Tarheel Red

I have been sitting on this one for awhile now.  It’s a tough one.  Something that no one wants to see and few have the answers to.  From the right, we all know the responses, but do we really know the reasons?  And, to be honest, do we really believe what it is we are saying?  I am talking about health care.  And, specifically, the availability, or lack thereof, of that care.

I think that when you ask the right about this topic, they picture people who refuse to work, refuse to better themselves or refuse to create for themselves a situation where they can obtain basic medical care.  Or, at the very least, purchase catastrophic health insurance.

Similarly, if you ask the left about health care or medical care they are envisioning individuals suffering due to tragic life threatening illnesses.  Situations where the individual has little or no control and the result is complete and utter financial ruin.

In short, I think that we are talking about two different things.  On one hand, we are discussing health or medical care as an industry; something that is in the macro sense.  On the other, we are discussing that same care on a deeply individual and tragic level.  And so, lost in conversation, the left and the right have no hope of compromise, no hope of a shared or common understanding.  How could they?  They’re not even talking about the same things.

And so it is when I discuss health care.  Coming from the right, I shudder at the thought of Nationalized Health Care.  Or Socialized Medicine.  Or Single Payer Insurance.  Or anything that is called whatever that means everyone is able to seek any medical care and not receive a bill.  And yet, these same opponents of mine will lash out at me as in separate conversations as being part of the Religious Right.  I don’t get it.  At the same time I am someone who is deeply religious and yet I am able to turn a blind [and greedy] eye to the grandmother suffering in pain, struggling to stay alive and knowing that she is going to bankrupt her family?  I just shake my head.

I don’t understand how anyone could possibly hear such a story and walk away untouched, unmoved; certainly not me.  But again, we are reading from two different scripts here.

And so it is that I continue to support what I know to be true.  Medical Care is a service.  And as such, it creates a certain demand or need or want.  And there is more of that want that there is supply of the service.  And so, as we all know, that service, that medical care, has to be rationed in some way.  However you want to close your eyes and sing lalalalalalala and not believe it, there is simply NOT enough supply to satiate all of thedemand.

There are many ways to solve this problem.  I’m not going to list them here.  But my favorite method to resolving this delta in supply and demand is …… price.  It is by price that we SELF ration the demand and come to a equilibrium where the supply is in harmony with the demand. [Cue Disney Hummingbirds].

However, I also am a big BIG believer in Role of Government.  That is to say that at each level of government, there are certain and appropriate roles and expectations.  For example, I do NOT thin that it is the role of the Federal Government to mandate or assume management of Health Insurance.  However, as we get more and more local, in fact, if we even just jump from Federal to State, we find that the role or expectation of the Government changes.  I think that this is true for the case involving abortion and I think that it is tru here; for Health Care.

And so it is that I find this development, not an attack on Conservatism, but as example [could it be better?  Sure.] of what can happen when members of a community State gather together, discuss what is important to them as people, and vote that they want to offer this type of service where they live.  That they want to offer care to those that are less fortunate.  This, THIS I believe is the role of the State.  Not, however, of the Nation.