With Health Care On The Line Again, Morality Matters Most

[babylonsister]

I agree!

http://www.nationalmemo.com/with-health-care-on-the-line-again-morality-matters-most/

With Health Care On The Line Again, Morality Matters Most
June 26th, 2012 1:11 am
Richard Yeselson

snip//

So the moral issue must be joined in the most aggressive fashion possible. Not so much by showing empathy for the uninsured—liberals are always wonderful at showing empathy. No, by belligerently challenging conservative pundits and Republican politicians at every opportunity, reminding them how lucky they are to have health care themselves. Just imagine what would happen if, during one of those mildly energized discussions on ABC’s This Week, the liberal interlocutor of the week said something like this to George Will:

“George, you’ve written very movingly about your son who has Down’s Syndrome. Can you imagine caring for a child with Down’s if you didn’t have health insurance? You’ve never had to think about that, lucky for you. But what should other Americans without insurance do? Are you and your family — your son — so much more deserving of health care than children whose families who can’t afford insurance?”

That same argument must be repeated over and over again, not only to Will but to Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell, too. Marinate them in shame until they have to justify themselves to their spouses and even their kids start asking them about it.

One other thing: Conservatives love to prattle on about “American exceptionalism,” too. So is this what makes us “exceptional”? — that Americans alone don’t provide health insurance for all of our citizens? Liberals ought to hammer that trope, too. Enough of swallowing all the phony triumphalism, celebrating the most inhumane yet expensive system in the advanced world. It would be helpful if Democrats and liberals said, “Don’t give me this bullshit about European or Canadian socialism. We’ve seen Toronto, London, Berlin, Paris — and they’re not communist hellholes, with people dying on the street because of a lack of medical care. Quite the contrary.”

Progressives must keep reminding conservatives, “You’ve got health insurance—do you really think you’re somehow entitled to it, yet others aren’t? For shame.”

[HereSince1628]

1. But I don't think the conservatives actually feel entitled to health insurance.

I believe to the last one of them they would argue that they have in some way earned or purchased their health financing.

What they feel entitled to is a privileged status with the asymmetry of economic means within society.

It seems that what they fail to acknowledge is that their ability to have insurance is dependent upon their fortunate positions within the very social asymmetries that American conservatism seeks to reinforce in our society.