By
Thomas Cloud
July 8, 2009
It is “Dependence Day” now in the United States. We are actively and enthusiastically creating an all-encompassing nanny state, following the lead of our charismatic president. I am certainly not going to place all the blame on Barack Obama; it was the American people who elected him, after all. But I am left wondering whether or not this is still the “America” of the “American Dream.”
It is very hard for me to see our great country as a nation still primarily composed of hard-working entrepreneurs when it seems like all we care about is milking each other’s wallets of as much “excess” income as possible. We are relentlessly pursuing a path where it is not how well you can serve one another that determines success, but instead how politically connected you are. General Electric is the model company for receiving government subsidies. We have chosen equality over liberty.
To borrow the words of my father, this is the age of the politics of envy. Take nationalizing health care, for instance. It is extremely obvious that this will contribute to stagnation in our quality of life. If the empirical evidence is not enough for you, take a basic microeconomics class.
In Microeconomics, by Jeffrey M. Perloff, I found a subsection on national health care in two other nations. “In Britain and Canada, taxes pay for public-health care,” the book reads. “However, taxes do not cover the full cost of medical care. To contain costs, providers ration health care, in part by having patients wait for treatment.”
They wait a long time, by the way. It can take as long as 80 weeks to get an MRI in Britain’s public system, while it only takes two weeks to get it done privately in the United States. Theirs is the system we are trying to emulate.
Arguments that the United States has already entered some dark age of health care and that it will only get worse unless we create a national system are both fallacious and sub-par. Yes, U.S. health care can improve, but through deregulation, not socialization. But it is an appeal to panic and fear and a request to fall into the arms of the state for protection that we hear most often.
Productivity will decline if we further regulate health care. How can we possibly be a nation of achievers if we are taxed in such a way that the wealthy, the entrepreneurs and the creative are penalized while we subsidize mediocrity by increasing benefits to the unemployed to the degree it becomes a reward to be so?
Surely we have moved beyond the simple necessity of keeping people from destitution and starvation, and into the realm of severe income leveling because it is a moral crime to have more than someone else. It is sad that I have to argue in terms of efficiency and productivity when the moral problems are so much greater than the economic ones and intimately interwoven with them.
Do we truly want to be a society where the government picks the winners and losers? Do we want to be a society where the party in power rewards its favored branches of industry with generous amounts of taxpayer cash for failing to be responsible? Is that what we, as Americans, wish to be?
Fiscal crises are real. Inflation is real. Irresponsible credit expansion is real. Debt is real. It will take time for us to realize this again. Just as we cannot wave a magic wand to wipe away the UW’s budget cuts, we cannot raise each other’s salaries through punitive taxation, regulation and bureaucratization.
Reach columnist Thomas Cloud at opinion@dailyuw.com.
8 Comments
#1 acut21
on July 9, 2009 at 5:18 p.m.(Olympia, WA)
I would have loved to rip this article apart, but unfortunately Mr. Cloud (like most critics of nationalized healthcare) failed to offer up much factual support at all. While I usually just shrug these types of articles off, I just can’t ignore these weak and uninformed attacks on what is actually one of the most beneficial moves America could make to turn our country around and save us from the money pit that healthcare has become.
First I want to respond to this textbook example provided in the article. First of all, I don’t see how it is “extremely obvious” that nationalized healthcare would contribute to the stagnation of our quality of life, particularly as millions of Americans are already facing a rapidly decreasing quality of life due to the lack of accessibility in our healthcare system as we know it. I have taken an intro to economics class, and while I applaud the fact that Mr. Cloud actually read his textbook, I was disappointed that this excerpt was his only support for his argument. The “rationed” healthcare and random statistics about long waits in other countries is a classic conservative attack to healthcare reform, but frankly it’s a tired and weak assault. The statistic on MRIs in the US and Britain is vague and lacked a citation, what MRIs are delayed 80 weeks? Certainly not ones concerning urgent care or serious health concerns, I can guarantee you that.
While I have no experience with healthcare outside of the US, here is what I do know. The United States is the only developed country without a universal healthcare system. The World Health Organization also ranks us as the worst healthcare quality and fairness in all developed nations. The U.S. also ranks highest in total cost of care, but according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund, ranks last among industrialized countries "in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care." We also rank at the bottom of the barrel for infant mortality and longevity. Half of our current bankruptcies are medical related- and nearly ¾ of those people had insurance. You can give me a random fact about MRI availability, but the big picture doesn’t lie.
