Bedrock & Paradox

I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with a non-human world and yet somehow survives still intact, individual, separate. Paradox and bedrock.

Pop the corks

Ladies and gentlemen, we have health care!

[3/22 add.]: I don’t purport to be knowledgable enough to argue for why the US needs a revised health care system, and I certainly don’t understand all that the bill(s) will do.  The most succinct argument in that realm has been made by Uwe Reinhardt, as epitomized in this graphic found in the NY Times:

My understanding is that without all three of these attributes, any attempt at change would collapse.   An integrated, holistic approach to health demands a more outcome-oriented payment scheme, universal insurance mandates require a different way of structuring costs, and so forth.  This I think makes sense.

The argument I am more qualified to speak on is on the ideological side, over why the debate has proceded with the tone, direction, and vociferation that it has (and I watched the live feed late last night, and it was quite rowdy).  Chuck Todd, on Meet the Press yesterday morning, summed things up nicely:
And one thing I think we forget, though, is on the issue of health care is that this actually gets at the philosophical divide between Democrats and Republicans.  I’ve asked many a Republican and many a Democrat on this issue, is health care coverage a right or a privilege?  And that divide in it, it is a philosophical divide. So, on this issue, it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re sitting here so polarized.  It’s sort of the fundamental reason why somebody’s a Democrat, believing in a more activist government, or somebody’s a Republican, believing in keeping government smaller…It is truly one of the great philosophical divides of American politics.
My take is somewhere in the middle, but leans distinctly towards the health care as a human right side.  If “all men [sic] are created equal” then action on the health care front is required to ensure that this is the case.  My formulation of this is that government ought to do what it can to ensure that people start out life on equal footing.  Currently, as especially with respect to health, this is not the case.  Folks with less economic resources are not only less likely to be able to afford insurance and preventative care, but are more likely to have health problems in the first place.  Health care reform as the issue exists today is explicitly a social justice mission.  Which is why Krugman ‘s analysis this morning is more apt than he realizes.

Eventually I’d like to see a health care system that rewards individual choices that make health problems less likely.  But for such a system to not be discriminatory (and racist), things will have to change quite a bit.  Hopefully I’ll start to see that in my lifetime as a result of this bill.

DaveC

3 responses to “Pop the corks”

  1. Enel Avatar
    Enel

    I loved this quote:"In our world of infinite wants but finite resources, there are only two ways to allocate any good or service: either through prices and the choices of millions of individuals, or through central government planning and political discretion. This choice is inexorable."From this articlehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704207504575130321235660474.html#mod=djempersonalThe divide is indeed deeply philosophical.

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  2. Enel Avatar
    Enel

    PS: Enjoyed the Reinhardt article, but don't trust our politicians to pull something like that off cleanly. It is next to impossible. This bill will be full of favors to all kinds of special interest groups. The good will not outweigh the bad. Perhaps politics has never been clean?Krugman: Meh, he's Krugman. Totally out of touch and badly biased IMO.

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  3. chollaball Avatar
    chollaball

    Krugman's article was imo more philosophical than political, and i also did not think much of it. Enel's WSJ article I thought did a better job at scoping the discussion, and the quote is dead on. The author i think falls more on the free-market side and is trying to criticize the bill, while "trying" to make it based on economics but not being very successful. Interesting that all the experts can't help but make their op-ed pieces reflect their fundamental positions – free market vs. social justice. Reinhardt's article was the best, imo, as it manages to mostly avoid philosophy. I had him as a prof for an Accounting class in 1990, and he managed to make even that topic interesting – he's been an expert in health care reform for a long long time. I wish more of the debate would have followed this tone. Social justice really cant be supported or defeated in a convincing rational way, its imo a belief. Libertarianism\free markets, unless backed up by economic evidence, essentially falls into the same trap. I think the whole debate has suffered because of it, I do not think any politicians can make a good plan when they keep falling back on these 2 positions rather than sticking to the accounting facts. I am terrified of this bill because i do not think it is good economics – an unfunded mandate based on finite resources. I also do not believe in the concept of social justice, which perhaps means i am simply making a more elaborate justification for my position based on having once gotten an A in an accounting class taught by an intellectual superstar – go figure?

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