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September 16, 2009

Siezing The Advantage

There is no doubt, for me, that the services called "health care" in this country are imperfect and in need of attention. There are conservatives who seem to deny reality; for instance, when they claim that, because emergency rooms refuse no one, health care is available to everyone. Well, ER treatment isn't health care, and the implication that it amounts to universal coverage is ludicrous. But for a long time, most conservative pundits had this, or no, response to the left's creepy single-payer absolutism, and the practical emptiness on our side ceded the moral high ground to The Left.

We still don't know what the Republican alternatives to ObamaCare might be, except that they include medical savings accounts and intra-state competition for insurance providers. But where ObamaCare has the merit of theoretical and moral elegance because it works on paper, in flow charts, and promises to address real human needs - conservative solutions still seem like carpet tacks in a tornado. But ObamaCare is still losing. Why?

That ObamaCare is as unpopular as it is, must be attributed to something other than lucidity on the part of Republicans, or the proposals of talk-radio personalities. I think it's this: the deep politicization of all facets of American life over the past forty years has finally reached saturation. Millions of people now find themselves outside the generation-long default mode of liberal thinking, on all social issues. It's the end of The Great Society's assumption that The System is at fault; the driver of all individual disadvantage, deprivation and want. Once you force changes to The System, you eliminate the problems.

The reverse of this idea of social forces as destiny is the Dickensian idea that all misery, injustice and grief is the result of deficits of character. The innocent sufferer trapped in poverty was, usually, the pawn of someone much worse than he, but that no changes to The System would overcome the quality of the people who managed it, i.e., those in power. This is closer to the conservative view of life. It assumes that the evolved systems of association, church, fraternal organizations, school discipline and all the unofficial ways that populations devise to help one another are better at everything than government.

These are old ideas; they revived because their time came back round, and they existed before the arguments over universal health coverage began. They coalesced when the socialization of medicine became a real possibility. They need to be cultivated in that context because that's where they're expressing themselves at the moment.

Until some courageous figure on The Right makes a coherent moral case - and it is a moral case - for providing health coverage to the involuntary uninsured and liberating the power of the consumer, a case that doesn't have the charm of double-entry bookkeeping but ignites the listener with a righteous purpose, The Left will have the advantage. You can never overestimate the power of their sanctimony to pull them together and stampede them like cattle in the same direction. Once you've proven yourself to be better than they are, they've got nuthin'.

26 comments:

AdamS said...

How about Ron Paul:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqR-QzJUnvg

Opus #6 said...

Rhod, here's my idea. Tort reform reduces doctor's fees. Ins portability between states increases competition, reducing premiums. And expand medicaid coverage to cover the small gap of people truly too poor to get coverage, but who fall outside of present eligibility standards. These are "small tweaks" to the system, compared to Obamacare. And appropriate, considering we DO have the best health care system in the world. What is inappropriate is throwing it all in the junk heap.

A study out this week says 45% of physicians will consider another line of work rather than submit to Obamacare tyranny. These are smart, independent individuals. They will not sit still for their enslavement. For this and so many other reasons, Obamacare will ruin health care for this nation, as the NHS has ruined health care in Britain, according to Daniel Hannan.

Is it fair to force me to pay for a man's ins coverage when he spends his income on cable tv, cell phone, cigarettes and beer?

Anonymous said...

If Ron Paul could lose the crazed stare, I'd consider voting for him. Could we do much worse than President Hussein?

Anonymous said...

Ope, with your argument you have the logical high ground. Unfortunately, the Dems still have the emotional high ground.

Timeshare Jake said...

Do you really believe even if they do have a plan, they will be given a national microphone and be heard. There are lots of conservative solutions out there. There just isn't a microphone.

AdamS said...

All I can say, from a British point of view is this: whenever someone over here needs cutting-edge medical treatment, it seems they always go to America.

So you must be doing something right ;)

Anonymous said...

Bill, you're right. But the only way to get through the media curtain is with a charismatic communicator. Someone specifically skilled to sell the thing. Can you imagine any of the Republicans on deck who could do that?

Anonymous said...

AdamS, tell them to hurry. We may be closing up shop.

christian soldier said...

Great post --and the video below explaining 'Justin's ' care visually and audibly says it all about this government POWER GRAB errrr 'health care' plan...
Thank you for you encouraging words at my site...
Carol-CS

christian soldier said...

your encouraging words...

LL said...

I hate to invoke: "when I was a kid" but I will anyway.

When I was a kid we had no health insurance. I never knew it existed. Unless you were damned sick, you stayed home, ate chicken soup, took aspirin or God forbid, castor oil.

When my kids came along, I had medical insurance. If there was so much as a sniffle, my wife had the kids at the clinic.

Hmm.

Anonymous said...

DC on deck!! Nick, c'mon man. We have the emotion and the momentum.

Rhod, I think your post is excellent. I would add, though, that several other factors are at play here that have awoken the nation ... 1) the egregious manner that Obama and Co. tried to stuff this down the nation's throat without debate and examination caused, well, debate and examination; 2) the media's incredible dishonesty and propaganda peddling, which has empowered Fox News, talk radio, and the internet like never before; and 3) the growing realization on every front, i.e., national security, communists in the cabinet, quadrupling the nation's debt, apologizing for the country at every turn, etc., that the Obama Admin is like nothing we have ever seen ... made the nation understand that a lot is at stake and vigilance is required now. I think Americans now realize that our free state is not guaranteed, and indeed, may be threatened.

