Letters to the Editor
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A dissenting view.
First, disclosure: I am a Republican/Libertarian leaning individual, but I consider myself an independent thinker (aka both Rosie and Limbaugh are loudmouthed annoyances to me). Further, I am against Iraq (which got me drilled on "how-can-I-possibly-be-a-soldier" over at RedState...), so don't assume I walk in lock-step with Bush; I have little respect for him now (yes, I supported him in 2000...don't remind me).
Okay, now my dissent. I was initially critical of Bush's veto stance, mainly because other Republican congressional leaders criticized him (and I already don't like him). But, after seeying how high in the income brackets this bill went, and how many children were already covered, I began to support his veto. I will grant you that, for this bill at least, you progressives actually bothered to pay for the bill. I wish Bush would do that for the war. But I digress.
Why is the new Republican-backed bill not a worthy compromise? Are they trying to meet you half way? I don't know the details of the bill, but I haven't seen much discussion of it yet, here or elsewhere. My gut tells me that both sides are mainly posturing at the moment, but I then again the new bill hasn't been the focus of a research tear for me yet. My main point is, if the Republicans are concerned your bill goes too far, are you willing to cut it down some?
On health care in general: trying to reach kids first for socialized medicine is smart. I'm not saying it's a tactical move, and I'm not saying it isn't. I lean progressive enough to want to cover children, who can't take care of themselves. I am a big believer in personal responsibility, but that position is rendered useless if my target is a sick 4-year-old kid with one working parent and a few siblings. But let me be firm: there is a huge segment of America, myself included, that will resist socialized anything, including medical care, right now. Leaning to far in that direction will hurt this bill, or any other. If you truly care about the children, then truly focus on just them, for this bill at least. There are parts of the bill that are just reaching too far.
I have gone without insurence before, I'm not rich. I understand the fears, as does my wife (who went back to her former job to get us covered). But I REFUSE to yield to government dependency to solve our nations ills...it is, in my humble opinion, a road that leads to ugly places, if you follow it too far. And we have already followed it too far (social security...great...but FORCING it on me? Why can't I opt out? I consider it an attack on my economic freedom from the government, and on the American tradition of self-determination! But again I digress...).
Okay, I've granted you health care for poor children. They shouldn't have to suffer while we sort out this health care mess. BUT, it is only a stop-gap. It's a recognition that we have a broken system, and that the children, at least, shouldn't be suffering when we have an incredibly wealthy country. Don't consider that yielding to the idea that government can solve our problems. If anything, government control on the medical field, and endorsement of mega-corporations, insurence companies, HMO's, etc., is one of the leading reasons for inflated health care costs from what I can see. We need greater competition, more reasonable regulation, etc, so people can take care of themselves.
And as this article mentioned, we need to return more of the power in health care to the doctors and patients. I DO believe that, at an individual level, people are capable of taking care of each other. Even at the community level. Here in MI a local community rose up against a doctor who was manipulating the system. It was great to watch. The residents took action, the local news responsded, then the police did. We shouldn't have to depend on the federal government for everything, especially when they do such a poor job at it.
Tthe root for why I do not like socialized anything at the federal level: because the fed is among the poorest of agencies at efficiently handling issues. A big federal government causes more problems then it's worth. Social Security has been mismanaged, wars have been mismanaged, natural disasters have been mismanaged, welfare has been, civil liberties have been, I could go on forever. You can't ask the government to do one thing (such as socialized medicine) and not help enable the trend where it will do others, such as limit civil liberties.
Federal government is a package deal. The more powerful you make it, the more potential for them to abuse the power. That is just the way huge powerful governments work--history has shown that. Socializing health care will give them more power and a lot more guarenteed money in the long run. And at some point we are just giving all our money--essentially our labor--to the government in return for all the critical things we need. That is the very opposite of empowerment, and expect to see more secrets, more wars, more bloat and corruption, the bigger you make the fed.
At the very least we should strongly look at the alternatives before we immediatly resort to government dependency. Freeing up competition, allowing inter-state bidding, etc, is a good start. So is dealing with the root problems of family splits, rising prices, a weakening lower- and middle-class. Can't we attack some of these problems in such as way as to empower individuals without having to yield money and power to the government? I am extremely critical of the idea that the government is best suited to handle this critical task.
Sorry that was so long--but I wanted to give an intelligent, respectful, honest dissent. I hope I have done so.
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Dirty words
It amazes me, as one of the "Canadian friends" alluded to in a letter above ("...where did we go wrong?") that "socialized medicine" is so often used as a pejorative term in the U.S. You (Mr./ Ms. nominal American citizen) pay much more, on a per capita basis, than virtually every other industrialized nation. More people in the U.S. than live in all of Canada do not have health coverage. Articles like this one routinely report that the job of health care provision companies is, as often as not, to deny health care provision (in the honourable name of maximizing profit of course). And yet a viable alternative, with exemplars in many different countries, that is to say, universal, non-profit, state-run health care, is dismissed by your government and many in the U.S. media as anathema: it's "socialized medicine". The disconnect between what is actually in your best interest and what you are told is the ideal economic arrangement--everything must be run on a private, profit making basis--is astounding and baffling.
As they're human run, no health care system is perfect: no claims here that Canada's is. But I'll argue for universal access as the bare minimum of what any civilized country is obliged to provide its citizens. Arguably some of the best services in the world are available in the U.S. Research excellence and innovation in medicine are among the things the U.S. undoubtedly provides. So given the expertise and excellence this implies, why do you persist in this agonizing argument about health care, in effect something that should be a basic, human right? You owe it to yourselves to get over the ideological impediment to providing care for all: socialized medicine? Hell, yes!