Health Care as a Privilege: What the GOP Won’t Admit
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/06/health-care-as-privilege-what-gop-wont-admit.html
This article very nicely sums up what has been floating around in my head: is access to health affordable care something that we, as a society, should consider an ‘inalienable’ right (like life, liberty and the _pursuit_ of happiness (though our Great President has already gone on record opposing life and liberty, even for citizens, if he doesn’t like you)), or is it something we should consider that must be earned, like an HDTV? I have mostly made economic arguments (I think that our society is, as a whole, wealthier (and of course healthier) if we have universal health care) and shied away from moral or ethical arguments, but I think, like the above author, more noise should be made about the moral and ethical dimension. Basically, the GOP and its supporters are saying that access to affordable health care should be entirely an element of your class and thus the government should not be involved at any level. I object to that attitude on many levels (as any regular reader will no doubt know) and I suspect that many, if not a majority, of Americans would also object, were it put to them in this moral and ethical framework instead of the smokescreen the GOP has been using. Of course, if Americans weren’t so damn credulous the GOP smokescreen would be ineffective, but such is life, eh?
