Newts of the Day

[digitaldiscipline]

In summary, Esquire pretty much sums up what I'd be saying about the obstructionist do-nothings in the House of Reprehensibles: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Shutdown_Blues

If there is an argument to be made against the half-assed solution that the ACA represents, it's that it's half-assed, and not a true single-payer program. Every other argument against it sounds like variations on the theme of "fuck the poor people," and that's not how I roll, nor a society in which I am proud to participate.

I have seen numerous arguments in several flavors of stupid this morning from people trying to denounce or cripple the ACA (it's illegal, it's Obama's fault the budget isn't being passed, death panels, ad foxium), and the only one with a modicum of traction was "It's got 14th Amendment (Commerce Clause) problems."

On the subject of the personal mandate, let's pry the lid off that:

Do you have to have car insurance, if your car is under lien? How about homeowner's insurance if you're still paying off your mortgage? Pretty much anywhere you live, you are required to carry insurance because some third party is owed money on something of value in your possession... that is, yes, required by the states (so, in the States' Rights argument (which I was refuting, becase a Bookface commenter was drawing parallels to the ACA and the grounds for the Civil War, because hyperbole sometimes gives Hitler the day off), you would be OK with the states requiring this, but not the central government?). Those insurance requirements aren't for your protection, they are to protect the debts you owe.

Put it like that, and who benefits from someone's good health? The individual, obviously, but not their creditors if they need to pay for treatment out of pocket on plastic or with a home equity loan or incur some other debt... their employers benefit as well, because they're healthy and working, but not the insurance companies who have to pay for a portion of the costs. At the end of the day, tens of millions of individuals and millions of small businesses benefit a lot, and a small number of huge, wealthy companies don't (except for outfits like Wal*Mart, whose employees will be able to use the ACA to purchase the insurance that their shitty employment practices deny them).

Maybe I'm missing something, but the party that likes to quote the Bible and claims to be doing God's work sure as fuck seems unhappy about the possibility of taking care of the sick and the poor. Some asshole got nailed to a tree because he was in favor of that. I feel that's probably too good for the opponents... but if they survived and got tetanus, at least their stigmata wouldn't disqualify them from being insured, as a pre-existing condition.

Comments

[ivy]

I am deeply creeped out to think of my good health as an economic asset that I must maintain because I owe someone money. Making that my legal obligation is a terrifying step towards depersonalization -- it's on the road to "well, you have to take care of our asset" where the asset is me. No no no no no. So I am in favor of health care being available to everyone, but I think this is utterly the wrong argument for it.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I don't deny that it's a creepy, crappy way to frame the conversation; I don't think that it is, fundamentally, the best way to frame it, but I don't think it's entirely divorced from the raft of factors that went into getting the ACA assembled and passed.

I think that that might have been part of the meta-argument that was made to get the insurance companies' buy-in, because the full-fat "fuck you" of a single-payer plan - Medicaid for the entire citezenry who wants it - was unpalatable, and engendered the strident (if misapplied) cries of "socialism!"

I think the truth falls somewhere towards the more-palatable end of the creepy spectrum of that particular line of reasoning. It's predicated less on the ability of newly-insured citizens to be good little consumers and debt-accruers, and is more a matter of "prevention is cheaper than cure," especially when it comes to medical costs. It's a lot cheaper to teach people about healthy cholesterol levels, for instance, than it is to perform X coronary bypass surgeries, Y heart transplants, and spend $Z billion on Lipitor and the like.... but the cheap fix doesn't put dollar signs in businesses' eyes and ledger sheets nearly as evidently as not losing employee productivity to illness or lethargy or recovery, or decreased work capacity due to side effects or other limitations - those are far squishier, subjective costs... and they're smaller numbers.

It's the "beauty industry" argument, writ more meaningfully - if there's nobody telling everyone they're ugly and smell bad, the beauty industry doesn't make money. If people are generally healthier, the medical and pharmaceutical industries don't make as much money. You can see why they would be reluctant to see even the watered-down ACA go into practice using that line of reasoning.

I am, personally, very much in favor of universal health care, and don't believe that the ACA went far enough, I have some misgivings about the individual mandate, though not for the creepy argument I made in my original post, but because I'm not comfortable with the government compelling specific action... but, a realization I had today - I am more-OK with government policies that keep people alive (if that is their choice). Health care, education, gun control - these things demonstrably keep people from dying.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Mebbe it's a little less creepy to think of it this way. It's not the health that you have to maintain for the good of society, it's the responsibility not to just walk away from the debt once what secures it is gone. House burns down, car wrecks, debt's still there, but the required insurance is what pays it off. In the case of health care, what the insurance isn't providing isn't the treatment or "good health", it's the making the debt go away, in the case of your body being wrecked and burned down. There's no way to recover the expenses incurred in treating your burned ass if you fail to pull through or are too old to earn enough to make it, unless you're someone with a large estate to leave behind. Small stuff, the health equivalent of paint dings and cracked windshield, you may not even bother dealing with the insurance over for your car. Same with health insurance (co pays, deductables). They're manageable debts. Stroke followed by 2 months in ICU and 2 years of rehab? You're never paying that off. The insurance is protecting the local hospital from eating your 7-figure debt.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Well analogied. :-)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

You were the one who recommended "The Unincorporated Man" to me, once upon a sometime, I believe? (I still haven't read the sequels)... your comment evoked its conceit, intentionally or otherwise.

[jade-kadir.livejournal.com]

I'm not one for corporal punishment on children per say, but if the House wants to act like a bunch of toddlers throwing a hissy fit, then they need one hell of a spanking.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

ad foxium

That just made my day. Thank you, sir.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I couldn't think of a more apt shorthand for willful pursuit and dissemination of ill-informed misinformation, and intentional avoidance of contrary facts.