Enduring the Health Care Reform "Debate"
I've been reading and/or listening to many of the back and forth arguments in regard to the current health care debate and have come to the conclusion that not one body currently profiting from our disastrous health care system is willing to budge an inch.
What I want to know is: how much is enough? How much of an obscene profit margin can you not afford to give up for the sake of American lives? And when I say "you" I mean the American Medical Association, Big Pharma, the Health Maintenance Organizations ("you" CEOs in particular), the Medical Equipment Suppliers, Wall Street of course, and lest some of you Medical Specialists should feel left out, don't.
The fact remains: we allow people in this "great nation" to drop dead in the streets, whether insured or not (so we can stop differentiating on that score), and we do it for the sake of profit and profit alone. The problem is that we treat health care as a money-making enterprise rather than viewing it (as most civilized nations do) as a basic human right. We squabble over "social entitlements" in one breath and on the following exhale spew "right to life" over the unborn until we turn blue in the face.
The message, dear citizen, plainly stated is this: as long as you qualify as an embryo, we'll vehemently defend your right to life, but once you've graduated to full-fledged human status, we wash our hands of any responsibility for the preservation of the life we so dearly cherished just minutes prior to the hour of your birth.
Which brings me to the people we elected to represent us (us: the American people, remember us?) Yes, it probably sounds exceedingly trite and impossibly naïve of me to bring up the American public.
And I'm fairly certain that you're giggling into your designer suit lapels at the very idea that the electorate might expect to have a say in matters that affect them most deeply, particularly now that the electioneering is over and done. I have only this to say; Come off it already! Who exactly do you think you are?
You're awash in spittle decrying "socialized medicine" while benefiting from the very same socialized medicine you're getting all soggy about. You lucky few need never worry personally over this issue because as you well know: we, the people, the tax-payers, pick up the tab for your health care for life. Yes, and you're welcome.
Health care isn't a "social entitlement," it so happens that we claim to "hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Or is this notion a tad too un-American all of a sudden?
To those Democrat hold-outs in Congress: GROW A SPINE! Your constituency is demanding a public option at the very least. Get behind it or get out. The reform coalition hasn't been shy about naming names... and we've been paying attention. Just so's you know. You have the mandate. You have the numbers... let's get on with it.
Some of my favorite, juiciest bits:
- "The fact remains: we allow people in this "great nation" to drop dead in the streets, whether insured or not "
- "as long as you qualify as an embryo, we'll vehemently defend your right to life, but once you've graduated to full-fledged human status, we wash our hands of any responsibility for the preservation of the life we so dearly cherished just minutes prior to the hour of your birth."
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I don't mind that you seem to have no ability to tell a difference between a right to life and an obligation to preserve life, but are you seriously proposing a ban on dropping dead in the streets (whether insured or not)?
July 1, 2009 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I AM seriously proposing a "ban" on dropping dead in the streets: its referred to as "the public health care option" so that it will not be required of you to drop dead in the nearest alley should you choose to become ill.
And in your estimation "right to life" and "preservation of life" are somehow entirely unrelated organisms?
July 1, 2009 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"as long as you qualify as an embryo, we'll vehemently defend your right to life, but once you've graduated to full-fledged human status, we wash our hands of any responsibility for the preservation of the life we so dearly cherished just minutes prior to the hour of your birth."
You DO realize that the inverse is every bit as ridiculous, don't you?
Basic human rights are freedoms. Things you get to keep for yourself. The original statement Jefferson copied was Locke's "Life, Liberty, Property", but he was afraid that if he included property someone would notice that the Declaration of Independence was, in fact, depriving the Crown of its property. Jefferson, unlike modern politicians, was careful to hide his hypocrisy.
Health care is a product. An important product, to be sure, but a product. Like tires, or barbecued ribs. Or those little miniature cassette tapes you put in miniature cassette tape recorders. Demand is high (essentially infinite), but that doesn't change the nature of the services. Just means they're expensive, and we consume a lot of them.
Here's hoping that Congress doesn't decide to bankrupt the country creating new "fundamental rights".
July 2, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Total Bullshit. Health Insurance is a product and the country is already going bankrupt trying to pay the premiums.. Health care is a right. And the inverse argument is invalid because one isn't necessarily pro abortion just because they are pro choice.
July 2, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
July 2, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't matter who provides it, it's a product. And it isn't a basic human right, it didn't even exist for all practical purposes until the 20th century.
Nor is it a "public good" like national defense or streetlights. You have to provide it again for each person, you don't get the benefits for all just from doing it once.
Health care is a product, even if the government provides it.
July 2, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
We have philosophical differences on this issue. Nonetheless, as to controlling costs of 'products' in this sector of the economy, results will be realized by organizing the healthcare system under one umbrella. That can take the form of a single payer system, or a heavily regulated, monitored and enforced multi-payer system. The former will entail fewer administrative costs IMO.