In short, Obama underestimated America (no surprise, Leftists always do this) and he overreached in classic authoritarian fashion.

Independence runs deep in the DNA of Americans still. And this nation desperately hates being talked down to and lectured by any one, much less incompetents with no balls (and I mean literally ... witness the All-Star Game first pitch).

So, we are awake again.

Anonymous said...

DC, I suspect that Obama's biggest mistake was in attempting to rush the agenda. He got everybody's attention with the Cap & Tax sprint, so we were all on alert for the HealthFraud push. Subtlety doesn't seem to be a strength of Obama's.

Have you seen this guy's upcoming TV schedule? Does he think he's that charming?

Anonymous said...

LL, I agree. We had a medicine chest with Mercurochrome, Band-Aids, Castoria and Milk of Magnesia.

Our strongest and most dreaded medical treatment was the stockpot, towel, boiling water & Vap-O-Rub steam breathe.

Anonymous said...

Christian Soldier. Thank you for visiting. You're welcome here any time.

Soloman said...

I laid out my case for a Conservative approach to reform the same night of The Great Messianic Indoctrination on Health Care Reform and Republican Submission.

It can be read at http://wisdomofsoloman.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-take-on-health-care-reform.html - if you so desire.

It obviously is a layman's concept, but I bullet-point my basic thoughts and follow each with a discussion that helps explain the "why" behind the "what." I also include a way to provide the ever-so-dangerous "public option" through a voucher program, with tight restrictions.

I don't think it sounds too much like everything put forward on talk radio and FNC, although I agree I generally align with their ideas over, say MSNBC and Obama's single payer vision.

Anyway - much like Bill said, the right person can't even get a microphone at the moment without being called a racist as soon as they begin to think, let alone speak... and LL - you're absolutely right. As a kid I was hardly ever at the doctor's office unless it was really extreme. Chicken soup and an early bedtime was Mom's best remedy for anything not broken or needing stitches.

Anonymous said...

Sol, it's folks like you, willing to brainstorm and thinking critically, who may be able to head off the madness.

Teresa said...

Rhod,
Emotions are what get us into predicaments in the first place. I'd rather use OPie's ideas that use common sense to fix the health care issues rather than transform the whole health care industry in a way that would be highly damaging to the American public, like Obamacare would be. Obamacare would make the situation/problem much worse than it already is. Republicans do have good ideas-the exact ones that OPie suggested. There ideas are just getting squashed, like a bug because Democrats like killing a good thing. If it doesn't involve the control and power over its citizens, then the bill sucks according to Democrats. Democrats want to kill the very freedom and rights that our founding fathers fought for. Well, I will not let my freedom be torpedoed by a bunch of heathens.

Soloman said...

Nickie - I'll read through your usual charming wit and sarcasm and find a compliment in there, I think?

In the meantime, for a six-pack of a good Canadian beer (tough to find here), a rack of baby-back ribs, and a one-year subscription to a good girlie magazine, anyone can have my idea and take the credit.

Anyone but Obama or Pelosi, that is. They had their chance.

Anonymous said...

Sol, no sarcasm meant. I'm a fan, my friend.

Anonymous said...

Terri, I see your point. But think back to Ronald Reagan's policies and stand-offs with the Left. With the very same policies, a lesser personality (Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, George Bush the Elder) would have been crushed after one term.

Just as elections have consequences, the selection of a spokesperson/leader does too. I need only mention the names Bob Dole and John McCain.

Soloman said...

Nickie - perhaps a better word could have been chosen.. I don't always see sarcasm as such a bad thing. More ironic than cutting, you know?

Certainly to date no offense has ever been taken. I'm anxiously waiting, though! lol...

Anonymous said...

Sol, I'd never be sarcastic to you. You're way too smart and you'd be frustrated by the veritable avalanche of one syllable utterances.

Soloman said...

"utterances?"

I don't remember cows ever entering the discussion.. but hey, if it get's you where you need to be man, I'll support you every step of the way...

That's just the kind of guy I am, Nickie.

Have a great night, my friend.

Rhod said...

Mercurochrome? Sissy! Iodine made a man out of you.

Opie provided the list that the mute opposition needs to advance on its own. I disagree that the Republicans can't get a microphone. If that's true, in a society as open as ours, the First Amendment means nothing.

We're fighting and we're not even in office. How hard can it be? In the words (somewhat) of Palance to Billy Crystal, we crap higher than them.

Our case also has to be emotional to cancel the spurious compassion liberalism spews on the credulous and gullible. It advances itself by making slavery seem like justice.

DC is right that the flicker of independence in many, not most, people was fanned by the power brutes in government. We don't know yet if there are enough of us to swing an election to an outright electoral revolt. Again, our success probably depends on our version of Gordon Brown, Mitch McConnell. Sheesh.

Anonymous said...

Mitch McConnell... My energy sapped even as I read the name.