Two Percent
Two percent
Zach Schultz
Undergraduate/English Education
Many viewpoints today against, for example, gay marriage or universal health care for children and adults equal, in my mind, the racist and segregationist attitudes of a younger America. It's pretty hard to play at the game of truth and honor while trying to cover up the truth of individual identities that may or may not offend you. While I think that parents should be responsible for the well-being of their children, some parents are not financially able to care for their children in terms of healthcare. Privatizing healthcare will not solve this problem, and I will not say to the father who just lost his job, "Sorry. Your child can't have heart surgery (or the flu vaccine or chemotherapy or whatever), because some other parents want to benefit from the system by not working." My friend and sister-in-law Jamie once said, "As far as universal healthcare for children, there is no child in America in this day and age that would be turned away for necessary treatment if their mother or father couldn't afford it. So, in all practicality, universal healthcare for children already exists." Actually, according to CBS, nine million children in the U.S. are completely uninsured, but 11.5 million more kids end up without medical care for part of the year.1
But come on, how many people really die from not having healthcare? Not that many, right? In 2002, the Institute of Medicine’s (which is associated with the National Academy of Sciences) study “Care without coverage: Too little, too late,” found that 18,314 adults nationwide die prematurely each year because they don't have insurance; the estimate of the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research group, was at least 22,000 in 2006.
The numbers: about 1,400 people with high blood pressure, 400 to 600 with breast cancer, and 1,500 diagnosed with HIV. The true number of deaths is probably higher. “Because we don’t see many people dying in the streets in this country, we assume that the uninsured manage to get the care they need, but the evidence refutes that assumption,” said Mary Sue Coleman, co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, and President of the Iowa Health System and University of Iowa, Iowa City. She continued, “The fact is that the quality and length of life are distinctly different for insured and uninsured populations.” The study compares the health of insured and uninsured adults in the U.S., where 30 million--or one out of every seven--working-age people lack health care coverage. 2
We really must stop pretending to be equal if we continue down this path, as we so often fail to act on our knowledge or fail to even recognize the facts. This said, I would rather protect "too many" people under the law than not enough. The wise man said it best: "I don't want a nation just for me. I want a nation for everybody." We are not going to carry the burden for the lazy, but we do want to inspire them. We are not here for just ourselves and a few, but we are here for all of us. We can no longer rely on inefficient and sparse charities (however helpful and well-intentioned) to carry the burden of love and care for the rest of us.
Not all healthcare is equal, either. The same quality care and coverage provided to the CEO should be available to the factory worker, and because this is not the case with companies providing their employees with coverage, it is the responsibility of the state to take this on.
It is important to realize the often carefully made distinctions between these sometimes differing points of view. In our current capitalist mode of production, these are questions we must answer because ignoring the questions is too great a risk.
While inspiration would wither and fail with handouts, allow me to also spell out that I am not talking about handouts; I am putting forth that universal healthcare in the form of a national healthcare plan is a basic right, not a handout.
Universal healthcare is not about forcing others to give something to someone else. I am referring to a system in which everyone would put into the healthcare plan (in relation to income, expenses, size of family, etc.) and everyone would get back the same high-quality care. This is a practical approach to a serious problem and does not coerce people into giving.
Many of my conservative friends have noted that as humans are inherently greedy and bad, a socialist society in which everyone is protected, nurtured, and cared for would be torn down by greed and malice in the leaders of that society. Therefore, (they say) we should leave the job of healthcare and welfare to private citizens to be charitable. Now wait a minute: we should leave the job of caring for others to greedy and bad people? If people are unfit to give responsibly when they are required to by law, how in the hell are they going to find it in their hearts to give? As previously stated, nine million children in the U.S. are uninsured in spite of charitable giving; that tells me enough about this voluntary giving.
