Obameter #77: Fund Community-Based Prevention

I'm sick of describing health care. My view boils down to a single point: American health care is generally better, if you can get it. Our system specializes on specialization at the expense of universal insurance. So many countries have universal health care, so everyone can get B+ medical care but A+ care remains elusive. We could do the same. But why should we?

Expanded funding for that kind of broad, general care was promised by Barack Obama and $851 million to that effect was announced by Michelle Obama. The Obama Administration is very successfully pursuing the health care reforms he believes in and I oppose.

It has become redundant to say so.

I need a new perspective on the issue. I need to think about it in a new way. To that end, I present a rebuttal to the Green Party's argument in favor of universal health coverage.

1. They argue that the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not consider health care a right. That's true, and logically correct. Rights are things government cannot do to you. Government cannot restrict your associations or self-expression, take your property, punish you without a trial... those are rights. Health care is done for you. It is a service, not a right.
2. They argue that the US health care system is not the best in the world because American health is low. That is because people are not using the system. Individual patients of the American health care system achieve better health than patients of other health care systems. By that measure, the American system is the best health care system in the world.
3. American health care is more expensive than that elsewhere in the world. Of course it is. Most health care elsewhere is general care. Most health care in the USA is specialist care. Specialist care is more expensive than general care. It's also more effective.
4. The American system denies people service based on their ability to pay. Universal health care denies people services based on limited availability of specialist services. We have the "oversupply" of equipment stated because of the redundancies of competitive industry. If you remove that cause, we will face the same limited supply of specialist services that other nations face.
5. They argue that no laws, rules, or regulations would limit choice of health care provider under a universal care system. This is true. Scarcity, not rules, would dictate availability. The rest of their arguments in this section are against corporate restrictions on health care, which I oppose just as much as I oppose government restrictions on health insurance. You get more choice when you pay for it yourself.
6. They argue that universal health care is not "socialized medicine" because the government is only paying for the health care, not providing it. This is true. It's socialized medical insurance. They also mention that approximately 2/3rds of people support universal coverage. Speaking of rights, why force a system onto the other third that they don't want? Individual states can already provide universal medical coverage at the state level, leaving people the choice of whether to pay for it by choosing what state they live in.
7. In arguing that the American system is not being reformed, they compare for-profit and not-for-profit medical care prices. What does that have to do with government handling of payments? Apart from that, this just repeats the third point about costs: American health care is more expensive and more effective at the cost of availability.
8. They blame corporate lobbies for health care not passing. Why would corporations oppose it generally? It transfers the costs of health insurance from them to government. Medical corporations lobby against universal care to save themselves. They also fund most of the world's medical technology research and development. Maybe it's a good thing they exist.

That didn't really help. It seems identical to the other arguments I've heard. They're still arguing that decreasing prices at the cost of specialization is a good trade.

The way in which this is socialism is that it cuts off the peaks of the mountains to raise lower elevations. It raises the worse case by sacrificing the best case. The American spirit is an aspiration to achieve the best case - or, preferably, to create an even better best case. To remove the best possible outcome from possibility is unAmerican. That is why we are the only industrialized nation without universal health care. We associate ourselves with the best possible outcome. Thus, eliminate the best possible outcome is to hurt ourselves.

The Haudenosaunee and The Revolution

During the American Revolutionary War, the American Indians of the Iroquois Confederacy (formally called the Haudenosaunee) were officially neutral. Two men, Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) and Joseph Louis Cook (Akiatonharónkwen) were not satisfied with neutrality. Brant advocated and fought for the British cause, while Colonel Louis (as he was known) and his regiment of Oneida tribesmen fought for the Continental Army. So great was their political division that it almost caused a civil war within the Haudenosaunee. Colonel Louis' rank was eventually formalized, having been commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel by the Continental Congress.

Far more Haudenosaunee (and American Indians generally) sided with the British cause than with the Colonists, in this case causing sufficient damage to the Continental cause to challenge American independence itself. George Washington eventually led a counter-attack so devastating that it earned him the name Town Destroyer (Conotocarious). He is remembered to this day as a bringer of horror and violence among the People of the Longhouse for his retribution attack.

Colonel Louis, who was also half-black, was the highest-ranked American Indian in the Continental Army, the only Indian with a Congressional commission, and was with George Washington at Valley Forge in 1777 and at the Battle of Johnstown in 1781. He remained an influential chief and advocate for the Haudenosaunee and a military adviser to the United States for the rest of his life. He died from wounds inflicted on a battlefield of the War of 1812.

The story of Brant, Cook, the Iroquois, and the Revolution seems so fascinating that I can't imagine why it's not been told more often. The divisions among the Haudenosaunee then mirror the divisions in America now. There should be a movie, a book, a history in some medium that tells this uniquely American story in better detail than Wikipedia and my poor post.