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Jon Chait at NYMag‘s Daily Intel has a nice, succinct barnburner on “Health Care As a Privilege: What the GOP Won’t Admit:”
As we wait for a Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act this week, there is one urgent, overriding moral question at the heart of the health-care fight. Paradoxically, and maddeningly, there has not been any open moral debate over it. That question is whether access to basic medical care ought to be considered a right or something that is earned….
Opponents of the law have endlessly invoked “socialism.” Nothing in the Affordable Care Act or any part of President Obama’s challenges the basic dynamics of market capitalism. All sides accept that some of us should continue to enjoy vastly greater comforts and pleasures than others. If you don’t work as hard as Mitt Romney has, or were born less smart, or to worse parents, or enjoyed worse schools, or invested your skills in an industry that collapsed, or suffered any other misfortune, then you will be punished for this. Your television may be low-definition, or you might not be able to heat or cool your home as comfortably as you would like; you may clothe your children in discarded garments from the Salvation Army.
This is not in dispute. What is being disputed is whether the punishments to the losers in the market system should include, in addition to these other things, a denial of access to non-emergency medical treatment. The Republican position is that it should. They may not want a woman to have to suffer an untreated broken ankle for lack of affordable treatment. Likewise, I don’t want people to be denied nice televisions or other luxuries. I just don’t think high-definition television or nice clothing are goods that society owes to one and all. That is how Republicans think about health care.
This is why it’s vital to bring yourself face-to face with the implications of mass uninsurance — not as emotional manipulation, but to force you to decide what forms of material deprivation ought to be morally acceptable. This question has become, at least at the moment, the primary philosophical divide between the parties. Democrats will confine the unfortunate to many forms of deprivation, but not deprivation of basic medical care. Republicans will. The GOP is the only mainstream political party in the advanced world to hold this stance.
***********
What’s on the agenda for another summer morning?
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Republicans think poor people are bad people. What’s hard to take is how many poor people are willing to vote for Republicans. After a while, you grow weary of the people you’re trying to help scream about how you’re a communist. People write into newspapers and tell us that they might be poor, but they’ve never asked anybody for anything, and they sure as hell don’t want any damned soçialist health care, they’ll take care of themselves without any help from that Kenyan usurper, thank you.
Raven
The Miles version of Time After Time is great.
So is Cassandra Wilson’s.
Frankensteinbeck
A little socialism might be in order, but Obamacare sure ain’t it. The GOP has really lost their shit. Really, seriously, completely gone deranged, riding a wave of pure anger that has nothing to do with policies of any kind and is causing them to lash out in all directions. I’ve come to think it’s the release of 45 years of pent-up racism, led by old people who are also terrified that they won’t be around to release it again. Many of those people are in congress. Bush really laid the foundation with his scare-mongering, and then McCain told them to let their freak flag fly by picking Palin. A good quarter of the country is in a state of lizard brain rage.
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Again, there’s always been that element, but I think it’s important to filter it through ‘they’re angry and they’re hurting everyone and everything they can reach indescriminately’. Doesn’t that sum up the teabag movement?
BD of MN
So their plan is to push all the uninsured to the ER for medical services, then bitch about the long waits due to “all the poors” when they have to go to the ER themselves… I try to explain to my winger friends that we already do have universal health care, just that it’s hugely expensive and inefficient, but the comprehension light bulb just never goes on…
Raven
@Frankensteinbeck: Last week a black dude with 9 convictions and a 100 page rap sheet attacked a woman getting in her car. They struggled and a passerby with a gun in his car stopped the crime. The perp ran away but was caught by the cops. An African American judge set a ridiculously low bail yesterday and the local newspaper message board exploded. Late yesterday the judge scheduled another bail hearing (he wasn’t released). The depth of fear and racism is alarming but the stupidity of the judge is just as bad.
pluege
the losers in the market system
given that the so-called “losers” in the American “market system” vastly outnumber the “winners”, maybe we should stop calling them “losers” – they ARE the intended outcome of the American style social Darwinist economy.
The system requires a vast quantity of “losers” funneling wealth to a small number “winners”. The American style human devastation economy is a wealth redistribution system from the many – “the losers” to the very few – “the winners”. A vast population of “losers” is the only possible outcome and it represents a society of massive depravity; a value system devoid of morality.
WereBear
We’re just lucky, I guess.
Elizabelle
Decision day at the University of Virginia.
GOP Governor Bob McDonnell has demanded the out of control Board of Visitors clean up the mess they made when its chair (the Rector, Helen Dragas) tried to remove the university’s well-regarded president. In an underhanded manner, and without a good explanation.
Board is to reinstate the current president, choose a new one, or submit their resignations.
Here’s a backgrounder.
