Those in Need Are Lazy. Systemic Poverty Is Not Our Fault.

Yes, I once worked for the woefully dated Investor's Business Daily. In marketing. But that was in the early 90s. I see their philosophy is still recklessly dated and discriminatory. If this doesn't wake you up this morning - should you have an ounce of moral justice in you - I don't know what will.

By Yaron Brook and Don Watkins who ignore facts, logic, the benefits of privilege, social structures, quality education and systemic inequality; and therefore this screed plays on the mythic and fallacious American idea of "all men are equal." By denying that government favors some races and classes over others, they've continued to feed their own - and their reader's - self-righteous ideas of superiority. Assuming that "the needy" are in need because they are lazy or inferior is blatant discrimination.

It is a prime example of ideological unreason. Factless. Hateful. Privileged. The result of poor thinking, and poorer reasoning. Ignorant of how society actually functions. That this sort of 80s and 90s argument can still be made is astounding to me, after "trickle down" and "entitlement" talk has been so disproven by the decimation of the middle class, continued poverty, joblessness, and other unsolved social ills.

But if one is committed to proclaiming this is the greatest country in the world without questioning why or how, without examining statistics that prove otherwise, how will this country continue as such? The superiority of a class or race in this country has been kept by such ignorance of facts - and to our detriment. Only when the underprivileged are able to contribute to society does stability grow. By usurping the "patriotic" mantle, those who work to oppress and demoralize only do damage. Because they fear losing their privilege, the benefits they and their families have generationally received at the expense of "the needy."

In the run-up to the Senate's passage of the health care bill, opponents of ObamaCare denounced it as an unprecedented expansion of government control over medicine.

They warned of the proven consequences of government medicine, pointing to the rationing that occurs in Canada and Europe.

They pointed to the low cancer survival rates in places like Britain. They cited statistic after statistic showing that ObamaCare will raise costs and lower health care quality in America.

They were right — yet it looks like Obama will get his bill. And even if the Republicans are able to pull off an upset, there is no question that over the coming years government control over health will continue to grow.

Why? Consider the history of government involvement in health care.

In the 1960s there was a perception that some elderly were not receiving adequate health care. To meet this need, Congress passed Medicare. The same concern was voiced about the poor. To meet their need, Congress passed Medicaid.

The same concern was voiced about those too destitute (or too irresponsible) to buy health insurance, and in the '80s Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, forcing emergency rooms to treat anyone who needed medical attention, regardless of their ability to pay.

The same concern was voiced about parents who were too well off for Medicare, but who nevertheless couldn't meet their children's health care needs, and in the late '90s Congress passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The message is clear: If you have a need, you are entitled to have it fulfilled at others' expense.

The reason we continue to move toward socialized medicine is that everyone — including the opponents of socialized medicine — grants its basic moral premise: that need generates an entitlement.

So long as that principle goes unchallenged, government intervention in medicine will continue growing, as each new pressure group asserts its need and lobbies for its entitlement, until finally the government takes responsibility for fulfilling everyone's medical needs by socializing the health care system outright.

Some believe you can stop this process midstream: The government will intervene only to help those in dire circumstances while otherwise leaving people responsible for their own health care. But that's an illusion. If need entitles one to the wealth and effort of others, then there is no logical reason why the government should restrict help to some small subset of the "needy," and refuse to help the rest.

Health Care Reform Is A Loaded Gun With Six Bullets.

From Dr. Jeff Mirus at Catholic Culture, another attempt to paint reform as perhaps necessary but only if it discriminates against minorities that the Catholic Right wishes to ignore.

I posted something from Mirus a few days ago because it so graphically displays conservative Catholic demonization of women, the elderly, and gays. His six bullets in the health reform gun, which he says should not be included in health care reform and which he says prove that Catholics must stand strong against actors for the "culture of death" (a menace to society hellbent on killing), are nothing more than cold discrimination.

