In The New York Times, Paul Krugman discusses the differences between Hillary's and Obama's plans for health care. I have always wondered:
(1) What is the reason why health care needs to be universal?
(2) Why is a mandate necessary?
(3) What is the best way to argue for the mandates?
(4) What are the constraints to Health Care and how do your overcome those constraints?
(5) On what grounds can you penalize those that do not want health care or chose to seek other means to attain it?
(6) What role should the president, congress, and the American public play in formulating the country's policy on health care?
This post is not to differentiate between the two candidates and to favor one. However, it is to check the premises of the argument.
3 comments:
1)It is a moral imperative.
And as a far less important subset, it also makes pracical sense that a literally healthy society will be healthier, figuratively.
2)Without the presence of a mandate you cannot expect anything to change. It is sort of like "asking" businesses to 'keep an eye out on those CO2 emissions.'
3)The best way to argue for mandates is obviously NOT the way either candidate is doing it, although at least to Clinton's credit, she is using the word. Best would be an argument for removing the the insurance industry from the equation altogether, for people in a certain (low-level) tax bracket, and simply funding these citizens' Health Care with tax money.
4)The Insurance and Pharmaceutical Lobbies are the major Constraint on fulfilling the moral imperative to make Health Care available to all Americans.
Oh, and intellectuals like George Will who, after leaving their doctor's mahogany-furnished offices, argue that the market would take care of everything if only government got out of the way.
5)This is a red herring that Obama likes to parrot, but which in reality does not apply to the Health Care crisis, nor to what Hillary Clinton (or any other serious Democrat) is proposing.
The idea that people don't have Health Care because they'd rather funnel their funds elsewhere is built into this argument, and it is simply disingenuous. But for the record, in the spirit of answering the question, Harrogate Opposes penalizing the hordes of citizens who don't have health care because they don't want it.
6)The American public is never going to universally agree on anything of course. But there does seem to be a very high awareness that there is in fact a CRISIS, as evinced by the fact that even a couple of Republicans (the Mormon and the Huckster) have spoken to the need to addresss it.
The President should use his or her bully pulpit to inspire Congress to pass legislation ensuring that every single American has access to Health Care.
Tax Monies need to be used to this end.
Letting the stoopid Bush Tax Cuts for the top 2% expire; eradicating loopholes with respect to Hedge Funds, overseas accounts, and other goodies; and not letting such cuts and loopholes infest our economy again, will walk hand in hand with such an enterprise.
It will also be quite helpful to not throw away hundreds of billions of dollars on overseas adventures that do nothing to promote the security or health of the United States, however much said adventures may be perceived as necessary to saving face.
Thanks for the reply. I would like to explore each further and in moral detail.
1) "It is a moral imperative."
On what grounds? Clinton uses this term as if it is self-evident, yet, it is used without reason.
And, on the practical matter of the healthier society, what are the logical consequences of this position?
To name but two self-evident grounds, it is an Appeal to social justice and to human rights: two Values we hold innate to social morality, and two Values with which we would like to associate the United States.
(The Randian argument that Health Care is not a human right, because someone has to provide it after all, is comprised of multiple fallacies. Witness the famed example in Atlas Shrugged, where the metaphor of a gun being placed to a surgeon's head is invoked.
How kindergarten must one be to seriously embrace this brand of Libertarianism, where such an example is held up as credible?)
We have an income tax. It is consittutional. What shall we use the money for?
Harrogate has answered a few questions, in good faith. He will be happy to answer more questions. But here's what Harrogate would like to see--he would like to see solon and, for that matter, Barack Obama come out and state that Universal Health Care is NOT a moral imperative, if that is what they think. No danger of Obama saying something so concrete, that's too much like a distinct claim for his blood after all.
But perhaps solon might be kinder, and answer his own question, and explain his answer.
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