How is it that social conservatives can argue for our universal obligations to unborn children, at whatever stage of development, and then in the next breath argue against universal health coverage? What, being born ends our obligation to our fellow human being?
I don't think so.
Jake
Really? I mean, really? The two are not comparable at all. The disagreement about abortion is over whether anything should be done at all, i.e. whether abortion is actually an important issue that needs to be addressed. The disagreement about health care, on the other hand, is about the correct method by which to address the issue.
ReplyDeleteNo conservative, or at least no mainstream one, believes health care is not an issue. They just don't happen to believe that handing it over to the federal government is the best solution. The old maxim is never let the solution be worse the the problem. Conservatives believe that universal healthcare would violate that maxim, and looking at government's track record, can you really blame them?
Every other industrialzed nation in the world has figured this out to their citizens satisfaction. What about our government leads you to believe that we would be uniquely inept? Medicare? The VA? Tricare and the care we provide to our elected representatives?
ReplyDeleteJake
I'm not actually trying to debate that with you. My point was that you can't compare the two issues the way you did, and dismiss conservative opposition in such a facile way. There is a fundamental difference between saying we need health care reform and saying we need a single payer system. Everyone says the former, only liberals the latter. The point? It is disingenuous to pretend like conservatives stop caring about people once they're born. They just think a different health care method would do better at giving care. Now you can argue with that, you can say conservatives are wrong and that a government system is the best way to go, but please don't try to say conservatives don't care, and please don't try to make a nonsense analogy to abortion.
ReplyDeleteNonsense? Provocative perhaps, but isn't the question one of perspective? Conservatives, for which you may read neo-conservatives, are notoriously ready to spend other peoples lives in their various misadventures. How else do you read allowing 40 million to go without health care but funding an unending war?
ReplyDeleteIf life, from conception to a natural death, were all that important, I doubt we would be quite as militaristic a nation as we have turned out to be under conservative leadership. Now if your response is that the current Republican leadership is not truly conservative, then I completely agree with you. So why are social conservatives so ready to align themselves with that bloc?
Liberals say that the only way we will get true reform is to put single payer in place. So, tell me, how will we get true reform at lower cost, like HALF what we pay now, the average, mol, of the rest of the industrialized world, if we don't get single payer or a public option?
Jake