One camp believes that health care is a right, and a prosperous nation (like ourselves) has some sort of duty to provide health insurance to every citizen.
The other camp believes that extending health insurance to everyone is a bad idea, while at the same time, crying foul when there are solutions presented to address the insolvency of social security or medicare.
The reality is somewhere in the middle, but "middle" is seldom how these issues are decided, which means that the divide and conquer approach (i.e., the building of waring factions) is how the political class will decide the matter. Social security and medicare ARE insolvent and some sort of rationing or means testing will have to be decided at some point. If we'd never created Social Security or Medicare, we wouldn't be having this discussion, nor would we have the problems they create (both economically and politically). Once we have a government entitlement program, the press (and the politicians) always have a crying mother being stripped of her child or an old granny living on cat food to create photo-ops for the opposing side. It is damned near impossible to get rid of a government revenue stream once it is in place.
This is not a new method of handling a matter among the political classes. Creating issues to create a tug-o-war is not unique to the health care debate.
The abortion issue is exactly the same.
- We have the not ever camp.
- We have the only if camp.
- We have the what's wrong with it, abortion shouldn't have moral considerations camp.
We can change the words, ever so slightly, for issues like school prayer. Education has become political, where the political classes war over the hearts and minds, just as the health care issue is becoming politicized. Regardless of how the health care issue is eventually decided, there will be winners and losers, if we allow the government to realize the objective of making it something the government involves itself.
Imagine, for just a moment, that there were no public schools. There might be a chattering class arguing for the creation of something like it, but we'd have developed other methods of addressing it. Most parents, the vast middle class, would pay for cheap schools (probably chain type corporations offering mediocre, but not awful programs at an affordable price). There would be a larger market for more expensive private schools, with the private sector donating to charities to allow poor children with prowess to attend them. The most the government might do is to allow everyone (rich and poor) to deduct the cost of education from their taxes. We wouldn't get to the point where we'd discuss the pros and cons of vouchers, because the government wouldn't have inserted itself in the process to make it a compromise solution to a terrible problem.
The larger point is that education would not be a political issue. There would be no arguments about prayer in school, the teaching of sex education, or if evolution or creationism should be taught. Each parent would make those decisions and it wouldn't create caverns between political camps. Sure, people would have their opinions on the various subjects, but each wouldn't be able to remake the Jack Booted Thug the enforcer of their opinion.
Abortion is still a huge issue today. If Roe v Wade had not been decided the way it had, each state would still be making the decision about its legality. Planned Parenthood and NARAL would be running cheap abortion flights or shuttle buses from Mississippi to California, with protestors standing on the runways to try to prevent women from boarding the planes. But, it wouldn't be a divisive issue at the national level, creating a situation where one party supports X and the other party supports -X.
I want Y, not the binary choice of X or -X.
If, for no other reason than the above, the health care issue should not become any more political than it is. When the government controls the issue or delivers the service, the people will always be arguing about who should get what, as sharks fight over prey when they smell blood. They'll stop considering the option of the government not being involved at all, and allowing the private sector to handle the matter. The private sector will no longer be a viable solution in its entirety, because the government's intrusion in the matter will have broken down parts of the infrastructure which allow it.
We already have enough issues to divide us. Government-run health care, especially given the enormity of the costs and the life/death aspect adding fuel to emotions, is the last thing we need. In other words, the last thing we need is for the government to get involved at all. The government will, inevitably, screw it up and where a politician stands on that issue will become a party platform, forcing people to choose one extreme position or the other, with suggestions and schemes on how to fix the mess. If the government doesn't get involved at all, then there will be nothing to fix. It will still be a mess, because few things are ever perfect, but the government just makes enemies of us all.
In 20 years, do we really want a politician's worthiness to be determined by how they'd decide on a particular health care rationing decision? We're protesting for or against inclusion of heart transplants or cesareans at the national level? That's what will happen if we create any additional government health care entitlements.
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