... for the same reason that R’s are opposing the stimulus package - it is in their best interest for the Obama administration to be a failure and for things to collapse.  The question is why they’re trying to derail ANY action on health care instead of watering down existing legislation so that it doesn’t work (see stimulus, the).  It’s critical for Dems to take action and for the actions to fail - it’s the only way for Republicans to re-seize power (grr… bad government, bad!).  Ultimately, why are moderate / conservative Dems backing Republican moves?  If they live in conservative districts, selling out the Democratic party is not going to be in their best interest when they are a prime target in 2010 and onward.

I think the American resistance to universal health care stems from the same syndrome that has lower middle class people supporting tax cuts for the rich.  Middle class Americans stuck with flawed health insurance policies are holding out hope for the day when they can afford high end health care.  So, better to oppose sensible health policies (that will probably restrict the higher end of health services) that improve health care for everyone in the long run so you can maybe someday benefit from an experimental treatment that governmental health care wouldn’t cover.

And the even more ridiculous thing is that rich people will still be able to purchase better medical care for themselves under a universal system, even if it comes down to traveling to private clinics in Mexico or Costa Rica.

The whole thing reminds me of an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher.  Ian McKellen was one of the guests and he suggested some completely reasonable course of action the U.S. government should take.  Maher immediately corrected him and said something like “No, no, this is America.  We don’t do sensible.”

I get why Republicans are doing it.  Why is the media so complicit with blatant immorality?  What do they get out of it?

A lot of people in this country want those who fail to make a lot of money to suffer, because they like the idea of a world with winners and losers where they are a winner.  Where’s the sting of losing without the risk of dying for want of $20 in antibiotics?  Where’s the fun of winning when doing so doesn’t make you inherently better than the losers?

I have ms. I have family members who do not believe in universal health because why should they pay for others out of their own pocket? When I tell them that I cannot afford most of meds (one has a $300.00 monthly deductible) and will probably die sooner; they really have no response but sympathy and say well, of course, the really sick and poor (I had to quit my being a lawyer) should get some relief (not all relief). They really don’t think others are deserving. It is just that simple.

And I won’t even get into the fact that their religious belief (Christian) would contradict their aversion to helping the poor and sick.

Because most of the fuckers in the elite media have never been without it and can’t see beyond the orbit of their own asses to recognize just how fucked up the system is for a lot of people in this country.

Well, as far as the media being complicit-many of them have deeply internalized the GOP meme that the mainstream media is indeed liberal, and try to bend over backwards to appear even handed. Even handed, in this case, tends to mean accepting what Rs say and not really caring what the D response is.

Journalists are also afraid that if they act as more than mere stenographers, their access to public officials will be cut off.

Finally, I have a gut feeling that many journalists and media celebrities really aren’t that bright, and are unable to ask really penetrating questions.

Anyone who’s getting significant time on television or space in a newspaper is in the tank, with a very few exceptions. Not because they’re bad people, necessarily, but because that’s why they got their jobs. And as long as the conventional wisdom is set by the insurance companies and the big medical conglomerates, every member of the public is goig to hear that universal health care is too expensive, too complicated for the government to administer, tortures puppies and kittens and so forth.

What’s weird is how relatively recent this wingnuttery is. In my mother’s time (and she was by no means a liberal) it was taken as a given that setting up well-financed free clinics and insulating everyone from catastrophic health-care costs was by far the best way to run an economy. Now, 30 years later, the idea that we should have anything but a crazy quilt of rationing depending on what some review officer at your HMO thinks that day or how much you have in reportable assets seems anathema.

Because we like to think we have the Best of All Possible Societies, and to admit that “hey, maybe this universal health care thing would be a good idea” is to admit that we can get good ideas from outside our borders.

Judging from the same episode of Colbert, which featured the massive ass-kissing of Rush Limbaugh that the republicans seem to be doing for whatever ungodly reasons, I’m going to guess ratings/money.  Murdoch skewed the media to the right, probably because that’s how he was inclined anyway but mostly because doing so created an niche market that turned out to be fantastically profitable.  Republicans got savvy about manipulating the media and the republicans and the media have had this symbiosis thing going on for quite some time since.  Now the republicans are flailing and the media’s just doing what it knows and hoping it goes back.  The republicans are hoping that as long as the media does so, they can get that Bush-era truthiness power back.  Both sides are probably a little too optimistic about what’s left in that relationship for either of them.

What does the media get? Ratings. Obama promised universal healthcare, and reporting on his ‘failings’....well, that’s a big story. Even if it’s not true….the truth doesn’t always get big ratings…so….if you stretch the net far enough you’ll catch more fishies.

From a a certain RW perspective: Alot of health care problems are caused by activities the poor and uneducated engage in—smoking, eating the wrong foods, etc. And if you “sin” by eating the wrong foods and smoking and not having a job that provides health care,  then you deserve to suffer. It’s a passive-aggressive way of “othering.”

Why do the media propagate deranged right-wing memes? Our current crop of box-wine-chardonnay-swilling pig-sphincter-wienie-gobbling cocktail party “journalist” fuck-ups!?!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!! These motherfuckers have had their brains dissolved by decades of bowing and scraping to the right wing. After their complete abdication of every single professional responsibility they possessed over the last eight years, it is beyond me why anyone trusts these assholes to report anything more important than kindergarten performances of I’m A Little Motherfucking Teapot!

But to answer your question about the media, have you noticed the number of pharma ads running on TV? NHC will not prob cover Viagra and all those made-up boomer “distress” diseases those pill-popper pills are designed to cure.

There are too many not understood things like rationing boards and limiting doctors choices in med school and dozens of other items (from the HillaryCare plan) that cause people to glaze over.

Uh, what health care plan do you have now that is not rationed out to you by your insurance company?  I have very good health insurance, but there’s plenty of rationing going on, like when I have to see my PCP to get a referral to see a specialist.  Some people here in California are being rationed right out of having healthcare at all when Blue Cross decides that cancer patients are just too expensive to care for and yanks their insurance in the middle of chemo.

Same with medical school.  Right now, plenty of doctors have limited choices about their specialty because they have crippling medical school bills that they’re going to have to start paying after graduation, so they choose high-paying specialties like plastic surgery to try and get those paid off.  Without that artificial limit on doctors’ choices, you probably would have more people choosing internal medicine and other relatively low-paying specialties on their own because they wouldn’t have to worry about being burdened with $200,000+ in debt for the next 20 years.

Why is it completely normal for an insurance company to ration healthcare but horrible and evil for the government to do the exact same thing?

I think Maureen has a good angle: Not Invented Here

This covers all sorts of things, like universal healthcare, a decent social safety net, concern for the environment, high mileage cars, fast trains, public transit in cities, etc.

We say “America is the last developed nation on earth to deal with this problem!”

Too many Americans and their media overlords see it as “America is the only developed nation to avoid falling into the fatal trap of socialism that would require taxing Americans and giving away healthcare to lazy, unproductive leeches on society!”

Sad…

Silly Mnemosyne. Corporations good, government evil. That’s as fundamental a principle of political thought as four legs good, two legs bad.

At first glance the idea of rationing by “free market” seems to make sense—we’ve all been taught that efficient markets are, if not the best allocators of scarce resources, at least better than all the other plausible methods. But any closer look makes it clear that markets in health care are chock full of all the characteristics that economists know make for inefficient markets: asymmetric information, huge disparities in bargaining power, difficulty in measuring product quality, opaque organizational structures that encourage self-dealing, difficulties in capturing the full cost or benefit of certain goods or services, regulatory capture and so forth. So it’s really Hobson’s Free Market, only you’re not free to opt out.

Who is this troll? New one, or just old one with new name?

Well, Amanda and other folks, I don’t want to sound too fringy on this, but this is very well explained by Chomsky’s propaganda model. I have a few reservations about it myself, but it does predict the the media behavior that you and people in general find so strange.

This is a short video of Chomsky answering part of your question

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8dvF7BUCaiI

It goes something like this:

Most of us are under the impression that Americans are opposed to health care, but this is not true. Joe the Plumber does not, in fact, represent popular opinions on this, and there has been wide popular support for universal health care in the U.S. for a long time. Hard to believe? Well, in a hurry I could only find links for recent polls. Anyway, Chomsky is usually very thorough, so I imagine he has older references in articles or books.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/15715 .
http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/poll-shows-many-republicans-favor-universal-healthcare-gays-in-military-2007-06-28.html

Most of the corporate media doesn’t make health care an issue (this is the fringy part) because it is in the interest of the corporations that are their sponsors, advertisers, etc. The clients of corporate media are not the public, but the advertisers. The public is in fact the product the media offers to advertisers. So, in general, what is reported in the media is more aligned with the interests of the corporations (like pharmaceuticals or insurance companies) that pay for the advertising than with the public. There is some elbow room, but the debate of what is “politically possible” is severely constrained.

The fact that health care entered the public arena so recently is due, argues Chomsky, to the fact that some businesses were actually being hurt by the absence of universal health care.

I’m not sure I completely agree with Chomsky on this, but you certainly can’t argue that the results fit very well.

The free market considers humans to be fungible.  That’s why it’s unethical to use it to ration healthcare resources.

The insurance industry has to be destroyed.  They suck millions and millions out of healthcare b/c they are hugely profitable.  How do you make a profit in healthcare?  Not by charging reasonable premiums and negotiating costs.  By preventing healthcare.  If you deny expensive procedures and drop expensive patients, you get to keep more money.

It’s why we spend more money per capita on healthcare and have shit rates of infant mortality and life expectancy.  Oh, and teen pregnancy, since we are quite willing to ignore the science and medicine involved in that and slut-shame the girls instead of giving them information or access to BC.

The only reason we are really getting a look at universal healthcare is that it is costing corporations money that they don’t pay in other parts of the world.  And they’re right, your employer should not be responsible for your health care.

Big Pharma and the Insurance industry are pushing back, b/c they know they are the problem and they aren’t giving up their amazing profits just so people don’t have to die. 

This is general welfare, and is best done by a single payer, nationalized system.  But try to see anyone really explain that to the masses.  It’s all “getting between you and your doctor”  “Rationing healthcare”  “waiting to see a doctor” nonsense THAT ALREADY HAPPENS EVEN TO THOSE OF US WITH GOOD INSURANCE.

It’s a fucked up system and it needs a big time solution.  A for-profit market solution won’t work, and if you can’t fix it by cutting taxes or directing huge tax dollars to cronies at big corporations, then Republicans won’t talk about it.  The media gets its talking points from the GOP, b/c for some reason they actually believe Murdoch and Ailes ridiculous “Liberal MSM” talking point.

X-Rays came from Germany.

The electrocardiograph came from the Netherlands.

Penicillin came from Britain.

Pacemakers came from Australia.

If we had to rely only on medical technology invented here, we’d be screwed.

Why limit our medical policy this way?

Forgot to say: if you want to know more about this and are willing to invest some time, there is a GREAT documentary on frontline about alternative models of health care. It’s not just Europeans that have a better model, it is virtually every developed country in the world. By better I mean cheaper AND with better results. Check out South Korea and Japan, which are arguably better than european models.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

A DKos diarist who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around the start of the year died. His last diary is worth the reading:

All i ask is that, when you can, remember that he needs our support for the big things, so perhaps we should be more patient and forgiving on the small. The fight against universal healthcare will be vicious. The medical industry will get out all guns, and the Repubs will lap it up.

That is why we need Obama. So when you are angered by a small thing in the future, remember the big things. Remember those people in the waiting room, who all will probably be dead when the program is finally introduced. Remember me and remember my plea. The stakes are too high. It literally means life and death, for all those people who will be in the waiting rooms in the future.

Please, don’t take our eye off the ball.

You know, isn’t it fascinating how 100% of anti-health care trolls are also racist fuckwits?  It’s almost like they’re just making up bullshit about socialism to cover for their real source of anger, which is the fear that Other People will get away with health, which should be a luxury reserved for white, well-off people.

The fact that health care entered the public arena so recently is due, argues Chomsky, to the fact that some businesses were actually being hurt by the absence of universal health care.

This is dead on.  The only reason we’re being given any shot at this at all is because the biggest corporations are chafing at having to provide health benefits to American workers.  Wal*mart has it figured out and doesn’t hire anyone full time and holds seminars teaching its underpaid employees how to work the public aid system.

Other large corporations need skilled labor, and can’t get away with mostly part-time benefit-less employees.  They are the ones pushing for something so that they can be health benefit cost free as well.

Big Pharma and the insurance agency will push back hard.  They know that all they do is suck money out of the system and put it in their pockets.  Every “Jesus” of profit is money that was not spent on medicine or physicians.

It’s only b/c the biggest global corps want out of paying for healthcare that we’re being given an option, and we’d better not fuck it up this time.

nimed- it’s only fringey because they say so loudly and often.  It’s part of the narrative construct. 

I think you and Roxanne are absolutely right on this… it’s not too much of a stretch to see a direct line between advertising dollars and industry-friendly reporting.

Are we the richest nation in the world, or aren’t we? If we are, then we should be able to provide medical coverage to everyone without subjecting them to crippling debts.

If it turns out we’re a poor country that can’t handle keeping up this infrastructure that other, apparently wealthier, countries can, then fine: I understand. But don’t start telling me about “American exceptionalism” or about the glories of the American economy.

also—as a side note, after watching the Colbert clip, I am struck with the sense that his final punchline—basically that a Bush appointee would not have been held accountable to this same level—is more perversely true than I had previously thought.  Is it a sad commentary on the state of affairs that the first thing I thought upon hearing about Daschle’s tax problems was “Yeah?  So? It’s not like he took a giant dump on the constitution or anything…”

But then again, maybe I’m just a liberal partisan apologist…  :p

The MEDIA is complicit in the derailment and general denigration of Universal Health Care for a couple of reasons:

#1 Republican memes are easier to echo in sound bites because the corporate controlled media is not interested in actually researching and presenting data in a fair-minded way because it isn’t snappy. Okay, maybe Campbell Brown and Anderson Cooper are intelligent enough to wrap their brains around the issues present, but most media personalities are not interested/invested in researching or learning about the issues in order to do them justice and the producers want the profit making noise machine that freaks out about shark attacks and missing white women.

#2 Most individuals in the mainstream media—including the interns who have rich parents paying for their privilege to intern—are not in touch with what it means to live an average American life. Just watch a fashion show for kids on the View in which $200 outfits are presented as reasonable for a five year old and where segments on saving for college never mention that only 25% of the US is college educated. These people produce the news for themselves, their friends, and the stereotypes of suburban blandom their familiar with—they don’t get that perfectly middle-class people are actually losing their homes and life-savings over an illness (because they don’t know anyone who isn’t upper class but who thinks their middle-class). Class class class—theme here. I come from the upper-middle class (though the non-profit job I have now certainly kicks me down to lower-middle, academic class) and I feel alienated by their ridiculous measures of normalacy (which is probably only representative of the top 10 percent of income earners, excluding the outliers of multi-billion dollar fortunes).

#3 The Liberal Media is on as Liberal as the Conservative Corporations that Own IT. In other words, the Viagra adds sell too well and who wants to mess up a profitable system and source of advertising income.

The media, is in sum, an asshole.

The old Hillary plan didn’t let you choose what specialty you wanted. It assigned you from day one. You are going to be a proctologist, or you are not going to be a doctor. Next student!

Private insurance was to be banned, and doctors faced criminal charges if they accepted cash for services. Receipe for black market health care again.

Do I even have to say for anyone here that Bosworth has made it achingly clear that he never even bothered to read the Hillarycare plan and got all of his talking points from Rush Limbaugh?

I didn’t think so.

Also, that he allowed his bizarre fear of castration override a reasonable desire to have health care.  It’s amazing how the specter of a strong woman will, over and over again, completely fry a good deal of brains so thoroughly.  I’m sure if Limbaugh told him, “Hillary Clinton would HATE it if you shot yourself and she couldn’t have your testicles,” he’d have to be put on suicide watch.

Sara Robinson’s piece on the Canadian system pointed to the Calvinistic bullshit that usually comes from the fuck-the-sick brigade:

The philosophical basis of America’s privatized health care system might best be characterized as medical Calvinism. It’s fascinating to watch well-educated secularists who recoil at the Protestant obsession with personal virtue, prosperity as a cardinal sign of election by God, and total responsibility for one’s own salvation turn into fire-eyed, moralizing True Believers when it comes to the subject of Taking Responsibility For One’s Own Health…

The virtuous Elect can be discerned by their svelte figures and low cholesterol numbers. From here, it’s a short leap to the conviction that those who suffer from chronic conditions are victims of their own weaknesses, and simply getting what they deserve. Part of their punishment is being forced to pay for the expensive, heavily marketed pharmaceuticals needed to alleviate these avoidable illnesses. They can’t complain. It was their own damned fault; and it’s not our responsibility to pay for their sins. In fact, it’s recently been suggested that they be shunned, lest they lead the virtuous into sin.

For certain elements of the right, the suffering of the uninsured sick is a way to feel personally virtuous. If access to care empowers others, it must disempower them. And for some, it probably would: for one, shitty bosses can no longer blackmail their employees (‘if you don’t like it, leave’ alternates with ‘if you want healthcare, get a job’).

Amanda:  The media is complicit because of how their paychecks are signed.  That’s why most reporters these days are extremely dense, because those are the folks who are getting hired and promoted.

*some* corporations are concerned about the health care issues.  Most of them are corps with serious legacy costs.

Other corps *like* this situation because of the greater sense of control.

The book to read for understanding is Paul Starr’s The Social Tranformation of American Medicine.

Mainstream media is leery of health care reforms.
Mainstream media makes how much money per annum running ads for insurance companies and, much more, for pharmacueticals?

I think there’s probably a connection.

There’s no question that media mostly owned and operated by republicans are going to do everything they can to derail this administration.

That said, already, just a couple out of the gate Obama has shown a foolish hesitancy to take strong positions on the things that got him elected.  Of course, an utterly spineless, stupid and craven congress isn’t helping but it’s also Obama’s failure to get in front of the cameras and ask the simple questions.  Why isn’t our president asking why the stimulus had to be neutered to be passed through one house?  Where is the demand for an immediate national health care plan?  These are long term programs but the need for each is clear and immediate.

It’s time to get pissed Mr. President.  Do something.

Obama has shown a foolish hesitancy to take strong positions on the things that got him elected.

He’s doing just about what he said he would do: start bringing people together to find good solutions on both sides of the aisle, trying to depolarize the country by ensuring Republicans feel like they’ll be listened to, rather than demonized, and getting the USA out of Iraq. Were you expecting him to be anything other than what he said he was?

It is horrible and evil for either entity to have to do it.

Another Libertarian who can’t grasp the concept of economies of scale.

Bosworth, this isn’t the bloody 19th century of the small town, when you did all your shopping at the general store and went to kindly Doc Smith for every ailment. Nor is it the 19th century of the company town (the one you really long for), when you did all your shopping at your employer’s store and went to Doc Lowbidcontractor for every ailment (what, you thought you would be the employer? Too funny).

As for an answer to the question about the MSM, Thealogian @10:21PM is spot-on. I expand on it a little in the John Denver czar thread above, but Thealogian’s answer goes to the core issues.

Amanda in the South Bay:

*Sob*  I am a mere stenographer.  I think I do a better job of reporting the facts as they are than the MSM.  You hurt me :(

I’ve just about concluded that this country is too fucking stupid to survive. I really hope that my daughter (now a HS junior) can find a way to make a life for herself in a more civilized part of the world after she gets out of college.

No matter how much this nation is hurting for universal health care, and no matter how popular the plan to make sure everyone is covered will be, the media’s going to make sure that Democrats are misled into believing that it’s a fight they can’t win and shouldn’t even try. So the question I have for Pandagonians is this: Why?

Because the unexamined assumption the media, and too many Americans, interpret the world by is that society exists for the purpose of corporate profits, rather than corporate profits being a tool for the benefit of the wider society.

The free market is not a force of nature, not a god, not a given, and not necessarily the default assumption.  It is a tool, a good tool, but just a tool.  It should be assessed against alternatives, and its limitations should be kept in mind. Other countries don’t regard the word “socialism” as as distasteful as “copraphagia” - but Americans have been conditioned to do so.

It’s a newer, gentler slavery.  They don’t have to buy and sell you; they just have to persuade you that you are primarily commodities, and you buy and sell yourselves.  A commodity that doesn’t pay its way, that breaks and costs more to repair than it is worth, should be scrapped.

Steve LaBonne, I wouldn’t go that far, but I think now is the time to tell your kids, “get a good job and become a successful professional” rather than “follow your dream, and things will work out!” I’ve always thought that one can judge a nation’s policies by how well the large swath of work-a-day employees are able to live. Obviously, the US is placing itself in a situation where the life of those workers might not be so great, but the solution for your kids isn’t necessarily for them to leave but make sure that they’re in a good professional position to deal with what the economy is going to support and reward. Granted, if you want to follow your dream of a career in film, you might find more stability (and health insurance) in Vancouver than in Hollywood. But you can stay in the US if you make sure not to take any risks and plan with the assumption that anything other than being “on top” of the professional pyramid is something to be avoided.

So, because President Obama appointed former Senator Daschle to be Secretary of Health & Human Services, and White House “health care tsar,” and you think we should have universal health care coverage, it shouldn’t matter that he cheated on his taxes?  What, do you think that there is no competant Democrat available for this job who paid all of his taxes?

Mr Daschle said that he first figured out his problem last June.  If he was telling the truth on that, why did he allow himself to be considered for a confiration-required post?  It’s not like he wasn’t around when Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood and Linda Chavez were all shot down because they hadn’t paid all of their taxes.

But you can stay in the US if you make sure not to take any risks and plan with the assumption that anything other than being “on top” of the professional pyramid is something to be avoided.

Land of the free and home of the brave.  *snork*

Land of the free and home of the brave.

This is actually the funny thing about those screaming “socialism” at the prospect of universal health coverage. To a large degree, our lack of assurance of health coverage (and other attempts at dismantling the safety net) means that we are less free—we are tied to our jobs and have less ability to determine our own destiny, start business, etc., than we would otherwise.

Tyro, that’s sound advice as far as it goes, but it’s also the same advice I would give to my child if we lived in a viciously class-bound developing country such as India. I used to think America was better than that…

I agree with you Steve—our country is like India in many ways. I think there’s also more room for success in the USA within that particular framework than there is in India. I know—we should aim higher, but at a certain point it’s worth it to stop buying into the myths and start to consider your options.

One of the reasons that Limbaugh is getting so vicious is that Obama’s promises of bipartisanship and less polarization strike directly at Limbaugh’s meal ticket, which is entirely driven by polarization.  The essence of a less polarized politics would be the marginalization of people like Limbaugh.

If things go well for liberals the Limbaughs of the right will circle the wagons ever closer until they eventually implode in some spectacular fashion.  I think Limbaugh bears close watching - he’s survived two scandalous episodes (Oxycontin and Viagra).  I have no doubt that there is some horrible thing lurking about him that if exposed would send the Nazi Gasbag down in flames once and for all.

So, because President Obama appointed former Senator Daschle to be Secretary of Health & Human Services, and White House “health care tsar,” and you think we should have universal health care coverage, it shouldn’t matter that he cheated on his taxes?

No, it shouldn’t. It’s a bit embarrassing, like finding out Daschle’s secret shoe fetish, but it doesn’t actually impact his ability to do the HHS job, so who gives a fuck?

It would be different if he was nominated to Treasury or head of the IRS or something, but he wasn’t.

Now, if you want to argue that Daschle’s cozy relations with large medical corporations should disqualify his from HHS, I’d be right with you on that argument. If you want to say that keeping this secret when he should have known what a political liability it would be shows tremendously bad judgment, I could even see the logic behind that. But the tax evasion itself? Irrelevant to the job.

“Bipartisanship” is not a virtue.  “Consensus” is.  We can have consensus without bipartisanship—in fact, historically, we have.

Why is it completely normal for an insurance company to ration healthcare but horrible and evil for the government to do the exact same thing?

There’s nothing at all wrong with rationing. Indeed, given that a) our demands/wants are infinite and b) our resources are limited, some kind of rationing is absolutely necessary if we don’t want to see said resource consumed completely. The real matter of controversy is upon what basis resources should be rationed. Prices are exceedingly good at this. That’s why you rarely see empty shelves at the supermarket. Prices are the most affective way for consumers and producers to communicate with each other regarding which goods and services are desired, and in what quantities. Removing that information from the system and replacing it with arbitrary political dictates about what (and how much) should be produced causes serious misallocation of resources.

And that doesn’t even get into what would motivates production decisions when made by politicians. It’s unlikely that such decisions would be rooted in actual demand, or in this case, even in science. Far more likely, what services get produced would be dictated by whatever hobbyhorse is currently obsessing the party in power.

CTD, all well and good assuming that your health (or life) is a consumer good.

Tyro,
One of the primary reasons the health care system is so dysfunctional is that people like to pretend the rules that apply to every other good and service don’t apply to it, as well.

That all depends on WHICH rules you’re talking about. The rule that resources are finite and must therefore be allocated in some way, yes.  The rules that apply to a consumer market, NO. Sick people are not in a position to shop for health care they way they would shop for a car.

Furthermore, the health care market includes players with very different and sometimes diametrically opposing incentives. Insurance companies profit by providing less care; doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies profit by providing more care (whether it’s needed or not). Patients need the RIGHT amount of the RIGHT kind of care- but do not have the expertise to determine what that is.

...the media’s going to make sure that Democrats are misled into believing that it’s a fight they can’t win and shouldn’t even try.

The media and whomever else out there has an agenda that the kind of healthcare people desperately need isn’t going to fit into.

By which I mean- we STILL DO NOT KNOW who ANTHRAXED Tom Daschle- or the other people who were hit. STILL. Does this not terrify anyone else?

The real matter of controversy is upon what basis resources should be rationed. Prices are exceedingly good at this.

Only in the event of no market failures, and an alignment of market outcomes with real social good, CTD.

However with medical care, you have information asymmetry (doctors and patients, insurers and clients), an agent/principal gap (insurers vs clients), a crowding out effect for insurance, often a single provider for emergency care. Not to mention the problem that an unequal society leads to some dying from lack of treatment while others are paying for breast enhancements and ass lifts.

Not to mention that the country which most worships the magic of the health care market is precisely one that pays by far the most for health care,  and gets very incomplete coverage and very substandard public-health outcomes in return. Coincidence? Hardly.

The real matter of controversy is upon what basis resources should be rationed. Prices are exceedingly good at this.

Expanding on what Phoenician said.  Prices are good at crowding people out of the market, which is fine if you’re talking about unessential goods and services, especially if those goods and services don’t affect the public at large.  However, the current “rationing” we have completely denies medicine to some while giving excessive medicine to others.  It also doesn’t guarantee rational pricing.  Cosmetic procedures tend to go down in price over the long term, because it’s not a service that’s necessary.  The free market works here because patients can shop around or forego the service entirely, forcing cosmetic practitioners to lower prices when possible to draw in customers.  People can’t choose to do without essential services.

Access to health care is a public good.  By failing to offer basic services at a reasonable cost or no cost, we’re begging for a public health crisis.  Take the chronically homeless as one example.  Chronically homeless people often suffer from diseases that have been effectively wiped out in the general population.  If we see a surge in MDR or XDR tuberculosis in this country, you can bet it generated from the homeless population.  Public health officials are already finding tuberculosis among the homeless and by leaving them with few or no health care options, we’re letting the situation fester.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that health and medicine is a personal matter.  Your health can be adversely affected by the inability of poor people to obtain basic treatment.

I get why Republicans are doing it.  Why is the media so complicit with blatant immorality?

Because the media is always complicit with whatever line the Republicans feel like pushing this week, because the media is completely on the side of Republicans.