If you’re like me, you probably spend at least some online time confronting bozos who argue against providing healthcare for everyone in the U.S.
In fact, I get sucked into these discussions even more every time I pop my head up on Facebook or browse the comments on a story on the subject.
I get involved because I usually have something concrete to contribute. As someone who has reported on the business of healthcare for 30-odd years, I’m quite well informed about the dynamics of the U.S. health system, including:
- The ins and outs of how the system works,
- Where the healthcare dollar goes
- What we spend on care already
- What would be involved in universal healthcare
Given my understanding of the issues, I’m always eager to challenge the key myths about universal healthcare (UH) and why it makes not only ethical but also financial sense. (For a more in-depth discussion of the’ cold, hard financial reasons for providing care for all, please see my Medium article on the subject here.)
Maybe I’m nuts, but I keep thinking that if I take advantage of what I know, I’ll be able to reach at least a few readers. After all, I have plenty of ammunition I can use to make a point, right?
Actually, not so right. The truth is that virtually anyone making an intellectual argument against UH in America is not being honest about their motives. I guess that in some cases they honestly don’t realize that they’re full of it, but from what I’ve seen that’s rarely (if ever) the case.
Below, here’s perhaps the top three bad-faith arguments opponents make against providing UH in the United States:
- The government can’t do anything right, and would only screw things up further
- We can’t afford to provide care for everyone
- People have access to care. All they need to do is hit the ER.
Now, if someone is open-minded I’m happy to offer some hard data and context demonstrating that these assertions are wrong.
For example, when someone suggests that government is inherently inefficient and untrustworthy, I point out that while while private insurance companies spend 17% of their money on administration, the agency (known as CMS) which runs Medicare has administrative overhead of just 2% and has for many years. That’s just one data point but there are many others.
If they claim that while having UH might be nice, we can’t afford to pay for it. In making this claim, they try to sound not like a soulless, ultra-selfish drone but rather, someone who’s just accepted the unfortrunate truth.
But don’t buy their self-serving bull. The truth is, they’re often disingenuous liars who want to distract you from seeing who they really are. The reality that if they really wanted to see people get all of the care they needed, they’d start from that premise and focus on making it happen.
Not only that, if they sincerely wanted to support UH. And they might research a bit to find out whether their assumptions are correct. If they did, they did they might find this, from an article by consultant and author Umair Haque, explaining how much financial flexibility we actually have:
[When the US government spends money,] it’s not money we are “borrowing” from anyone else, like say China. We are just lending it to ourselves, which means that we can cancel the debt afterwards and with no ill consequences, either. The central bank can literally write off whatever debt is accrued the day after the crisis subsides. And if you doubt that, go ahead and think about who it’s owed to. The government owes money to whom, exactly? The answer is: nobody. It has only borrowed from itself, and therefore it can cancel the debt, too.
The third challenge to UH in in America {that people have access if they just go to the ER) is so ridiculous that it’s hardly worth addressing, but here’s a quick sumary of what’s wrong with that argument.
Insured people only go the when they’re afraid they’re dying, as they face massive bills of $2,000 to $3,000 range (on the low end) for a single visit. Oh, and I should mention that if you need chemotherapy for your cancer, pills to treat Parksons’s or physical therapy to help you recover from an injjury, you’re out of luck. ERs don’t provide routine care.
The bottom line here is that most people who try to shoot down the possibility of having UH in the US really don’t want it to happen, for any number of reasons. They just want cover for their despicable lack of compassion.
They don’t really believe that all government programs are disasters, that this country can’t afford UH or that the ER is a subsitute
They just don’t want to admit that they’re willing to let countless people suffer and die just because they can’t afford to pay the enormous costs of ,medical care. If they had any balls they’d just up and own it, but even they know that their real position is inhuman.