September 04, 2009

The Right to Healthcare

Because I hate myself, I'm going to go ahead and try to figure out how we need to reform healthcare. Yeah... this should go really well.

Before I do that though, I have a question that I think we need to answer: Is there such a thing as a "Right to Heathcare" ? I'm not sure that I have a right answer for this one.
There are two camps on this. It's pretty hard to advocate for the group that says 'no' on the basis that it doesn't sound very compassionate. At the same time, this sounds like the group that's doing the most thinking on the subject and realizing that there's such a thing as scarcity of resources and the fact that it's impossible to provide every existing healthcare option to every patient. Also, this group tends to be strict Constitutional literalists who don't see "the right to healthcare" written anywhere in the Constitution as guaranteed and thus, there's no such thing.

Before defending its logical basis, the second group would like to point out that a "right to healthcare" is something of a Universal Moral Imperative, regardless of how much it costs. That said, on the logical and Constitutional front, they would like to point out that when the Declaration of Independence advocates for "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", it's pretty tricky to live or pursue happiness if you're dying of cancer. Also, for those of you who didn't have the benefit of memorizing the preamble to the Constitution, I'd like to print it out for you and see what jumps out. I'll even toss you a bone and highlight the relevant section

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

So basically, on one side of the debate we have the logical stance, albeit heartless and on the other side we have impracticality and compassion... but they really do have at least some leg to stand on in the realm of Constitutionality and "the will of the Founding Fathers."

Here's the problem: nobody on the anti-reform side of this is ever going to come out and say "guys, the problem here is scarcity... we can't afford to give healthcare to everyone." Sure, they'll say things approaching that and things in that general neighborhood... but there's no way to say "stop, we can't do that" without sounding like an asshole. That's just the way it is.

On the other side, you have the pro-reform side, and they're never going to explain how exactly we're going to pay for this. Because the other side is right... scarcity is a problem and you can't give everyone the option of all non-elective medicine without it costing you something. The numbers I've been hearing price it at somewhere around $1 trillion over 10 years for a really cut-rate plan and some estimates north of $2 trillion for the plans currently on the table.

And that's the part about this debate that really drives me ape. Because neither side will admit to the inherent issues of their debate, people are arguing past each other. And then Sarah Palin showed up along with the lynch mobs.

Actually, let's forget Sarah Palin for a minute* and focus on these morons screaming at the "town hall meetings"? Seriously? Is this the best we can do for a reasoned response? And the people supporting this nonsense want me to vote for them next year? Let's just take a pass on "un-American" as far as the screaming at politicians in town-hall meetings goes (though, really, I expect better from the 'Party of Lincoln') and go straight to "mouth-breathing, rabid moron with an IQ surpassed by some of the goo growing on the floor of a public rest-room." Have I sufficiently communicated my contempt? Good.

The thing that infuriates me the most about this whole "debate" is that the only people interested in having an honest and forthright discussion about health-care are the academics. The "loyal opposition" is far too busy talking about "pulling the plug on grandma," "death panels" and attempting to defend the patriotism of the aforementioned restroom stains. And, of course, the advocates of health-care reform want to breeze over the exponential expansion in the annual federal budget and do some magic hand-waving to explain away legitimate concerns about the costs.

Now, it actually appears that I've run out of space... so I'm just going to call this a rant and go back to the drawing-board, content that I've defined the beginnings of this debate, if only for myself.

*Because, really, she's an idiot... can we all just agree that she's an idiot and ignore her forever? Let's just pretend that John McCain found someone with a 3-digit IQ to be his VP Candidate and forget this ever happened. Is it honestly that hard to forget a VP Candidate who lost?)

Posted by Vengeful Cynic at September 4, 2009 08:08 AM | TrackBack