Everyone is talking about the elections, the primaries and the candidates. The media conglomerates are in a tizzy over who said what, comparing each front-runner to the next, and making predictions over who will ultimately win the chance to make a run for the White House.
The “issues” of this year’s race have been defined and we see many of the Usual Suspects return to the docket:
- Iraq / Iran / war
- The economy
- Health Care
- Abortion
- Climate Change
- Immigration
Today I’ll pick Health Care and run with it.
So what’s the debate? Or, a more interesting question that is on my mind is, “What are the limits of the debate?”
Currently, when talking about health care, you have republicans making references to some magical free market influences and all of the front-runners are in favor of a “consumer-based system” of some kind. They toss around buzzwords like “deregulation” and extol their stalwart efforts to avoid “raising taxes.”
Democrats say different things and have different suggestions, but the “debate” never leaves a narrow channel of discourse. The Dem. front-runners talk about health care for all, a laudable goal. Their buzzwords are “government subsidy” and “repealing” or “ending” the Bush tax cuts to pay for their plans.
A few Dems share ideas with their counterparts across the aisle and push the notion that their plans are superior because their solutions offer a healthy number of health insurance choices for the American consumer. The tacit capitalist assumption here is that this large number of choices will promote competition and therefore keep the costs of health care reasonable.
Sure, there are some fringe views and different plans of attack regarding the Health Care Problem, but of course, the entire debate is predicated on a huge assumption: Paying a private company for health insurance is a necessary and legitimate practice.
Completely absent from the debate are challenges to this notion. Furthermore, any mention that our health care system is in shambles because of the extraordinarily high costs of paying a third party for a service they almost never make good on is just as taboo. There is no call by any of the front-running candidates to tear apart this illegal, corrupt and immoral institution despite the volumes of evidence we can all read about or, worse yet, may have experienced in our daily lives.
The story is typical: Americans pay their hard-earned money to these health insurance companies assuming that, when tragedy strikes, they will be covered. They will be safe. Of course, as hundreds of studies and thousands upon thousands of personal experiences have shown, the truth of the matter is quite the opposite. I’d even go as far as to say the average health insurance consumer is being cheated and outright abused. Anyone who has had to take an insurance company to task for an inappropriate denial of coverage or an outlandish bill will know exactly what I mean.
But we can’t bring this up. This isn’t an acceptable position to take within the “debate.” Instead, we’re supposed to choose the plan of a presidential hopeful that promises to drain the least amount of money from our pockets and marrow from our bones.
According to the limits of the discussion, the insurance companies have a right to exist… their function and place in society is assumed valid and useful even despite the horrendous track record of abuses, corruption and fraud that can be found with just a cursory examination of any of them. The moral issues… the human rights issues… are irrelevant and quietly dismissed before they can enter the discourse.
Maybe it’s time to change the scope of the discussion. There couldn’t be a better opportunity to put pressure on the candidates than now, while they are still duking it out amongst their peers for a shot at the title. Once the Primaries are over, each side will rest comfortably upon the ability to highlight the “differences” of their plan with their opponent and any thought of addressing the underlying assumption I’ve mentioned here will likely be lost entirely.
It doesn`t matter what will be the outcome of the election it always ends up in raising the taxes in the health care system. As working for a Toronto life insurance company I used to observe decisions which tend to improve the health care. There is no wonder why people believe more to private insurance companies than to any magic health plan of the government. I can`t claim that it can`t happen that somebody feel to have been cheated by some companies but I would say that you have the freedom to choose what kind of plan you believe.