Here’s today’s WaPost story on president Teresa Sullivan’s background and skills.
pluege
in civilized “advanced” nations, poverty is viewed as a failure of the society;
in American poverty is viewed as a failure of the individual.
kd bart
OH LORD!!!! Brooks wrote a column about his travels around Spain following Springsteen on tour there. I won’t link to it. I so look forward to Pierce’s piece on it later on today.
kay
I wish someone would do a study on how many uninsured people are having their wages garnished to pay for health care they’ve received.
It’s huge here, and I never see it mentioned. There are plenty of studies on medical bankruptcy, but that’s debt that is discharged, ie, not paid. Wage garnishment is much more of a burden, because they’re just paying and paying.
They pay off one, have another “medical event” and then get sued on that debt, and the cycle starts all over. I can’t be the only person who’s seeing this. These debts aren’t big enough to file bankruptcy; 600 dollars, then 2400 dollars, then 1200 dollars, like that, but it can go on for years.
Elizabelle
Good catch on Chait’s article.
Except that it’s illustrated with a photo of what looks to be an American Indian woman who needs care.
One of Those People.
You know. Alcoholics. Socialists. Failed system.
Not the deserving.
bemused
@kd bart:
I laughed hysterically about his new favorite word “paracosm”. The man is living in his own paracosm totally oblivious to reality.
kd bart
@bemused:
The conservative world is one big paracosm.
bemused
@kd bart:
You got that right with each conservative conjuring up his/her own personal fantasyland.
Phylllis
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): And will scream this while sitting at your desk at the social services offices applying for benefits.
WereBear
@kay: That is one of the things that has led to my own recurring image of the 99% being rendered down for their net worth, like lard.
They torment you with debt until you die. It’s a business plan.
Amir Khalid
@kd bart:
A column on Springsteen and his “paracosm” is the kind of thing you write on a day when you got nothing. Brooks attributes Springsteen’s massive popularity with European youths of an age with his own kids to the vivid evocations of working-class New Jersey. Hence Brooks’ “be yourself” counsel to aspiring artists.
It doesn’t seem to me that Brooks did the basic research to support his premise: ask Spanish kids at the shows why they were so keen on an American playing the music of their dads’ youth.
smedley
Democrats, as usual, didn’t properly sell the ACA. They should have described W’s words about the poor using the ER as the socialism that it is. Dems need their own Luntz, i.e. “Minister of Propoganda.”
smedley
“Propaganda” also, too.
JPL
@smedley: Democrats assume people are bright enough to find out the details. They depend on MSM to help educate and unfortunately, MSM is more interested in a battle. CNN was covering small gatherings of angry tea party folk in local communities. In other words democratic representatives tend to be delusional.
ArchTeryx
@WereBear: What you end up with, at the end, is either Panem or Revolutionary France.
SRW1
“The GOP is the only mainstream political party in the advanced world to hold this stance.”
I doubt they have a clue of just how gobsmacked people from the rest of the developed world are when they look at this. But even if they would have a clue: USA, USA.
Betty
Republican philosophy- not just in the advanced world, in the whole world there is nothing like it.
Todd
@Frankensteinbeck:
I saw that from early on – Crazy bitch fulfilled her role completely and was a complete success. Radicallize the population through hammering memes long thought discarded.
Had it not been for her rabble rousing, those 2009 townhalls on healthcare wouldn’t have become freakshows. I remember just how weird it got – moderate democrats in the house, some blue dogs, wound up facing enraged crowds when trying to have exchanges of info. They weren’t used to that, and of course, the paid activists and progressives didn’t have their backs – they were too busy blogging their grievances.
God knows how bad it would have been had McCain actually let her speak at the concession event 4 years ago. We’d have probably faced a wave of right wing violence shortly after inauguration.
kay
@WereBear:
I actually wonder about this. As a plan. Is the “sue on medical debt, garnish wages” system benefitting someone or other MORE than a national insurance scheme would?
All the Right/Libertarian screeching about the government seizing their property for the mandate: they do know a judge can order wages garnished to pay (yearly) emergency room bills, right? Forced payment to a private corporation! Each and every year, if a person has one “medical event” a year. Not only that, there’s all the middlemen. The collection agency gets a cut and the lawyers get a cut. It’s as if we made a conscious decision: what’s the absolute dumbest, most expensive and least efficient way we can pay for uninsured medical care, one that involves 6 or 7 extraneous people who get paid, and a court. Let’s go with that!
gelfling545
What is really being decided here is whether the punishment for bad luck or bad choices should be death. The right to life but no right to the most basic means to sustain life essentially makes that right meaningless. We already know the answer from the conservative side of argument as it was shouted out at the republican primary debates – “let them die”
Elizabelle
I am farthest thing from a firebagger.
But I wish that Obama had asked for — and demanded, if necessary — primetime slots on the broadcast networks to describe the ACA. Multiple appearances. You cannot always get through on the first try.
