There is a political struggle going on over reforming how Americans obtain and pay for medical assistance.
But is there a debate?
Mostly what we hear, instead, are snide put-downs. Gail Collins recently wrote in the New York Times that “members of Congress are getting yelled at about socialized medicine by people who appear to have been sitting in their attics since the anti-tax tea parties, listening for signs of alien aircraft. But on the bright side, they’ve finally got something to distract them from the president’s birth certificate.”
That’s kind of funny. But it doesn’t address anyone’s fear or reasonable suspicion. It’s just more liberal scorn thrown at people who disagree with “big government knows best.”
I’ve heard Rachel Maddow make similar sniping comments. According to her, all folks have against the Democrats’ reform ideas is that Obama wants to kill old people. She laughs. Dismisses it out of hand.
But there are real arguments embedded in such concerns. As I wrote recently on Townhall.com, it’s not that advocates of single-payer medical systems want to kill old people; it’s that, over time, budgetary demands force them to institute some sort of rationing. Older folk die by waiting in week-long, month-long lines for medical assistance in Canada and Great Britain right now.
This is a very real concern. It deserves honest debate, not snappy put-downs and sniping retorts.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.