Down in this comment thread, Thomas Tallis said the following:
Actually, the reason Democrats claim to want universal health care (most don't, or we'd have it already) is twofold - first, it would cost the country less in the long run and in the fairly short run; preventative medicine is much, much cheaper than the alternatives; second, the accusation that Democrats believe in a "nanny state" is partly accurate - Democrats are into the idea of taking care of people, that one of the jobs of the state is to care for its citizens. Whether 1) that's true or 2) desirable or 3) sustainable is something people can have an honest debate about. What's not open for debate is that this:
The reason Democrats want universal health care is because, like Social Security before it, it will shift an entire generation to the Left.
is one of the dumbest things I've ever read, and I've read a fair amount of dumb things. Congratulations on your totally unsubstantiated tinfoil hat conspiracy thinking! It's a riot!
I always like when someone tries to make their political party sound all altruistic, like it's not about getting votes by promising, oh, say, 95% of Americans are gonna get a tax break or something ridiculous like that.
The fact is, Democrats are always looking at ways to create more straight ticket voters, the sorts of voters who don't bother thinking about each candidate, but who reflexively vote for one party. Of course, Republicans do this, too, but given the fact that Democrats controlled the purse strings for the vast majority of the 20th Century, it's safe to discuss this in terms of their giveaways.
Social Security, the most successful entitlement program to date, made one generation beholden to the Democrats by eliminating most elderly poverty in this country. Of course, the fact that it was a Ponzi scheme and the Day of Reckoning is coming was irrelevant in the 1930s. FDR wasn't too concerned about my kids being forced to pay for all those people who thought having kids was a problem (and their old folks, to boot).
But to argue that universal health care is the latest way Democrats are trying to create a permanent Democrat voting bloc is neither original nor crazy. Just as each party will try to prevent Social Security reform when the other party is in power, universal health care has the same political risks. Whoever gets it passed will be a savior for at least a generation, until all the wheels start falling off and the engine stops running.
I could go into the reasons universal health care doesn't work and is, in fact, being changed because it is bankrupting most countries that have it, but I've discussed that before (see here, here, here, here, here, and here for a few examples). But the fact is, Americans think the idea of somebody else paying for their health care is a great idea. Most Americans don't have experience with socialized medicine and the downsides of it (say goodbye to new drugs and hello to 12 hour waits to see a doctor you didn't choose!), so they won't realize till it's too late that socialized medicine can be summed up in two words: it sucks.
How is it possible that we've gone from a large majority of Americans supporting private medicine (67% in 1998) to a similar majority insisting on socialized medicine (55% in 2006)? I suspect there are a couple of reasons:
1. Democrats have spent 15 years telling us we need universal health care and that Americans want it.
2. Everybody deserves a trophy.
What's that? You haven't heard of Everybody Deserves a Trophy? Then maybe you don't have kids in sports, where even the last place losers get trophies.
I'm using EDT as shorthand for the moocher class we've created in America, where people think they deserve something without having to actually do anything to get it. You see this in many areas in life, but we've now got a whole generation of 20-somethings who have been raised to think they deserve a certificate just for showing up (perfect attendance!). So, if people think they deserve praise just for existing, why not assume that the government is going to make all those tough decisions about things like retirement and health care, too?
Look, I've lived without health insurance and it sucks, there's no way around that. But the government already has programs to cover the poor, the elderly, and even children. The idea that able-bodied adults are not capable of either buying health insurance on their own or getting a job with benefits is ridiculous. My beef with the insurance industry is that once you'd had something like cancer, you couldn't even buy catastrophic insurance.
I could be a hardliner and point out that insurance shouldn't be paying for doctor's visits and pills, because doing that just encourages more of both. That's why most insurance charges some sort of fee for emergency room visits; people were (and still are) using the E.R. like their general practicioner. The fee keeps that down some.
But I'm not even going to go that far. I agree with rules that require insurance companies to offer insurance at reasonable rates (don't ask me what that is) for everyone. And I don't even mind mandatory insurance requirements, although it doesn't work very well for car insurance, as anyone who's been hit by an uninsured motorist knows. But once the government starts paying the bills, it will start telling you the kind of care you can get, when you can get it, and how much you get to have. That's called rationing.
In Everybody Deserves a Trophy land, it's just unfair that some people don't have insurance and that they might have to pay full price for their birth control pills. But one thing my experience has taught me is that pain (in the form of not having insurance) will spur you to change (we found a job with excellent insurance). Once the government offers health insurance, companies will stop, and that means that we all may get the same trophy, but no one will want that ugly, cheap, stinky thing on their mantle.
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