#2 acut21
on July 9, 2009 at 5:18 p.m.(Olympia, WA)
I was raised in a healthcare oriented family. My mother is a nurse and my father has worked in the public sector on both healthcare and insurance issues. We use Group Health, or “Group Death” as some like to call it. For those of you who don’t know, Group Health functions as a cooperative, and is the closest thing we have in the states to a single payer system. I have witnessed healthcare rationing, in the form of limiting tests and procedures that my doctors deemed unnecessary. They have always discussed it with me and explained their actions. However, when I needed them most, they were there, and I can’t be more grateful. My senior year of high school I came down with a sudden fever and ended up passing out in the Group Health urgent care center. I was there all night, and for the next several weeks I was in and out of the doctor for blood work and tests. When my health was in danger, they took every precaution possible to treat me, and yet I only had to pay $15 every time I went in, for treatment that I otherwise would have had to drop out of UW to pay off. So please, don’t lecture me on the inefficiencies and lack of productivity in healthcare cooperatives. I’m not buying it.
The healthcare industry spent $512 million on lobbying in 2008 alone, according to The Center for Responsive Politics. Clearly they have turned our health into a money maker, and they are going to fight to keep it that way. Well, call it what you like- nationalized, socialist, ‘commie’, welfare state- I am an avid supporter of making sure every one of my fellow Americans can pursue their lives without the constant fear of getting sick.
#3 huh
on July 14, 2009 at 1:28 p.m.(Location Unknown | UW Community)
I just had to comment on two statements made in this opinion piece:
"It is very hard for me to see our great country as a nation still primarily composed of hard-working entrepreneurs when it seems like all we care about is milking each other’s wallets of as much “excess” income as possible. "
This is just propaganda. Universal healthcare is not about milking each other's wallets. It's about having a healthy workforce so that we can be more productive. We spend a lot of money on healthcare and get generally poor results. There will always be those that try to milk the system no matter what it is, but the vast majority of Americans will choose to earn their keep.
"Productivity will decline if we further regulate health care. How can we possibly be a nation of achievers if we are taxed in such a way that the wealthy, the entrepreneurs and the creative are penalized while we subsidize mediocrity by increasing benefits to the unemployed to the degree it becomes a reward to be so?"
This is more propaganda. If you've ever been unemployed, you'd know it is not a reward. The blanket assumption that the wealthy are also creative and entrepreneurial is a laugh given our current melt-down in the private sector. There are plenty of honest, hard-working, and lower income people that would be considered mediocre in this analysis, but who are essential to our economy.
#4 Matthew Z.
on July 16, 2009 at 11:59 a.m.(UW Campus)
Every healthcare system, including ours, rations care. The difference is that in ours it's rationed by ability to pay rather than need, which is why so many have either no or inadequate coverage.
Really, acut21 dealt with this fairly well, even as an opinion piece this is atrociously written and reasoned. When you're as well-supported as a FOX comments page something's gone terribly wrong.
By and large, the countries with universal healthcare have longer-lived citizens. I must give us credit, however, for beating both Ireland and Denmark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...
On another note, this kept coming to mind when I read this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZL6LS...
#5 Morgan G.
on July 20, 2009 at 3:01 p.m.(Seattle, WA | UW Community)
Yes, because deregulating private industry has worked so well in the past.
If the author of this piece can cite a single number that would prove to me, or anyone else who's posted so far, that deregulation and Reaganomics has or can ever work, I will slap myself in the face in his presence.
#6 Somak C.
on July 20, 2009 at 3:17 p.m.(Redmond, WA)
Yes! I think we should not have universal health care. The vast majority should have their health uncared for until they need emergency visit.
That way, so many American people can spend their productive time thinking about "OMG! what will happen if I fall sick" or in the emergency waiting for the "specialists" to take care of them at state expense.
Or may be left to die or get bankrupted.. That way the weak/unhealthy people can be eliminated creating the efficient/productive American enterprise.
I don't understand how these people call themselves pro life and yet think that fully grown human being should not be cared for.
I don't know what micro economics class you took, but get this, unless you have a sizable middle class with expendable cash, your industries will not do well. There will not be anyone to buy your products/services.
"Govt siding with an industry" ? This is the first time "the people" aka "the govt." actually going against a rogue/monopolistic industry, the "health care/Insurance industry" and siding with "the people". Wait, isn't that govt. is for? to stand with the people!
I think these people should become actually productive and contribute to the greater progress of humankind than figure out how to make money from sick people.
#7 Wellthen
on July 20, 2009 at 6:37 p.m.(Seattle, WA | UW Community)
It is painfully apparent that the author of this article has never gone without health insurance, or had to apply and pay for his own. Do your readership a favor and rename this column 'Some Coddled Rich Kid's Father's Regurgitated Opinion'.
#8 trido
on July 22, 2009 at 11:13 a.m.(Quincy, WA | UW Community)
Don't sweat it too much, Mr. Cloud. It's painfully difficult (impossible?) to penetrate the deaf ears of socialists with any sort of basic logic, explanation of fiscal prudence, or general wisdom.
Post a comment