Guaranteed Health Care
I watched a little of a debate tonight that included Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz, and it included a segment on the individual mandate. Even though this was not the focus of the debate, there was enough discussion on it that I heard Sanders several times complain that we are the only nation that doesn't guarantee health care for its citizens. (Sometimes he specified the only "advanced" country or some such.) I was hoping Ted Cruz would come back with an argument like the following:
"Your strongest argument for guaranteed health care seems to be that every other nation has it. While this circumstance certainly means the concept merits consideration, I don't think we should jump to the conclusion that we should do it because other nations are doing it. Let's consider the circumstances of those other nations; how many of them are as large and diverse as the United States? Do any of them have a federal structure like we do that limits national power? Let's ask what American citizens want. Should we implement something to be like others even if our people oppose it? What else are those other nations doing that we don't? Do they have the same protection of free speech that we do? Should we limit our free speech laws to match other countries' if restrictions become universal outside of America? Let's ask what consequences universal coverage has had in these countries. Is every country satisfied with its care? What tradeoffs would we have to accept if we adopted universal care, tradeoffs such as government rationing, less physician choice, or longer wait times? Are other countries' systems sustainable? I suspect all or almost all of these other countries have only had universal health care since WWII, meaning that they are, at most, seeing the end of one full generation that has been raised, grown up, and died with the system. What made sense financially in the post-war world may not make sense anymore. People's expectations and behaviours may have adjusted to universal care in a way that makes it more expensive than it was for the first generation, for which it was a new benefit. Universal health care may have been a good fit -- let us grant that it may have been, may still be -- a good fit for those societies in that time period. America does a lot of things differently from the rest of the world, some good, some bad; some that we could change, some that would be very difficult to change given the nature of our society and our history. Let us, that is to say, evaluate universal health care on its merits; let's discuss it as something that may have worked elsewhere, that may have worked very well in some places and perhaps not so well in others; that may have worked very well in one time period, but may not be a permanent solution. Let us not try to end a debate by saying, 'Everyone else does it, therefore we should do it.' Let us rather take the fact that other nations do something as a starting point, and ask whether it is right for us, rather than taking their actions as an argument in themselves, as though we need to be like other nations and not retain the things that make America different, that make America problematic, that make America great."
"Your strongest argument for guaranteed health care seems to be that every other nation has it. While this circumstance certainly means the concept merits consideration, I don't think we should jump to the conclusion that we should do it because other nations are doing it. Let's consider the circumstances of those other nations; how many of them are as large and diverse as the United States? Do any of them have a federal structure like we do that limits national power? Let's ask what American citizens want. Should we implement something to be like others even if our people oppose it? What else are those other nations doing that we don't? Do they have the same protection of free speech that we do? Should we limit our free speech laws to match other countries' if restrictions become universal outside of America? Let's ask what consequences universal coverage has had in these countries. Is every country satisfied with its care? What tradeoffs would we have to accept if we adopted universal care, tradeoffs such as government rationing, less physician choice, or longer wait times? Are other countries' systems sustainable? I suspect all or almost all of these other countries have only had universal health care since WWII, meaning that they are, at most, seeing the end of one full generation that has been raised, grown up, and died with the system. What made sense financially in the post-war world may not make sense anymore. People's expectations and behaviours may have adjusted to universal care in a way that makes it more expensive than it was for the first generation, for which it was a new benefit. Universal health care may have been a good fit -- let us grant that it may have been, may still be -- a good fit for those societies in that time period. America does a lot of things differently from the rest of the world, some good, some bad; some that we could change, some that would be very difficult to change given the nature of our society and our history. Let us, that is to say, evaluate universal health care on its merits; let's discuss it as something that may have worked elsewhere, that may have worked very well in some places and perhaps not so well in others; that may have worked very well in one time period, but may not be a permanent solution. Let us not try to end a debate by saying, 'Everyone else does it, therefore we should do it.' Let us rather take the fact that other nations do something as a starting point, and ask whether it is right for us, rather than taking their actions as an argument in themselves, as though we need to be like other nations and not retain the things that make America different, that make America problematic, that make America great."
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