Is there really a philosophocal reason why wingnuts oppose universal health care? Or do they just figure that passing it will make Democrats popular or something?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Of course there is a philisophical reason. If you are anointed by God, you will be blessed enough to have access to health care. If you don’t have access to it and you get sick, it is God’s will. God loves you so much that you get to suffer and suffer. This will make you a better person or dead. If the latter, you can go to heaven where God will love, love, love you — this time without the suffering.
they are philosophically opposed to any government program that doesn’t involve killing people or giving breaks to big corporate interests.
universal health care has the disadvantage of not falling into either of those exceptions. indeed, you can argue that it is directly counter to both.
The “philosophical” reason that is most often put forward by the right is that free markets are better at everything, so we should have a market-based healthcare system. That logic, of course, leaves aside the fact that markets depend on market participants being able to respond to price signals. Last time I checked, none of the following really responded well to price signals: fetuses, infants, small children, older children, parents with sick children, genes, and the passage of time. After a condition does become apparent, however, price signals are sent (nobody wants to die or watch their child die) so a effort is spent on curing things, even ones that would be cheaper to prevent (obesity being the most prominent these days).
Like other “philosophical” ideas put forth by the right, market-based healthcare is just a smokescreen for preserving the existing social hierarchy. Effective, affordable national healthcare might help the child of a poor parent grow up to be wealthier than a child of a rich parent, or lessen the power of a rich employer over a poor employee. So conservatives will never be for a national healthcare system, even though they may at different times float different reasons for opposing it.
i have this sneaky suspicion they are against it because it will empower women….women who are trapped in marriages they hate could leave if they didnt depend on their husbands for healthcare…less people would get married (straight people that is) and they would instead live in sin….and have babies out of wedlock…..this would all lead to less and less available women willing to submit to and obey their husbands.
pseudochristians cant have that.
” when god created republicans he gave up on everything else..” frank zappa
lTMF’sA
Universal health care, OK by who, the government?
No solution there.
The market will handle the problem. Ya right
http://www.nowpublic.com/ny_hospitals_file_rico_lawsuits_against_united_health_group_its_united_heal
thcare_and_its_oxford_subsidiaries
But by the proliferation in just my personal suburban space hospitals,pharmacies,nursing homes, assisted living condos it is surely a for profit business.
We must be a really sick nation.
I think part of their antipathy ties in to the whole “welfare queen” bullshit that Reagan was so successful in scaring people with. It’s the knee-jerk reaction to the whole concept (real or imagined) of someone ELSE getting something for nothing, at their expense.
They actually seem to believe that if going to the doctor is free, greedy poor people will go seek medical care without a good reason (and thus waste their hard-earned taxpayer dollars). That when THEY need health care, it won’t be available because all those lazy poor people who didn’t “take good care of themselves” will be in line ahead of them. They truly believe that if everyone has access to the same health care opportunities, somehow some vital service won’t be there for them when THEY need it (and deserve it more, because they pay more in taxes). They believe that half of all health problems are caused by a person’s own “life style choices” and they shouldn’t have to subsidize the health care of someone who ever smoked, or drank, or didn’t eat or exercise “properly” or engaged in risky activity (like sex. Or driving a car. Or playing sports. Or being born poor or into a family with genetic health problems…)
The same logic goes with the extensive means-testing and conditions put on current social aid programs — in order to qualify for many aid programs, you need to be practically destitute. The Republicans cry about expanding programs for the poor not because they worry about the poor not getting enough — but because they want to make sure anyone getting government charity is in fact truly needy (and thus not cheating them). You can see it in the reaction to the Frost family — whose extensive medical needs that stemmed from an auto accident — but because of SCHIP, they were able to care for their kids, keep a middle-class lifestyle and not lose their home and everything they had of value.
It’s greed and selfishness, encouraged by popular culture; it’s demonization of others (who might be lazy and dishonest and thieves), it’s a lack of a larger sense of community, and it’s part their own lack of security — knowing that so little safety net is there should their own family suffer some tragedy or loss of income.
In the long run, the success and popularity of Social Security and Medicare, not to mention the success of universal health care programs in other countries, argue that such a system would be equally successful here, once set up and in place, and competently run.
But there are long-entrenched, very desperate and very wealthy corporate interests that will fight against it, and push that “something for nothing” and “rationing” and “not enough to go around” memes as hard as they can. And yes, if we get universal health care and it IS a Democratic program, it will strengthen the Democratic party in a way not seen since the New Deal.
We have health care rationing NOW — those who can’t afford it, go without. We already have someone else making our health care choices for us — the account managers at health insurance companies, who get bonuses based on how many claims they can plausibly deny, regardless of what the patient and doctor think is necessary. When the entire business model of an industry is to get customers to pay for a vital service and then NOT PROVIDE IT (but keep the payments), that industry needs to be overhauled from the ground up.
I found this comment on Malkin’s site interesting.