Once again in the news today we find that the Republicans in Congress are trying to block Obamacare. It's not enough that they've voted to repeal it over 40 times, continually criticize it, and seek to have the supreme court strike it down as law of the land (all the while blaming Obama because of the problems it will inevitably have)...now they are trying to starve it out of existence. Foolish, I know...but nobody is accusing modern conservatives of any kind of common sense.
Here's the great question nobody is asking, though...do we believe that all people in our country, no matter how rich or poor, no matter their social status, and no matter their health history, deserve the same quality of health care? It's a question that nobody is asking, and nobody is getting close to answering. For if we believe that all people deserve the equal opportunity of treatment when it comes to health care, should we not simply make it a right, and thus make socialized health care a fundamental basis of our social system?
For example...let's say a young person with no money in her checking account comes down with cancer. Do we offer her the same drugs, the same screenings, and the same treatment as somebody whose insurance can pay for it? Or do we go ahead and let her die, because economically treatment for her is impossible to be paid for by herself or her family?
Or think about an older man who needs a liver transplant and can afford the finest medical care. Do we believe that a different man, without money, should have the same right to the same kind of treatment, even though he can't afford to pay for it? Let's be blunt: does the wealthier (or more resourceful or the better connected) person have a greater right to live than somebody else?
It's interesting that in much of life only the most ardent communists would believe that people should have the same access to a product: almost nobody believes that we are all entitled to drive a lexus, live in a fancy house, or have the opportunity of an Ivy-league education. Some might feel entitled to such things, but that's usually more a problem of the rich in my experience.
Yet increasingly we believe that there are many other elements of life in which we ought to strive for equality as much as possible. Only the most hardened people do not believe that inner-city kids do not have a right to a quality education, as hard as it may be to get it. Only the most embittered would say that low-income defendants do not have the right to at least a competent level of legal defense, though often that is more of a goal than a reality. In some areas of life, we have determined that people have a particular right to equal opportunity, regardless of their social standing or their wealth.
So why not health care? What I'd really like to be asked to politicians on both sides of the aisle is this: do the poor have the same right to health care as the wealthy? If we can come to an agreement about this as a country, the health care debate might well get a lot more simple.
