I'm always amazed at society's laissez faire attitude when it comes to understanding the costs associated with things. The recent mortgage scandals, etc., are paid by all of us in terms of lower house appreciation, higher property taxes, etc. People were using their houses, like a friend of mine so adequately stated, as credit cards thinking that there was unlimited amount of credit to pay for things, leaving the payoff of the debt to come when the house was sold.
This report from the WSJ today undermines the lack of understanding surrounding ANY congressional act. There is always a price-tag and like my earlier entry yesterday talked about, government historically has grossly underestimated these costs.
Private companies, immediately after the passage of this act, have responded by laying off employees (one of my close friends), restating profits, and bracing for the unintended consequences inherant with any legislation change.
Listen, I'm not saying that social programs are not all bad, but what I am hopefully articulating is the fact that many people go about their lives without knowing the impact their actions or inactions have on other people. Awareness and a little common sense can go a long way...
Grace & Peace...
PLW
Any firm laying off employees at this point can retire the stupidity award. Most of the key provision of the recently passed "Patient Protection Act" won't take effect for years. So to use this as an excuse now seems disingenuous.
ReplyDeleteAs for Boeing and Catepillar, and others who suggest they need to restate results, it may be premature. They may have to in the future--we simply don't know. But we do know that what they are not restating is actual costs, since these costs have not yet taken effect.
We are both opponents of this recent bill. But some of us are unwilling to call it a failure, or talk about how the sky will fall as a result, until it actually happens.
As for costs, I'll give you some more:
It's estimated that between 11,000 and 45,000 people die in the U.S. each year because they don't have access to health care. Can we quanitfy the cost of those lives?
What about the cost of the millions who declare bankruptcy because of unpaid medical bills?
The cost of the underinsured? Those are the people who thought they had good coverage but were screwed when they submitted claims.
And as for history, since Mr. Barnes of the Weekly Standard likes citing it so much:
Premiums have dramatically outpaced core inflaction for years, in some parts of the nation, as much as double-digit premium increases for years on end. Now that is a failure.
Is health care a right or a privilege? Is it ethical to have a system which rewards simply having wealth?
Many people do "...go about their lives without knowing the impact their actions or inactions have on other people..." Unfortunately, that statement works both ways.
Your Mr. Barnes cited the many government programs--Medicare, etc.--which have well outgrown any projection their creators could have fathomed in some cases. Are we better or worse off for having had them, when costs and benefits are considered?
As to the question if health care is a right or a privilege, Rich Lowry of The National Review says it perfectly...
ReplyDelete"The civil-rights movement was about freedom, and securing the most basic rights — to vote and to gain equal access to public accommodations. Expanding Medicaid and subsidizing the purchase of health insurance — the main means of covering more of the uninsured in the health-care bill — aren’t in the same category. They extend government benefits, not freedom. They don’t fulfill the promise of the Constitution or give equal rights to a historically excluded group. They represent a contestable policy choice that should be judged on its costs and benefits. Martin Luther King Jr. may have been right to say that the arc of the universe bends toward justice, but it needn’t bend toward a budget-busting health-care reform likely to fail on its own terms.
The genius of King’s nonviolence was its persuasive power. He knew that the example of demonstrators putting their bodies on the line and not fighting back against their attackers would win the battle for the nation’s hearts and minds, eventually even in the South, even among the haters. Miraculously, he was right.
Supporters of health-care reform invoke his movement now precisely because of their inability to persuade. Accusing the bill’s critics of racism and comparing them to the segregationist mobs of the 1960s is about silencing and delegitimizing them. It expropriates the unquestioned moral authority of the civil-rights movement and then uses it as a political bludgeon. It substitutes rhetorical thuggery for argument.
Health-care reform didn’t arise from a grassroots movement that catalyzed the nation with its sacrificial love, nor can it lay claim, like King’s protesters, to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It’s a ramshackle mess cobbled together by an embattled, highly ideological congressional majority. No wonder it needs reflected glory and borrowed moral power."
I agree -- there is little comparison to be made between the civil rights movement of Dr. King, et al, and the idea of making health care accessible to everyone regardless of means. They are separate questions, and deserve separate analysis based on their individual merits.
ReplyDeleteBut just as I wouldn't invoke the civil rights movement to 'justify' recent health care legislation, as apparently some have, I wouldn't look to the constitution to answer the question of whether such expansion is right. The constitution gives us a foundation of government, and the rudiments of the law of the land. It is by no means the law in its totality. The expansion of government, except where constitutionally prohibited, is permissible. As such, WE get to answer the question of whether health care is a right or privilege. It is contestable, as Mr. Lowry said.
Mr. Lowry may be right is his assertion that two historical events are unrelated. But that does nothing to answer the question.
Mr. Lowry does a masterful job refuting the silly idea that the civil rights movement and the recent passage of the Patient Protection Act are comparable, and the even sillier notion that those who oppose it are 'racist.'
ReplyDeleteThe constitution lays the foundation for government and a legal framwork; while certain rights are enumerated, it is by no means exhaustive, nor is it a full accounting of societal norms and values.
It may be folly to compare the civil rights movement with the implementation of health care reform. It is equally folly to suggest that the disassociation of the two answers the question of whether health care should be a right or privilege.