Furthermore, it is easy (yet usually irresponsible) to claim that government spending is wasteful in all sectors without looking at the facts. So, let us look at the facts. According to the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, administrative costs for beneficiaries in privatized HMOs have grown to nine point one percent. So what are the administrative costs for the over-bloated, inefficient government Medicare program? Twenty-five percent? 40 percent? And the winner is... Two percent. That's it. Two percent vs. nine point one percent of administrative costs. Cost of healthcare is an important issue, and I recognize that it greatly impacts the economy. The facts do not show wasteful government spending on healthcare; they show efficiency.3
There are basic rights every human deserves, in my mind. Our cherished idea of "liberty" is no more than a convenient lie if it does not allow a man to marry the person he fell in love with simply because that person is also a man. Liberty is more than a vague recollection of the "quaint" days of the founding fathers; it is a fierce battle toward progression and social inclusion. A society whose members build their base on clinging to their own identities while ignoring the concerns of others has failed.
Thus far, the only socialism this country has shown is corporate socialism. We are willing to prink blank checks for huge corporations who strive only for profit to the detriment of society, but are unwilling to take care of our sick? The conservatives were against this measure, especially pertaining to the bailout of the auto industry. Not, however, for any ideals about corruption and scandal; conservative congressmen and senators said they would gladly vote in favor if factory workers were willing to take cuts in healthcare benefits, pay, and retirement benefits. No punishment for the executives but punishment for those not responsible for the failure of these companies? Positively shameful. We saw little better from Democrats who, while interested in the wellbeing of the workers, saw it fit to let these automotive companies continue on their wasteful, energy-inefficient paths toward disaster and extreme profits.
If we accept that conservatives and liberals have a common end but disagree on the amount of government involvement, I find that the danger lies in the long, slow journey to an end that can be reached much more quickly and efficiently and will sooner provide careful protection under the law to our citizens. You can carefully tug at your loose tooth for days and bleed the whole time, or you can pull it out in one strong yank. Not a particularly charming comparison, but it serves its purpose, I hope.
If there is an issue which I am neutral on because I have no personal experience with it (i.e. gay marriage), I would rather allow someone the freedom to make that choice him or herself rather than imposing a possible immediate reaction of "no" on them. It is inherent in all creatures, I think, to forsake progress for the sake of the comfortable and the routine, but in this lies great danger. For while we revel in our own triumph, we ignore the triumphs of others and the triumphs ahead.
To what extent should we "accept" homosexuals? If we look biblically, we find permission to stone adulterous wives to death, stone homosexuals to death, and wage war on your neighbor if he bows down to a different god. I am fairly certain that the Bible, along with other religious texts, must be read, interpreted, and understood as products of the age in which they were written. The social ideas of that era are not always the social ideas of this age, nor (in some cases) should they be. So, again, to what extent should we accept homosexuals, encourage them to thrive, and support their decisions? If we look at the Bible literally, then we should not. In fact, according to the Bible, we should kill them all.
However, if the Bible is the source of your deepest respect, confidence, and belief, then truly you will find many learned values from that. If it is a supplement to a larger body of experience or learning, you will, again, find many learned values. If your learned values come from a lifetime of experience with the world, you will learn many lessons. The different journeys we embark upon will impact us profoundly, and in that way all things affect our lives. Some of my learned values come from the "arbitrary beliefs" that have been passed onto me, but often in the sense that I have rejected ideas I feel to be incorrect or unfair. As all of us, I think, find times in our lives when advice, ideas, or values are taught to us in some form or another, and on finding these to be contrary with our greater body of personal belief, we reject them from time to time.
On that note, I think it would be folly to think that there are no absolutes, and very few subscribe to this school of thought. So certainly there are absolutes in certain moral principles, and despite whatever misconceptions exist and are still floating about, few liberals would disagree with this. Some believe mostly in the idea that government should involve itself in the lives of its citizens as little as possible, even at the expense of those citizens’ liberty, equality, and wellbeing.
Sources:
1: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/02/eveningnews/main2755159.shtml
2: http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/4660/4333.aspx
3: http://medicare.commission.gov/medicare/robinstest.html