. . . sometimes ancient values get in the way of common sense public policy. In this particular instance we're discussing public health policy. I don't think that any of us are arguing that people should be denied access to health care the argument is about the appropriate mechanism(s) to ensure that happens. However when someone advocates DIY surgery at home I'll concede.
It has been a tendency for one side of the discussion to point to failings in health care systems. The Daily Mail in the UK is a great source of stories about the horrors of the NHS. And the distal cause of most of these incidents? Underfunding.
Yes, that's it, underfunding. The mechanism is fine, the fuel to drive the mechanism is the problem behind these incidents. Sometimes someone will argue that a surgeon taking out the wrong lung is due to socialised health care. No it isn't, it's called incompetence and it occurs regardless of the provision mechanism.
You have pointed to failings in the Canadian system (actually it's not a national system, it's provincially based and that might he one of the problems). Some provincial governments are stubbornly opposed to a two-tier system. I dsiagree with that.
It's good policy to have a two-tier system where those with cash or those who can afford insurance can get preferential treatment. This is a good thing because it's the case that more people can afford to pay directly or via insurance than there are those who can't afford to do either. That's a sort of crude utilitarian view but there is a benefit in that it reduces the load on the public system which allows the public system to be used by those who can't afford the private system.
In Canada some of the provinces have outlawed a two-tier system, I think Ontario is one of them. That's short-sighted, even here in notoriously (well we think we are) egalitarian Australia we have a two-tier system sometimes pragmatism beats principle.
I'm addressing the general expression of disagreement now, not your points specifically Foxfyre.
Much of the popular opposition to Obama's healthcare reforms has been based on the values that have been discussed. I'm afraid though it seems to me that those opponents have been blinded by mythology. Now they are not alone, we all love to think of ourselves, our societies, in positive terms, expressing the social values that we learned as children, but sometimes they have to be set aside and we have to take a good hard look at our society without the comforting mythologies. The US has a failed health care system when it's examined objectively. If you're wealthy or insured you're okay, if you're neither than you're not okay. But you should be. No-one in a civilised society should be denied health care simply because they can't afford to pay for it. That's the sentiment that underpins my position that a form of universal health care - hybrid models included - is necessary for any society. I keep making the point that the free market is fine for commodities but not for essentials such as health care but the ideology of the free market is strongly held in the US and that ideology is what drives opposition to the reforms. I'm arguing to dump the ideology, it doesn't make sense in terms of public health policy.
The vested interests have marshalled opposition to the reforms by playing on Americans' basic values. To me that's tantamount to propagandising of the worst type. I'm always a bit annoyed when, in a political discussion the Trots bang on about the "false consciousness of the working class". I agree with them that it does exist but I hate the bloody patronising attitude they evince about it. But at the risk of being accused of patronising the opposition in this discussion there is a false consciousness at work where the vested interests have disguised their real motives for opposing the reforms. Instead of admitting naked economic self-interest they have grabbed the flag to cover up those real motives and many Americans have been conned.
I tried to rep you for your comments here and kudos for a most competent argument. Alas, the game says I still have spread some rep, so I'll get back to you on that.
I don't think the American passion for individual liberties is based on ideology as much as it is based on what we believe to be an inate yearning of humankind for freedom. We were just the first country to embrace a government by the people, of the people, and for the people, and it has worked. And though circumstances change, climate changes, the boundaries defining nations change, culture changes, etc. the core principles those freedoms are based on remain constant.
Having said that, I think you would be hard pressed to find an American who doesn't think that access to healthcare should be available to everybody. I think you would be hard pressed to find an American who doesn't think a moral society takes care of the helpless and most unfortunate among us.
The argument comes into whether it is the people will assign that responsibility to themselves or whether they will make it a prerogative of government along with the powers to implement it.
We are already seeing the consequences of allowing government such power. We are witnessing the waste, the deception, the corruption, the graft, and the self-serving power and benefit grabs that are the result of a government with too much power. For instance, those staffers who wrote the clause requiring all other Americans to adhere to the rules and regulations mandated for the people exempted themselves from those rules and regulations and ensured themselves the cadillac plans enjoyed by the President and Congress.
We are witnessing the authorization of 152 new bureaucracies and boards to implement the new plan and tens of thousands of new government jobs, all that will be paid for by the taxpayer even as more federalizing of non related items buried in the bill kill tens of thousands more private sector jobs.
And we are witnessing deception re the cost being fed to the unaware and gullible. It will be no time at all that we will be like Ontario with 85% of the national budget swallowed up by this growing monstrosity. As Thomas Sowell noted a couple of days ago, once the government has our medical records and the power to tell us what healthcare we or our loved ones will be allowed to have, who would dare oppose them and be at risk of retaliation?
It is not the concept of making healthcare affordable and accessible to Americans that is at issue at here.
It is the principle of individual freedom and the process that is at issue.
The process other places may be better.
The process here so far sucks big time.