Also his economic rescue plans, and why a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was necessary. Hell, he could have outsourced that one to Elizabeth Warren.
Explained it “this is how it will benefit YOU.” You, with pre-existing conditions. You, in a small business. You, with college age kids in a bad job market.
He is screened out consistently by the “news”, and soundbites do not work for such complicated issues.
I don’t care if Obama didn’t want to do that.
It could have been tried.
GWBush used the public airwaves very effectively to sell us a war.
The Supreme Court will decide whatever. Nine people.
But it could have been tried.
Todd
@smedley:
Actually, they did. Of course, when the progressives and paid activists (most of whom seemed to operate like slinkertwunt and nyceve) were out not organizing a counterweight at townhalls, but were instead waging fierce keyboard battles, the narrative got defined by the right.
Oops. Progressive Activist Fail, Vol. MMMCLXXVI.
General Stuck
Candygram from the Idiocracy!
Peachy. You can’t run a country full of idiots. You can only remove all sharp objects, and hope for the best.
KatinPhilly
@Raven: So I will blame the SCOTUS decision to strike down Obamacare on a lone black man with 9 convictions and a 100 page rap sheet. Thanks for that racist non-sequitur.
mattminus
“Democrats will confine the unfortunate to many forms of deprivation, but not deprivation of basic medical care. Republicans will.”
Do you think this will fit on a bumper sticker? I love the strong stance on deprivation for the unfortunate.
General Stuck
It will take a great big October surprise, if the goopers are counting on these states to save them. Something like Elvis riding into town on an elephant.
Murdoch has really righted the WSJ ship, and filled it with a dumptruck full of Breitbart’s
Linda Featheringill
That’s a very good essay. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Linda Featheringill
@bemused: #13
Paracosm:
Yeah, I had to look it up. :-)
I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Zola.
Quincy
@General Stuck: Not Elvis, just a complete Euro meltdown. So about 50-50.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
There’s nothing that makes me madder than this “The poors can just go to the emergency room” meme. Yeah, if you get cancer, you can’t afford treatment, but when the pain becomes intolerable, you can sit around in the emergency room all day, and if they get to you (good luck without a bullet wound), they’re allowed to give you enough pain medication for that day—then you can start over again in the morning. Of course, eventually you’ll die, so it’s self-limiting. If you live too long, you’re just a drug-seeker who needs to go cold turkey.
ericblair
@General Stuck:
Translation: if we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs.
@kay:
One person’s inefficiency is another’s boat payment.
bemused
@Linda Featheringill:
I looked it up too which is when I burst into laughter.
Svensker
Last night I posted a link about Chloe, a pitbull in Philadelphia who’d been set on fire. Some kind BJ folks made donations to the group who was taking care of her.
I’m sad to say that Chloe did not survive. My cousin tells me that she died in the night.
Thanks to the good people for helping.
Davis X. Machina
I’m so stealing this…
Davis X. Machina
@ericblair: And they claim to be opposed to redistribution…
flukebucket
@Elizabelle:
The picture comes from Tennessee and I would guarantee you that the man and woman shown will get their care and then go to a Tea Party meeting and just raise hell about the Kenyan Usurper.
There is no doubt in my mind about that. Both will vote for Mitt.
ABC
Feed the hungry, heal the sick, free the prisoner, comfort the widow and the orphan. The good book is pretty straightforward on this stuff. None of the gospel stories ask if the person was deserving of these, they were people in need and given help. Should we provide healthcare to everyone? Yes.
greennotGreen
I have an issue with one line in the essay:’If you don’t work as hard as Mitt Romney has, or were born less smart, or to worse parents…” Is there any evidence that Mitt Romney’s parents were “good” parents? If they were what I call good parents, then it’s more likely that Mitt wouldn’t be an inveterate liar and that his sense of humor would be distinguishable from bullying. (Good parents can have a kid who doesn’t turn out too well; some sociopaths may just be born that way.) I think Chait is confusing “worse” with “poor.” They are not the same.
Amir Khalid
@Linda Featheringill:
I think Bobo is implying that Bruce’s depiction of working-class America is a fantasy, in much the same way that J.K. Rowling depicts Hogwarts as a fantasy version of British boarding schools.
Ruckus
@kay:
Ah! See you haven’t figured out the way to fix this is to not have wages to garnish. That’s why we aren’t fixing unemployment. It’s to help all of those people whose only legal resource to not economically starve is to actually starve.
Davis X. Machina
@ABC: There are four tests for a real, true Christian — and those aren’t them. They are what Fred Clark calls the “Big Four”: “that abortion is murder; homosexuality, sin; evolution, nonsense; and environmentalism, a farce”
Ruckus
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
I have a friend with sickle cell who has to go to a specific hospital where she has been treated before when she has an attack because otherwise they think she is just looking for drugs.
