Reply #5: the counter argument

[gottaB]

We're paying for it anyway. Look at the financials of a major corp. like GM. Talk to a union member whose premiums and copays keep going up and up while wages are flat because at the bargaining table everything goes to preserving health care coverage.

You argue for basing coverage on a kind of fairness where you get back what you put in. Well, you could reform that system, make it more progressive, so that it's more fair, but I think it's missing the fundamental problem. The issue is not about who ought to recieve health care based on what they pay in payroll taxes because: (1) Everybody gets health care now, it's just that some 41 million Americans get absolutely craptacular last-minute health care that costs us all more in the final accounting; (2) we have as Americans and civilized human beings fundamental values that call for us to care for the wellbeing of our fellow citizens; and (3), the social costs of alienating a large group of Americans from the health care system and from government in general are detrimental to our long-term prosperity and progress. Would you really find the alternative of letting tens of millions of people suffer without any health care whatsoever to be acceptable?

On Social Security, do you really trust the Congress not to raid those funds?--but forget that point for a moment, and think of the basic promise of Social Security: A social safety-net for all Americans. And on health care, Medicaide, Medicare, etc., what are these funds really for? Do the honest accounting, put the costs in the budget, share the burden equally according to ideals of progressive taxation, and the end result will be greater security, greater health, less suffering, increased economic productivity, and, as a special bonus, more transparent government.

I think if you're going to be truly pragmatic about it, you've got to take seriously the proposal for a universal single payer system, and to pay for that you don't need to hike taxes on the vast majority of working Americans--if you shift the burden.