July 2, 2009 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may be right. But you can't expect administrative costs to cover the cost of providing top notch care for the entire population. You'd have to pay doctors more money than they're paid now to attract more people to the profession. Nurses too. Medical care will get more expensive, not less, as you try to scale it up, unless you simultaneously reduce care quality and expectations.
There may be advantages in administrative costs, but there's no free lunch hidden in them, right?
July 3, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
El Presidente:
Fine, let's take your point of view and scewer it.
It's all well and good to view healthcare as a "product," right up until the "product" denies live-saving medical care to your child... or your parent... or you. The issue is that the "product" is, by design, defective. If it worked well, nobody would complain and there'd be no debate.
For one, you pay out the nose for the "product" but the "product" never arrives in the mail. So essentially you're paying for nothing.
Now, if use of the defective product results in your death, or the death of a loved one, it's not a good product and needs to be done away with.
If the product were, say, a badly-designed refridgerator that caught on fire and subsequently burnt down your house and your entire family with it, you wouldn't be pleased with the product and just suck it up, would you?
Upon hearing of your tragedy, others wouldn't want the product either. They'd begin to look around for a better product - one they could reasonably hope to afford. Unlike a refridgerator, however, health care is not a product that one can do without when one is in need of it.
Problem is: there are only so many appliance stores in town, and they're all selling the same defective product. Comprende?
Mull it over for awhile. Eventually the lights will come on.
July 3, 2009 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
You aren't seeing my point. In fact, you're making exactly the mistake I was trying to correct: Seeing health care as a system rather than a product and service.
So let's not talk about the system for a minute, let's talk about the doctor's office. You go there, you get checked out, they run some tests, they charge your insurer (if you have one) and perhaps you pay some money to share the load.
You have received a service. The doctor did a great job.
Now let's take the same story and add a wrinkle. You go to the doctor's office, and they check you out, and they find a malfunctioning heart valve. You can't afford the surgery, even with your insurance. You die.
You have received a service (the same one). The doctor did a great job (the same one). You just can't afford to buy something (open heart surgery).
The difference is not a service difference, it's an economic one. Society doesn't owe you open heart surgery. Heck, you're lucky society even developed open heart surgery so that you can aspire to get it.
And more to the point, everybody wants open heart surgery if they live long enough. Our bodies wear out. Eventually, we're going to run out of money to keep them going (because we rarely run out of ideas. And at that point someone has to decide who lives and who dies, and I'd just as soon it wasn't Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.
July 3, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: "Doesn't matter who provides it, it's a product. And it isn't a basic human right, it didn't even exist for all practical purposes until the 20th century."
Actually, health care did exist prior to the 20th century, just not in the present form. Once upon a time, doctors or healers or mediceine men treated patients for more altruistic reasons though they WERE paid in some form or other. If the king saw the doctor, he paid for his services in coin. If a peasant received care from the doctor, he paid the doctor with whatever he had: a chicken, a pie, a bag of potatoes - each according to his means. The differnce between then and now is that the healers of old didn't ask for the peasant's house, his fields, his cart, and his ox as payment and threaten to let him die if he didn't hand it over. Goes all the way back to the beginning of human history.
July 3, 2009 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, that's a gross oversimplification. It misses, among other things, that until the 20th century healers often did more harm than good.
It also misses that doctors today are often quite altruistic. Take an E.R. doctor, for instance. Half their patients don't pay a dime (which is why the E.R. is so expensive for the rest of us).
Advances in technology have made delivering medical care an expensive and growing expense. This is a good thing; medical care is actually useful now. We can save more lives and do more things every day. But it also means that the highly trained, hard working staff have to be paid more, and the machines have to be bought and serviced, the chemicals synthesized, etc.
As you point out, this is life and death. Hence, demand is infinite. If you give it away, people will always demand more of it. I do not defend the current system; but it's better than bankrupting our children.
July 3, 2009 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"You have received a service (the same one). The doctor did a great job (the same one). You just can't afford to buy something (open heart surgery)."
Oh contrare. I get your point, you're not getting mine. If you pay for health insurance and heart surgery is covered, but the insurance company suddenly denies the operation, then you are NOT receiving the service for which you have paid through years of premiums and nobody has "done a good job."
I'm sure you'd be ever so happy about this arrangement if the dying patient were you.
You're talking in circles and appear to be willfully "misunderstanding"... right up until the day you get screwed by our disaster of a health care system. Or do you happen to be a member of Congress?
Good luck.
July 6, 2009 6:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please excuse the typos on that last reply... its late/early and am tired from arguing for the time being. Catch ya tomorrow...
July 3, 2009 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink