Mar 23 2010

Everybody minding everybody’s business: uniquely un-American

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 8:35 am

Why America Hates Universal Health Care: The Real Reason
You should click the link and read the whole thing, but here’s the gist:  (warning…  at the link there are a couple of photos you may find obscene, but they make crucial points)

Not all ailments are equal.

• Blame: the final taboo

A built-in false assumption with the health-care debate is that sickness is always no-fault sickness. It’s never socially acceptable to assign blame for people’s medical problems, especially blame on the patient.

But I’m not afraid to confess that I’m a judgmental person. And I’m pretty confident that most Americans who oppose socialized medicine share this same judgment: that some people are partly or entirely to blame for their unwellness.

I’m perfectly willing to provide subsidized health care to people who are suffering due to no fault of their own. But in those cases, which, unfortunately, constitute perhaps a majority of all cases, where the unwellness is a consequence of the patient’s own misdeeds, bad habits, or stupid choices, I feel a deep-seated resentment that the rest of us should pick up the tab to fix medical problems that never should have happened in the first place.

I’m speaking specifically of medical problems caused by:

• Obesity
• Cigarette smoking
• Alcohol abuse
• Reckless behavior
• Criminal activity
• Unprotected promiscuous sex
• Use of illicit drugs
• Cultural traditions
• Bad diets

Now, I really don’t care if you overeat, smoke like a chimney, hump like a bunny or forget to lock the safety mechanism on your pistol as you jam it in your waistband. Fine by me. And as a laissez-faire social-libertarian live-and-let-live kind of person, I would never under normal circumstances condemn anyone for any of the behaviors listed above. That is: Until the bill for your stupidity shows up in my mailbox. Then suddenly, I’m forced to care about what you do, because I’m being forced to pay for the consequences.

This article is worth reading completely (click the link above). It will challenge anyone who thinks we should just “spread the cost” among all of us for the medical care of all of us… and in particular, why this is a uniquely un-American idea (and ideal, for that matter).

So take the risk, if you’re a universal health-care true believer, and read it all.

Then keep in mind that I’m going to have my nose at LEAST as deep in your business as yours will be in mine, if universal health care really does become a reality in the USA.

Think you wouldn’t like living under Sharia law?  Just wait until every decision you make involving recreation, diet, transportation, you name it, is being second-guessed by self-important bureaucratic functionaries watching the bottom line cost of your healthcare.

One Response to “Everybody minding everybody’s business: uniquely un-American”

  1. Mike C says:

    “Then keep in mind that I’m going to have my nose at LEAST as deep in your business as yours will be in mine, if universal health care really does become a reality in the USA.”

    You already do. I and everyone in my vehicle have to wear seatbelts. Also, where I live, we have to wear helmets to ride (motorcycles, bikes, and soon, skis and snowboards. Incrementalism doesn’t follow Zeno’s paradox, it depends on it. There is no end.

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