I've heard the following talking points in several speeches … Including the health and human service secretary, the president and several democratic lawmakers.
The first is an emphasis that the status quo is not acceptable.
The second talking point is that the current drive for a more progressive health care system is not something new. It is a process that has been underway for several decades. Different politicians say 50 years, others say 60.
If the American people applied just a small amount of reasoning to the health care situation they would realize that the unsatisfactory status quo is the result of decades of progressive politics.
Fifty years ago, progressives invested their clout in selling the notion that we should fund health care through pools rather than individually.
Today, progressive politicians simply dismiss the idea of people having a direct relationship with their doctor. Despite the fact that insurance agents are removed from the administering of care, the intelligentsia has successfully equated the term healthcare is equated to insurance. Not having insurance is equated to not having healthcare.
The new healthcare plan introduces a public option. The government will own and subsidize a massive chunk of the healthcare pie. At the same time the government will regulate its competitors. We are supposed to believe that the enlightened politicians would not use their power to regulate their competition, will not abuse their power to drive their competition under.
I guess the response to the first two talking points is for Libertarians to try and interject the talking point that the progressives are the creators of the unsatisfactory status quo.
Americans are happy with the medical care in this nation. We abhor the funding mechanism. This funding mechanism was the product of decades of progressive thinking and scheming.
Why should Americans want to give more power to the very politicians who created such a dysfunctional system in the first place?
Wow, revisionist history at it's best here.
ReplyDeleteThe "status quo" many fight against here is actually our antiquated (and never intended as a permanent system) employer based health care system (forgive me if I waste little time rehashing your creative, if irrelevant splitting of words re: health care or "insurance") and the rising costs / obstacles to access.
While you may find it convenient to illogically (and with little substance) call our current system a result of the creeping advance of progressive ideology, it is really the creeping advance of corporate influence over our lawmaking and governing bodies.
The debate to be had here is how we can reform an obviously failed system, and what influence has led to the ballooning costs and failing coverage. Your post does little, if anything, to step us toward such a reasoned outcome, but rather seeks to blur the reality of the debate at hand with some of the most convoluted conclusions I have yet to see.
Bravo on (assumedly intentional) lack of factual representation of the issue. Shame for dumbing down the discussion.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteThe post was not a history ... dismissing it as revisionist history simply shows you didn't read the post.
Health and Human Service Secretary Sebelius gave a speach in which she said that the status quo was not acceptable, then a few sentences later was talking about how progressive regulators have been working on health care for the last fifty years with the goal of the upcoming reforms.
Essentially she was pointing out that the status quo we despise was the creation of the people who are now set to fix the system.
The very heart of the status quo is a false dichotomy that medical care must be provided by either an employer based insurance pool or by a government based insurance pool.
This false dichotomy was fifty years in the making.
I worked on the government side of health care in the 1980s. I wrote computer programs for actuarial analsys. As such, I got in in all the interesting conversations.
When I was working in the health care system, progressivism was outlined as a system of steps toward nationalization.
The premise was to use the tools of the capitalist for the destruction of the capitalist. The goal was to promote employer based insurance.
Once people were accustomed to paying medical expenses from pools, then one would present a false dichotomy between employer based and government insurance.
Regulators are in a position to drive up prices. One need simply keep making costly demands of the system. The capitalist will plan in your hands as regulatory mandates bring in big bucks.
In a change campaign, the progressives would give people a false dichotomy saying health care must eaither come from an employer pool or government pool.
Jason, you repeat the false dichtomy in your post. The solution to a false dichtomy is to reject the dichtomy.
BTW, The post does not detail my solution. The solution I suggested was to add a system of guaranteed loans to medical savings accounts. (The loans would be funded through premiums opposed to interest).
The solution I propose would actually do more to break down the corrupt aspects of corporate America (but that is not why I proposed it).
But, then again you obviously did not read the post. You simply penned the first insult that came to mind.