The Health Care Difference
While it may have been unintentional, a quote in New York magazine helps make the point I have been trying to make about universal health care (HT: John Scalzi)
"With universal [health care], you’d get the same kind of mediocre shittiness that you’d get in all other kinds of standardized approaches. But for millions of people, that would be a big upgrade."
Americans are unbelievably charitable people, to the extent that they will put up with a lot of taxation and even losses of freedoms through government coercion to help people out.
However, in nearly every other case of government-coerced charity, the main effect is "just" an increase in taxes. Lyndon Johnson wants to embark on a futile attempt to try to provide public housing to the poor? Our taxes go up, a lot of really bad housing is built, but at least my housing did not get any worse. Ditto food programs -- the poor might get some moldy cheese from a warehouse, but my food did not get worse. Ditto welfare. Ditto social security, unemployment insurance,and work programs.
But health care is different. The author above is probably correct that some crappy level of terribly run state health care will probably be an improvement for some of the poor. But what is different about many of the health care proposals on the table is that everyone, not just the poor will get this same crappy level of treatment. It would be like a public housing program where everyone's house is torn down and every single person must move into public housing. That is universal state-run health care. Ten percent of America gets pulled up, 90% of America gets pulled down, possibly way down.
I don't think most Americans really know what they are signing up for. Which is why it is so important for health care socialists to have people like Michael Moore running around trying to convince the middle class they will be getting better health care. Because there is almost no possibility of this being true, and health care proposals will never pass if people realize it.
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