There is a very compelling case to be made for pure capitalism, even in the case of health care. Strip away all the emotional pleas, short-sighted humanitarian concerns, and political rhetoric. Contemplate the increasingly crowded state of the planet and its ever-diminishing resources. With just those cold, hard considerations, there is a case to be made that capitalism is the only thing that can save us. If everyone lived to a ripe old age, we would be in more serious trouble than we already are. Our survival depends upon a death bell curve - and laissez-faire economics are the best way to achieve that.
While this case is not being explicitly laid out by anyone - for obvious P.R. reasons - it is the academic core of the argument being made by true fiscal conservatives. And to tell the truth, when I take everything into account, I can appreciate the simple beauty of it. Actually...as an unsentimental atheist, unburdened by the fates of souls and such, I agree with the premise. I don't want all of my fellow earthlings to live forever. I am counting on many of them to die before life expectancy predicts they will. I accept the fact that I could well end up on the front end of that curve myself.
Capitalism is a beautiful idea - a game of sorts in which all beings have a chance to chart their own course, to sink or swim, to beat the odds or lose their shirts. Here's the problem: In order for the game to be even remotely fair, the players have to start on something resembling equal footing. Most of the wealth in the world is concentrated in the hands of a very few and has been concentrated in those hands for a very, very long time - and much of that wealth got concentrated in those hands through very unsavory episodes in our not-so-distant past. In America, much of it was earned on the backs of native Americans, slaves, immigrants, sharecroppers, children, and other similarly underpaid, overworked, cheated, abused, raped, and murdered peoples. It's all very convenient to forget those episodes, to wash our hands, and pretend that all is now right in the world - but that's a heaping pile of stagnant fucking horseshit. Until we level the playing field for massive groups of historically and cyclically impoverished human beings, the game is hopelessly rigged against the poor and thus capitalism is only a beautiful theory waiting to be tested under more ideal circumstances.
The liberal social programs that have been enacted over the years are not just bleeding heart refusals to demand personal responsibility and redistribute wealth for the sake of wealth redistribution. The have been an ongoing effort to address this exponentially compounding inequity in the hopes that one day those more ideal circumstances, that more perfect union, might come into being. (Then - glory of glories - we could all be Republicans!) Sadly, conservatives refuse to accept our national responsibility for the sins of our past, resisting and watering down all attempts at reparation, determined to continue the game they've been playing all along, lest they have to sacrifice anything for their country other than the blood of soldiers they send to war and the money that apparently only they are allowed to spend on causes they deem worthy. As a result, the roots of our problems are never addressed, while progressives are forced to triage these economically alienated groups, attempting to alleviate the worst consequences of this long, sordid tale.
I've lost track of where I was headed with this and I'm tired...but you get my drift. Health care is next on the list. A majority of us are getting screwed with our pants on so that the insurance industry can continue to reap billions of dollars for their shareholders and corporate executives. Conservatives refuse to deal with the fundamental issues at stake, so here we are again, trying to make life affordable, trying to keep pain and suffering to a minimum, trying to take back just an infinitesimal fraction of what we never had a fair shot at...
You could start your own health insurance company...??
Posted by: Big Don | September 06, 2009 at 06:45 PM