MattW
Silly Chait, still defending the ACA against charges of “sociaIsm!” as if the actual meaning of the word mattered. Sorry man, we live in a post-denotational world now. Connotation is all that matters. Define it till you’re blue in the face, it’s still just a synonym for “bad thing!”.
The Moar You Know
@Elizabelle: The networks refused to cover his news conferences on ACA, IIRC, and the president cannot order network time unless it’s a national disaster.
Davis X. Machina
@The Moar You Know: Correct. Presidents have been routinely refused such ‘demands’ since Reagan….
Interrobang
@kay: Kay, there are some studies around about wage garnishment and medical debt: Enjoy, or not. I don’t have a ton of time right now, but I could probably refine that down some too.
Nethead Jay
Wow, that video is extremely great. Probably the best version of that song I’ve heard. Also, good article. Chait’s been writing good stuff lately.
The Moar You Know
@Davis X. Machina: Damn, that is a nice find. Bully pulpit denied. For St. Reagan, nonetheless.
And that was way back in 1988. They lose much more now.
Davis X. Machina
@The Moar You Know: Had it bookmarked from the never-ending bully pulpit wars over at Lawyers, Guns and Money. People don’t believe it till they see it, and sometimes not even then. I found out about the refusals in George Edwards’ book.
kay
@Interrobang:
Thank you. It just occurred to me the other day: “why, it’s like these people are paying a 25% tax on wages for shitty, duct-taped-together ‘medical care!'”
We could just skip the collection agency/lawyers/court middleman and they could pay into some sort of national system.
This country is absolutely insane, completely irrational, on health care.
Davis X. Machina
@kay:
Religion — the half-assed Calvinist mash-up that’s our unofficial official religion — and race will do that to a country.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Frankensteinbeck:
In 1980, this country (and its mainstream culture) made a conscious choice to ignore reality, and to try to force itself to live a consensus-dream en masse.
Why else hire a senile B-movie actor to serve as President?
But, as always happens, reality will have its way with you, even if you make it wait. And we’ve been making it wait for over 3 decades. Now that the bill’s come due, and the dream is cracking into shards and fragments, and all those problems from the 1970s are coming back into view with a vengeance, those who bought-in all those years ago are utterly terrified.
Most people are not very self-aware, not intellectually sophisticated, and psychologically weak. It’s hard to admit that your whole worldview has been a lie (there was a whole thread on this the other day). So they need to turn that inward fear into outward rage, and project it somewhere.
The current would-be builders of consensus-reality like FOX news and the RW infosphere are more than happy to provide them with targets for that rage.
Frankensteinbeck
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
A very plausible explanation, because humans do behave that way and the ‘Reagan Revolution’ did indeed consist of selling up as down and day as night. I would argue that reality has not come due in any way that would cause this kind of madness. Global warming and pollution problems aren’t affecting the common man obviously yet. The people most angry were most sheltered from the economic meltdown, which was the only failure that has gut punched the world in an obvious way. Voodoo economics failed long ago. From our perspective, it is absolutely obvious that conservatism has failed. From the Tea Party perspective, once they’ve found a way to detach themselves from the guilt of George Bush ruining the economy (which as they’ve shown, ain’t that hard) they’re home free. The only thing that has happened that makes their world not make sense and throws them into a rationalization free fall is a black man being elected president. THAT was utterly impossible.
.
@Davis X. Machina:
No. no, no. !
Those are the tests for a fake christian, who is allowed to be hateful and still expect to go to heaven.
Real Christians are full of love for people who don’t deserve it, people who spend more time and money helping at Manna Meal, ringing that bell for the Sal. Army in COLD weather, going to heaven if there is one.
The others, the fake christians, they make me wish there was a Lord God just so they would have that shock of learning how wrong their lives had been lived, and the wages they had earned, which involve sulfur and heat.
I know some of the Real Christians (not me, I’m full of doubt and cynicism – although I do put $50s in the red buckets and help my less-well-off friends, and give to the power company fund and the big food pantry and democratic causes) and they deserve to go to heaven.
republicans don’t and won’t, regardless of what kind of theosophy truly underlies our universe. I think it’s turtles all he way down, or something. Maybe the Higgs Boson thinks and has free will and directs everything…
ETA: I know you know this and were snarking. I’m snarking a little too, just not as well.
Gretchen
I loved the video, and I never would have run across it in a million years by myself. Thanks for that, Anne.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know:
@Davis X. Machina:
Thank you for follow up.
Interesting link from the NYTimes (February 1988).
I’d argue that making a case for healthcare reform for Americans, and for protecting American consumers after a financial meltdown unprecedented in 80 years, is significantly different than funding the Contras or supporting Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. (Topics networks chose not to give Reagan time for.)
The airwaves are allegedly for the public good, and a night or two less of “America’s Got Talent” won’t bring down the republic.
But I get your point.