DW_a_mom wrote:
Either those people are not what I would consider "typical" liberals, or you aren't understanding them.
I was actually referring to specific people and specific interactions that I'd had with individuals that fit in with the thesis of the paper I linked in the OP, that people on the left have a harder time understanding the motives of people on the right than vise-versa, and that the effect gets stronger the further left you go. I wasn't meaning to imply anything about any "typical" liberal by my later comment on my own experience with arguing PPACA, just adding a supporting anecdote taken from my own life.
DW_a_mom wrote:
I can see your position, but one reason the constitutional argument rings hallow for me politically, when it comes from a conservative as v. a Libertarian, is that the mandate idea was developed by a conservative think tank as solution for the real problem of people being consumers of health care whether they thought they would be or not, because we are a country that will allow anyone and everyone to access care in an emergency situation. To get to people dying into the streets from not having the mandate you have to back into assuming we also change our ethics on treatment, and while I have heard some tea party supporters say we should do just that, I know it isn't the prevalent opinion.
Are you saying that your opinion of the idea would change depending upon the source? I mean I agree that conservatives who backed the mandate when it was their idea and denounced it when it became Obama's are being hypocrites, but that shouldn't have any bearing on whether it's a good idea or Constitutional.
DW_a_mom wrote:
The empathy that I frequently hear missing from the right on all this is that they over-assume access to free healthcare. When I talk about how constrained our family has felt because of health insurance issues, they shoot back that everyone can get free healthcare in a county hospital, as if it really is that easy. It isn't. First, my county does not have a county non-profit hospital. Second, that answer is inefficient cost wise - waiting for emergency care is more expensive than preventative care, and if there is a free county hospital, that costs more in tax dollars than government health insurance would; it makes no fiscal sense as a policy, to rely on "free" emergency care. And so on ... To me, it all comes back to refusing to see what they don't want to see because, yes, they are worried that what it all really means is someone trying to take dollars from their pocket and put it into someone else's.
That's a different argument, and one that I'm receptive to. I
does cost more to treat emergency patients than it does to provide preventative services, so an argument structured that way, that a stronger healthcare program is better fiscally
and for the nation's health, is a strong one. That's not the argument I tend to encounter though,
that argument is the one that calls me cold hearted, cruel, mean, heartless, etc because I dare ask "how are we going to pay for that?" and/or "is that legal?". The people making the former argument are not the people I was referring to in my comment, the latter are.
DW_a_mom wrote:
My mom debates these issues constantly with her good friend, Sarah Palin groupie, who is living on a government pension, very nicely, all the healthcare funded by taxpayers. The irony is amazing.
Did she pay into the pension? IMHO taking a benefit you don't agree with but nevertheless paid for isn't hypocrisy.
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Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer.
- Rick Sanchez
19 May 2012, 11:40 pm
