This week, a large number of Americans are infuriated with President Barack Obama. They are crying foul because, after we put our trust in him last November, after all of the rousing speeches, and after all of the rhetoric declaring openness and honesty in government, he is turning around and is callously, brazenly and defiantly doing precisely what he promised to do.
President Obama’s most oft repeated campaign promise in 2008 was a reform of the healthcare system involving the option of a publicly-run plan using bulk rate discounts to drive down prices. He won the election — by a larger majority than those that won both elections for George W. Bush combined — based on that platform. Today, this very same plan terrifies and enrages Americans, which means that either a large swath of the country was replaced with alien doppelgangers some time during the past year, or many voters simply weren’t paying that much attention to the actual words that Candidate Obama was speaking. While the former possibility is more fun — and would explain a great deal — unfortunately the latter seems the more likely. So here we are one year later, and many Americans are hearing about Obama’s health care plan all over again, for the very first time.
And the source from which quite a few of them are hearing about it is the Republican party, which is relentlessly focused on turning the public against a proposal on which it indirectly already voted “yes” last November. Their message is fear: fear not of the goals of the health care bill, but of its alleged possible side effects. Bankrupted insurance companies. Government-run health care. Socialism.
One major advantage that the Republican party has over the Democrats these days is a propaganda engine that would inflame even Charles Babbage with envy: an intricate and tireless clockwork whose cogs are charismatic media personalities angrily declaring their opinions as absolutes, and whose springs are precisely timed and worded press releases and interviews. This noise is amusing to listen to and easy to be excited by, but sadly it has turned the political discourse in the United States into another version of Microsoft vs. Apple or Red Sox vs. Yankees: blind loyalty to one side or another, with lots of people shouting insults at each other, many of whom are unable to articulate exactly why they feel the way they do beyond a door-slammingly defiant “My way is just better.” It has turned Americans into political fanboys. Worse, it has made unpopular the concepts of exchanging ideas and of compromise.
That’s not a very American way to be. One of the most common fallacies I’ve been hearing in support of one point of view or another is the claim that the Founding Fathers were all conservatives or all liberals, and that we’ve strayed from their path. Of course, if you know anything about the Founding Fathers, you know that the idea that they “all” agreed on anything is laughable. The Founding Fathers argued about everything, from whether or not to call the President “His Exalted Majesty” (I’m not making that up), to whether it’s better to have jam or butter on toast. (Okay, that I’m making up. Probably.) They, like our politicians today, had strongly opposing ideas about how things should be run, and nearly everything about the makeup of our government from then until now — how many branches there are, the existence of two houses of Congress rather than one, and so on — is based upon compromises between those divergent views, reached through long and rigorous debate.
The most heated argument back then was about how powerful the federal government should actually be. In fact, the two major political parties sprang up around the argument over a strong central government vs. strong state and local authority. In other words, big government vs. small government. Sound familiar? Indeed, it is by and large the same argument Democrats and Republicans wrangle with today, and it has been raging for over two hundred years.
Why then, after all this time, has this one debate never been settled in favor of one side or the other? The answer should be obvious: it is because neither side is absolutely correct. The events of our country’s relatively short history are proof that the best government is one balanced between the two ideals. Some situations call for more power held by the federal government. Others call for less. And neither party’s philosophy is the right one all the time for all circumstances. Whenever the scale tips too far in one direction or another, after awhile the results are usually catastrophic enough that drastic steps must be taken to set things back into balance.
Is the same true of capitalism and socialism in the United States? The message of Republicans is that socialism is a dirty word, and that anyone wishing to introduce it into our society must be fought tooth and claw. This kind of black and white, good-against-evil dogma is easy for people to rally behind, but there’s a bit of a problem: socialism was already introduced into our society over two centuries ago. We all pay taxes for services like schools, police, fire and road maintenance, and we all, regardless of personal wealth, take a share when we are in need. That is textbook socialism.
Before you try to argue that those systems were a mistake and should be done away with, think of the alternatives. Our socialized system of education, while it may have flaws that need to be addressed today, was based upon the principle adopted during the early 1800s that every American has the right to a minimum level of education. Since a more educated populace allows more ideas and innovations to blossom, this choice was a major factor in preparing America for the Industrial Revolution, and allowed us to emerge as a world power (we were not always the big kid on the block). The alternative, where people simply pay out of pocket to send their children to school, and where schools thrive or fail based on how moneyed their “customers” are, is what existed in America and Europe before that, and it was not very pleasant if you did not happen to be rich.
Similarly, envision a scenario in which we have a capitalist system for emergency services. Your house is on fire. But money has been tight, and you weren’t able to pay one of the local competing fire stations for coverage this month. So you’re just going to have to run in there and save Baby Timmy by yourself, and hope some of your neighbors are really good with a garden hose.
No, clearly, we have to admit that there are some situations, even in America — some, not all — in which a socialized system works better. Again it’s about balance: capitalism driving our business and our economy, with socialism used where needed in areas of social service.
Now we come back to the health care issue. Our current system is one driven purely by capitalist forces. It has its good points, such as the freedom to choose doctors and plans, and the element of competition driving companies to improve their services for the ultimate benefit of their customers (elements, incidentally, that President Obama’s plan retains). However, it should be clear even to those who have excellent coverage that our system isn’t working: coverage is far, far more expensive here than it is in other countries, families have been bankrupted by hospital bills, and millions have no coverage altogether. It is an enormous financial burden, and a drag on our economy. And it’s an unnecessary one.
This is yet another of those situations in which more balance is called for. What makes the political system in the United States work so well is not that we cling immovably to our opposing cliff faces and bark at each other like drunken sports fans, but that we can compromise and bring together the best elements of several systems to the benefit of everybody.
President Obama’s plan is not perfect. In some areas it doesn’t go far enough, and some would argue that health care prices will never truly drop to acceptable levels in the U.S. until there is tort reform. However, this is the best we have right now, and I see no reason to believe that the slippery slope Republicans fear — bankrupted private insurers, government telling me which doctors I can see, and so forth — is anywhere in evidence here. And quite frankly, I’m not rich, and I think I might just enjoy sharing in the feeling that if my skin erupts in necrotic lesions or if I start seeing blood in my sweat, I can afford to go ask somebody why, without making the choice between that or my next six mortgage payments.