The framing of choice advocates as death proponents is nothing new but it prevents the Catholic Right and other conservative actors from, as Dr. Mirus shows, objectively understanding the challenges faced by those he demonizes.

Instead of discussing how to best address the rights of women, elders and the gay community, he discounts any attempt at reform that includes them, working himself, on behalf of the "pro-life" movement into a position of persecution. Essentially, the provision of rights to others has become an argument that the religious right is persecuted.

It's a dishonest, immoral frame and one that, particularly in the US, indulges the privilege of one minority group, in this case "pro-life" Christians, over the needs of the entire community. Judging from the successes of this powerful, organized, well-funded and manipulative group to limit women's access to choice of health services and doctor-patient privacy, the state and the medical industry have given preference to loud "pro-life" activists over those who are being denied rights.

The resulting self-righteousness and claims of persecution from those like Dr. Mirus are alarming to me. And instructive if we want to understand what challenges we face as a nation to providing equal care to all of society's members. The blocks which continue to be put up against reform - and let me be clear, there is no reform in this administration's health care bill! - are predominantly from the religious and "fiscal conservative" segment of society.

Ideology has allowed our country to neglect millions of citizens. Forty thousand die each year without health care coverage. This is an epidemic that we fail to end because our courts and our legislature continue to honor industry profits, discrimination in patient care, to deny that unbiased health care is a right. Within our borders, social and economic minorities are - to use Mirus violent analogy - sacrificed (left to die) for the sake of prejudice.

If science can package and deliver Dr. Mirus food, can cure his disease, can deliver his drinking water, swell his national pride of American achievement, and even, as our medical industry now does, prolong death, how can he deny the use of that science to better meet the needs of those he has chosen to condemn simply because he personally opposes their lifestyle, ignores their lack of his same privilege, and denies the same financial benefits he holds.

It is discrimination and hatred, plainly on display in his writing. His lack of this understanding, his determination to paint the Christian right as morally just and even superior, and his claims of persecution are not only shameful, they are fatal. But this isn't about Dr. Mirus conscience in any way. He holds a place in society where he can choose how to address his own medical needs. This is about subjecting a needy segment of our population to his ideas of morality. When he takes seriously the hatred and suffering inflicted on women, gays and elders, by this sort of myopic selfishness, I will try to take his protestations more seriously.

I’m sorry, but I refuse to be blamed for the deliberate insertion of false ideas about the value of human life, including support for abortion, into the very packages and programs which should have a proper respect for life at their core—and which, in fact, lose their very meaning as “health care” without that fundamental respect for the life, rights and dignity of each person. I will not be backed into that corner. I will not stand accused of indifference to those less financially fortunate because I balk when somebody presses an ideological gun to my temple and calls it “concern for the poor.”

In that gun there are at least six bullets: Abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, harvesting of human embryonic materials, gender-change procedures, and medical rationing by those who serve an anti-life ethic. None of the major issues which are being debated, including the astronomically high cost of these Federal proposals, has very much to do with insuring the poor. There are far cheaper ways to get that done which do not carry all this ideological baggage. To my way of thinking, those who insist that the culture of death be injected into every health discussion are the ones who are showing a callous disregard of the poor.

They are, in fact, allowing their ideological passion to impede the process of helping the poor and (as Phil notes today in The abortion distortion) they are intent upon setting up a system that must be dismantled as soon as less ideological heads prevail. Look: With 85% of Americans already insured, and some portion of the remainder capable of, but opposed to, insuring themselves (for many young and healthy people choose not to use their income in this way), we find ourselves within striking distance of full coverage even through existing mechanisms. That striking distance is so close that it would apparently cost considerably less simply to insure the poor through existing carriers than to approve any of the sweeping Federal proposals to date. Tax incentives and other pressures and inducements could bring this about even more cheaply.

The Catholic Medical Association thinks the Federal government needs to start over, and to quit ignoring both life ethics and the benefits of subsidiarity. So let’s not kill any more poor people than necessary to get this done, shall we? And let’s stop calling a spade a heart, and a heart a spade.