This debate drives me bonkers because it’s so ham-handed.
Many of us do not want more bureaucracy controlling our lives; we also do not want to support those who do not have their acts together. Why? Natural selection benefits us and makes a better world for our kids — after all, natural selection got humans this smart in the first place. We don’t want some 90 IQ idiot criminal ruining life for people with 120 IQs and good moral character.
But then people demand a bureaucratic solution, claiming that (a) we owe it to all people who happen to be human and (b) bureaucratic well-intentioned solutions are a good answer. They then point to the post office and medicare/medicaid, forgetting that the post office is quasi-commercialized and market-regulated, and medicare/medicaid are not socialized medicine but reimbursement programs.
I propose a middle option that gives both sides what they desire:
Have our government, pooling the resources we’ve handed to it through taxes, purchase a health care plan for its employees — all American citizens. Then let us buy it at the reduced rate available, and let the private market regulate it, because although neither free enterprise nor government regulation are ideal, free enterprise reacts more quickly.
This would satisfy both sides. The vastness of government is used to reduce the cost of health care, and yet, it is also purchased so that the irresponsible and disorganized who spend their money on wine and entertainment instead of necessities manage to hopefully kill themselves off.
In the meantime, let’s talk about problems with health care:
Just a few thoughts while this debate rages on. At the end of the day, it’s not about socialized medicine… it’s about the liberal worldview (people first, even incompetents) versus the conservative one (ideals first, natural selection) and for that reason, no one on either side is actually thinking about health care itself.