Why are Americans so stubbornly resistant to government health care?
Gerald F. Seib examines America's psyche in his latest WSJ article. His diagnosis: Americans are not happy with their health care, but are afraid of change.
Seib examines the reasons why.
This seems counterintuitive. People know the system is creaking, frustrating and way too expensive. They complain about it all the time. Yet they can't quite let it go.
Here in the real world, people put up every day with creaking, frustrating and way too expensive things: cars, houses, spouses... You take what you can get, remembering that the grass ain't always greener on the other side of the fence, no matter what some DC huckster tells you.
Maybe it's the Marcus Welby factor!
Americans maintain a gauzy, almost dreamy image of doctors and nurses. The image of the preternaturally soothing hometown doctor portrayed on television's "Marcus Welby, M.D." is the ideal to which Americans cling.
Earth to Gerald! Marcus Welby went off the air in 1976. A good chunk of the population wasn't even born then. Even I barely remember the show, associating Robert Young more with the Folgers commercials, and I can't recall the last time I heard someone wax poetic about her doctor.
He goes on to mention how we've become accustomed to health insurance being provided by the employer ever since it became an unintended consequence of government-mandated WW II wage and price controls. That should at least have given his propaganda march pause, but he kept on going, right past the Rube Goldberg factor.
DC's Rube Goldberg Institute
Yes! Americans are afraid of Government Rube Goldberg contraptions. Just like the Coyote when he gets some contraption in the mail from the Acme company. He thinks he'll catch the roadrunner this time, but ends up blowing himself up. Government works alot like that, so you'll excuse us for being skeptical.
We don't trust government to do this right. Seib calls it the Post Office factor:
Americans are deeply cynical about government's ability to do anything right. Putting a man on the moon, building an interstate-highway system, fielding history's most lethal army -- nothing has changed that.
First of all, the US government has nothing to do with the Army's success. That comes down to the blood, guts, brains and determination of the American fighting men and women who overcome all obstacles, usually in spite of bureaucrats and politicians. I hate big government people throwing this out because it's BS.
Man on the moon and interstate highway system? I'd be more reassured if Mr. Seib could produce an example that wasn't 40 years old. The space program's heyday was the 1960's, and by the way, powered by teams of military men and scientists unencumbered by today's bureaucratic snarls of red tape.
We don't trust that our government will do anything right because it hasn't done anything right in a very long time. A smirking liberal may chime in, "But you'll trust a greedy insurance company!" Yes, yes I will. Good companies with good reputations want to make money, and they can't do that if they screw all their customers in a marketplace where there is open competition.
Finally he concludes:
In short, lousy as the system may be, lots of people have a direct economic stake in it. Any wonder they don't like the idea of a leap into the unknown?
We just took one of those leaps into the unknown last November. Many are now wishing they had a bungee cord.
WSJ - Seib
8 comments:
The unknown. There has been universal health care in Canada since Tommy Douglas.
You are skeptical when it is convenient Silverfiddle. Not with God (which is absurd because that's where skepticism is most needed) and yet with gov't.
You're Glenn Beck. Not just reporting the news, but reporting it through a conservative-redneck filter.
You're probably proud to be compared to such a an eminent media commentator. I once flipped to his channel and he was crying. I think he was crying over people approving of Obama or voting for him. It was quite a spectacle.
You provide the same spectacle in words:
"He thinks he'll catch the roadrunner this time, but ends up blowing himself up. Government works alot like that..."
I mean what sort of special education did you receive that this is the best thing against health care you can come up with.
Completely and utterly unsubstantiated. You don't even attempt to argue for this claim. You just assume your readers agree that gov't can't possibly work.
That's a technique 9/11 truffer use as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8h3Uvpq_Ac
You should watch this Silverfiddle.
Would you let an unqualified person work on your car? Would you leave a completely inexperienced crew to frame a house your company is building? This is where the skepticism comes in.
I'm using inductive reasoning, which in the realm of logic is inherently weak, I know, but humans have been using it since the dawn of time. It does fail sometimes, but it's a chance I'm willing to take.
Hey, if the earth catches fire I'll be a big enough man to say I was wrong and you were right.
Finally, you want me to defend Christians who do weird things and violate that which they profess? I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night.
In your eyes I guess no one can aspire to something higher than themselves or out of their grasp.
I will give you this. Too many people use religion to sell things, be it products, services or themselves as a politician, and too many suckers fall for it.
I'm going to be honest with you, Bahram, because you stood up to Redneck Ron, a hairy ape of a man who broke one of my ribs a few years back. You did it over the internet and with a few thousand miles providing some protective padding, but you did it.
Anyway, I hate it when religious people invoke God in pursuit of their piddly earthly goals. George Bush responded "Jesus" when asked who his favorite political philosopher was during the 2000 debates, and Republicans defended it. I cringed. Jesus assiduously avoided politics: "Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar..."
We've discussed this before, but Christianity is a sine qua none of American life. Nothing wrong with that, but I wish believers would see that this is the oldest trick in the snake oil salesman's bag.
Finally, I have plumbed the depths of my faith. To prove God exists using deductive reasoning is to commit a category error. As Kant argues in "Critique of Pure Reason" an later in "Prolegomena to any future Metaphysics," man can wrongly use reason beyond one's five senses.
Once again, if the erf catches fire and we all die a horrible death, I'll be the first to apologize.
BTW, you said something about Christians not caring because they will all go home to God. How is that different from an Atheist who believes there is no consequence, negative or positive, for the life one leads?
Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.
-- Nicolas de Chamfort
There are consequences the only differene is they don't leave the realm of this world so atheists are more likely to live for this life in this world (I've said that before). When you limit yourself to this world and nothing greater or less great, you live firmly in reality. You could be deluded like Don Quixote, but you're still livin the the confides of life which is more than I can say for any Christian.
I probably would not have stood up to Ron if I know he was as big as you make him out to be. I'm pretty bigtoo, but I'm not a very good fighter, but at the end of the day some people need to be fought.
I'd probably use words (which are my greatest weapon) to first convert Ron right out of Christianity, and then I'd spend the rest of the first hour we meet explaining why fighting me won't satisfy him.
I'm glad you don't see Jesus as a political philosopher like Bush, but you know how much Christianity has influence over the military and you saw what that reporter said about the "Christian Mafia".
And, again. I can't prove God doesn't exist. But I can prove (within reasonable doubt) that free will does not exist.
If you want the proof I can provide it for you in less than 500words. That was the brilliance of Hume. Instead of focusing on God, or everything about Christianity he zeroed in on miracles.
That should be enough to prove within a reasonable doubt that Christianity is a natural phenomenon, but, I guess you don't think so.
I'd bow to your feet if you could outwit eithe Hume of miracles or me on free will. There is only one theistic argument against determinism and it's not very good. It was coincidentally Kants argument, but I think I can convince you it is a stretch.
You've used the phrase "plumbed the depths of my faith". How could you have done that without considering what I believe to be the two strongest arguments against Christianity?
Write an article about miracles or free will and we can discuss this further. I'll leave ti up to you though.
I'm trying to be less evangelical in my atheism.
Write an article on your blog (I really liked your article on Descartes and animals, btw) and find Hume's article and provide me a link to both. I will read them and try to rebut.
Ron is a big, hairy man. Stripped to the waist he looks like he's wearing an angora sweater. It's scary. All you'd need to calm him down is a bottle of rum... ;)
Well, as you said there's a couple 1000 miles between us. I'm not too worried.
my new blog has changed addresses again:
continentalcritics.blgospot.com
Sure, I'll do that eventually.
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