rather than complicate, the debate about healthcare. But somehow, universal health care has become "socialist", and thus liberal. Which means that the current system is, by default, worthy of conservative defense or preservation (tweaking is preservation, whether you want to call it so or not).
But for sake of exercise, let us dream the perfect conservative healthcare system:
A man works hard (probably cobbling shoes beside his father on a rugged workbench) to save for university. Desipite his dyslexia, he struggles to the top of his class and earns his MD. He returns to his hometown, determined to give back to the Town that reared him. He hangs a shingle above a modest door. A customer comes in, complaining, and leaves with goods or services to alleviate said complaint -- but not without paying a fee for what was tendered.
Meanwhile, another young man works hard (probably cobbling shoes beside his father on a rugged workbench) to save for university. Desipite his dysplasia, he struggles to the top of his class and earns his MD. He returns to his hometown, determined to give back to the Town that reared him. He hangs a shingle above a modest door. A customer comes in, complaining, and leaves with goods or services to alleviate said complaint -- but not without paying a fee for what was tendered. But THIS TIME, the fee is different: This second son-of-a-cobbler must think not only of the Patient/Customer, but also of the price set by the First son-of-a-cobbler.
And that, my friends, is how the market manages health costs. Of course, those who fantasize about this system forget that it was abandoned for two reasons: 1) Doctors often went unpaid and had no system to assist them in absorbing cost; and 2) as medical science increased the range of procedures and treatments, healthcare became more expensive.
The group insurance concept was developed as a not-for-profit tool to soften the rocketing costs, as Timothy Noah wrote in Slate in 2007:
...the administrator of Baylor Hospital in Dallas created a system that caught on elsewhere and eventually evolved into Blue Cross. The Blues were essentially nonprofit health insurers who served local community organizations like the Elks. In exchange for a tax break, Blue Cross organizations kept premiums reasonably low. The success of the Blues persuaded commercial insurers, who initially considered medicine an unpromising market, to enter the field. Private insurers accelerated these efforts in the 1940s when businesses, seeking ways to get around wartime wage controls, began to compete for labor by offering health insurance. If government regulators had thought to freeze fringe benefits along with wages, we might have avoided making the workplace primarily responsible for supplying health insurance...
So, let's recap: In order to address market inequity, communal arrangements were formed. Investors essentially "purchased" the communal arrangements, and exploited them for profit. The entire insurance industry is BASED on the premise that THE MARKET DOES NOT CONDUCT ITSELF ADVANTAGEOUSLY WHEN IT COMES TO HEALTHCARE (of course, those of you who read know that any market-based approach eventually compells the old and sick to subsidize the unused benefits of the yooung and invincible). Without market imbalance, the industry would simply not exist. It's privatized communalism.
In the latter part of the century, as the number of for-profit insurers rose to over 65% of the market-share, it became inevitable that insurance would become nothing more than an additional layer of expense atop the already-unreasonable cost of treatment and medicine. Insurance became another market-driven item.
To pretend that the private insurance complex is some sort of paean to Capitalism is ignorant. The private insurance complex is a cynical admission of the market's failure in mass health. It's quite the same as if Halliburton was to be allowed to purchase Food Stamp collectives, and manage the food plans of its "customers". The framework is not authentically capitalist, but is an artificial and unconscionable construct of exploitation.
So, we are not left with the "American Gordian Knot of Healthcare" -- as was insinuated on NPR this morning. Americans gave up on capitalized healthcare in the 1920's, at Baylor (my sister graduated from MH Baylor, and is one of the leading experts on community health care/affordable healthcare in the State of Texas -- SHOUT OUT TO THAT HOMEY).
To accept a public health option would not diminish a conservative's credentials in the least. It would simply be an acknowledgment of both the Past and the Inevitable.
In fact, a public option for health insurance doesn't fit squarely into a leftist ideology, either. The modern health crisis is simply not predicted by the central tenets of either the conservative or liberal viewpoint. Those viewpoints are limited to issues of prosperity: where they intersect (in Western thought) is on issues of democracy. Left and Right should be able to agree that democracy is paramount to prosperity.
Given the utter necessity of the preservation of democracy, isn't it natural that the governed should seek the preservation of their health? Isn't the populace impelled to act and vote in its own perceived interest? And won't the majority always seek to achieve the greatest benefit for the least loss of resource? Whether or not 'health' is a 'basic right' is an irrelevant question. In a democracy, if the voters determine that health costs should be mitigated by government intervention, the decision is neither socialist nor capitalist -- but democratic.