Healthcare Installment #2. Please read prior post.

Generosity Underlies "Free" Care

In times of surplus, the American people are especially generous. In times of financial adversity, it is difficult to be as generous. Thus, presenting costly healthcare reform in today’s economic climate could not come at a worse moment. It hugs the heels of huge deficits by both the Bush and Obama administrations. The first to fund wars, the second to fund a stimulus program filled with benefits (nice or necessary?) for which we must pay later. It is no surprise that reform requiring more government spending (borrowing) is virtually dead on arrival today as far as fiscal conservatives are concerned. The government has been selling the country’s collective financial soul to the devil of debt for too many years and some tax payers can see the bill coming due.

The Responsibility Dichotomy Creates Friction

We are being confronted by an emerging dichotomy in the population. There are those citizens who exert self discipline and live responsibly as evidenced by healthy lifestyles and solid personal finances. Then, there are the citizens who eat poorly and exercise little and those who are unable or unwilling to manage their personal finances properly. The epidemic of obesity and the housing market collapse due to bad borrowing are two examples. The responsible citizens are growing tired of a government that seems bent on protecting irresponsible persons from enjoying the consequences of their poor decisions. They realize their prudence and hard work are being used to pay for the ignorance and sloth of the irresponsible group. This is not sitting well with members of the electorate who are asking "Where is my bailout?" When individuals, or nations, fail to exercise self-control, it opens the gate to external forces in the form of disease, marketplace corrections, or actions by other nations to fill the gap. As examples, we have diabetes, the housing market collapse, and interest by other countries in moving off of the dollar as the world currency. If we don’t get our acts together, some other force will do it for us. Too many citizens appear to be coasting on what made America great. They need to start pedaling.

Philosophical Differences Drive a Divide

There are also those citizens who are engaged and enraged by the prospect of more government, simply because they do not believe in big government. They see life as a personal challenge to be met by individual effort where success is rewarded and failure is an unpleasant fact of life that contributes to self-motivation. On the other side are those who believe government has a responsibility to the less fortunate, who through no fault of their own, are dealt a bad hand by life. When it comes to healthcare, this could be persons born with medical problems, those incapacitated by accident or disease. Since they are unable to help themselves, as human beings they are deserving of compassionate help from their fellow man. When private charity is insufficient to help this group, then government should step in. Medicare (for the elderly and disabled) and Medicaid (for the impoverished) are programs representing that philosophy. It may be impossible to reconcile the beliefs of these two groups and the final triumph may belong to the group that musters the largest political muscle in the form of votes and contributions. If the Democrats push a bill through Congress by totally bypassing Republicans, it will be this dynamic at work. In a win-lose scenario like this, the losers will not forget and resistance will continue in other ways.