It’s not (at least, not entirely) that I feel compelled to respond to this particular bullshit:
You guys ever stop whining and crying? Ewww. Every time Auguste posts you can see the tears flowing.
It’s that I hope that people who are not as perniciously selfish as Libertarian are not inadvertantly drawing the conclusion he’s jumping to. In other words, I’m hoping that the rhetorical weakness I’m about to cop to, the one he was able to exploit, isn’t leaving more well-meaning types with a bad taste in their mouth.
I’m pissed about my personal situation. I don’t particularly enjoy dropping the first 1/5 of my income into a massive well of disallowed charges and 20% coinsurance. But, as I said, that situation is going to change soon. And yet I still posted about it.
Why is that? Is it because I’m so injured, so oppressed by the fact that I worked until March 20th this year before I paid off my yearly health insurance premiums* that, even though I’m about to experience serious financial relief, I still had to burden you all with my terrible, personal tragedy?
No. I posted because I’m not the only one. You see, unlike some people, progressives generally tend to see past their own circumstances to what those circumstances imply about society in general.
I make a good living, frankly. I mean, there are a lot of medical bills to contend with, but they’re not prohibitive. I work in a job I like, live in a neighborhood I like, never worry about food or clothing. I do that, because I am lucky enough to be able to contend with a 20% hit to my gross. And that’s what I tried to get across, with the implied understanding that a lot of people - most people - absolutely cannot contend with such a hit, in addition to their taxes**. And the implied understanding is the rhetorical weakness I referred to. Because, despite the fact that I’ve been doing this blogging thing for a long time, I forget - seriously, I do! - that there are readers out there so crippled by their own moral bankruptcy that they are not able to extrapolate to such a conclusion.
There are people who read about a blogger who is giving the insurance companies money as fast as they can take it, and do not automatically realize the broader implications of such an anecdote. Who don’t immediately consider that such a thing acutely helps explain where 47 million uninsured might come from: Not laziness, not irresponsibility, but the inability to spare 20% of gross or more. Who don’t immediately think “Well, maybe there’s something in the argument that universal health care is the only way to make sure we don’t continue to lose 28,000 people a year simply because they can’t afford to stay alive.”
I forget that, and it takes comments like Libertarian’s to remind me, even if Libertarian himself isn’t worth the energy it took to write this post. Because just maybe some of the people I described above wouldstop thinking that way, if only they can find an anecdote that breaks through.
* See, Libertarians? Liberals can do the “Tax Freedom day” routine, too.
** And yes, a public option will raise taxes, to an extent. They won’t raise them 20%. Feel free to not trot out that as a counter-argument, thanks.
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One thing that falls flat with the whole “they want me to pay for their healthcare” bullshit is the false implication that “public option = free healthcare”.
Not even remotely true. Some people who take the public option - the poorest people out there - will have the cost of their healthcare fully subsidized by taxpayer money. However, for most of the people who decide to take the public option, they’ll still be required to pay a premium and deductibles, only the premiums and deductibles will actually be affordable and the option will be good enough that people won’t have to treat it as “to be used in case of emergency only” coverage, as is the case for many who currently have private insurance, but can’t afford the outrageous out-of-pocket costs associated with it.
The public option is not, and will never be, “free healthcare for everybody”. I have no idea how people got that into their minds, but it is not true. It is an alternative affordable (not free) option to what we currently have now. If you have an income that is decent, and you want to take the public option, you will be expected to pay some money out of your own pocket, assuming your income is high enough that you can afford to do so. But you won’t be financially crippled by the out of pocket costs, and you won’t have to make a choice between eating for the next month and getting that lump examined.
It is also the only means to true healthcare reform. I desperately hope that Congress and the White House wakes up to this reality, because if they don’t they could be committing political suicide. Don’t take away the public option and give me a mandate to buy private health insurance, because that will only make the situation worse, and it will probably guarantee a one-term presidency for Barack Obama.
And to channel Barney Frank for a moment, trying to debate healthcare reform with a libretardian is like trying to argue with a dining room table.