Rhetoric Report
One of the more charming reports off the news wire this week was Sarah Palin's declaration that Obama's health care reform will establish a "death panel" to decide whether to kill her parents and newly born son Trig. Various sources mention Newt Gingrich giving tacit support to Palin's remark.
Palin's remarks and the general rhetoric in opposition to the present proposals for healthcare reform illustrate the astonishingly infantile state of discourse on this issue. Even someone who despises the current reform proposals cannot reasonably agree with most of the major criticism being hurled at the present bill. The general criticism being lobbed at Congress and the president, for example, is similar to Palin's: that government bureaucrats will ration healthcare and thereby decide who lives and dies by some sort of formula for social optimality, particularly targeting the weak and the elderly.
Even if this is the case, I don't understand why this is valid criticism. Firstly, the government decides who lives and dies, who is worth saving and worth killing, all of the time. Nearly every EPA regulation is calculated, for example, using cost-benefit analyses that usually assign a value of about $7 million or so to each life. The reason why your drinking water has the levels of lead, copper, and mercury it does is because a government bureaucrat decided through "heartless" and "cold" calculations that it wasn't worth society paying to save a few extra people with more stringent regulations. Conservatives usually (and correctly, I believe) favor this kind of approach, so I fail to see why they now reject it.
Secondly, it's not clear that a regime of "death panels" would be any worse than the status quo. Palin's concern is apparently for the elderly and the handicapped. But private insurance generally refuses to cover the elderly and handicapped in the status quo. It is currently the government who allows these people to live, and I am not aware of any features in the current proposal to significantly decrease coverage for such groups (though I confess that I'm no expert on healthcare reform). It's hard to understand why Palin would support a status quo in which the elderly would be summarily killed were it not for very costly government intervention.
And finally, the opposition appears to lack any serious alternatives to the Congressional plan. This is the unfortunate consequence of having overwhelming Democratic control in the House, Senate, and White House. Without much ability to advance legislation, the Republicans' only incentive is to attempt to block everything and spread as much fear and paranoia as possible. This is not a reflection of any sort of intellectual or moral deficiency on the part of Republicans; it is simply the optimal strategy for any powerless minority in government. Any alternatives they propose can be shot down by Democrats, so their only option is to regain power by fomenting disgust with Democratic policies. This is the same way that Democrats overtook Republicans in the last two elections. The solution to this would seem to be to vote for centrist Republicans to rebalance Congress and restore their incentive to engage is productive discourse. With the likes of Palin, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly still having a stranglehold on Republican rhetoric, this appears a sadly distant possibility.
Palin's remarks and the general rhetoric in opposition to the present proposals for healthcare reform illustrate the astonishingly infantile state of discourse on this issue. Even someone who despises the current reform proposals cannot reasonably agree with most of the major criticism being hurled at the present bill. The general criticism being lobbed at Congress and the president, for example, is similar to Palin's: that government bureaucrats will ration healthcare and thereby decide who lives and dies by some sort of formula for social optimality, particularly targeting the weak and the elderly.
Even if this is the case, I don't understand why this is valid criticism. Firstly, the government decides who lives and dies, who is worth saving and worth killing, all of the time. Nearly every EPA regulation is calculated, for example, using cost-benefit analyses that usually assign a value of about $7 million or so to each life. The reason why your drinking water has the levels of lead, copper, and mercury it does is because a government bureaucrat decided through "heartless" and "cold" calculations that it wasn't worth society paying to save a few extra people with more stringent regulations. Conservatives usually (and correctly, I believe) favor this kind of approach, so I fail to see why they now reject it.
Secondly, it's not clear that a regime of "death panels" would be any worse than the status quo. Palin's concern is apparently for the elderly and the handicapped. But private insurance generally refuses to cover the elderly and handicapped in the status quo. It is currently the government who allows these people to live, and I am not aware of any features in the current proposal to significantly decrease coverage for such groups (though I confess that I'm no expert on healthcare reform). It's hard to understand why Palin would support a status quo in which the elderly would be summarily killed were it not for very costly government intervention.
And finally, the opposition appears to lack any serious alternatives to the Congressional plan. This is the unfortunate consequence of having overwhelming Democratic control in the House, Senate, and White House. Without much ability to advance legislation, the Republicans' only incentive is to attempt to block everything and spread as much fear and paranoia as possible. This is not a reflection of any sort of intellectual or moral deficiency on the part of Republicans; it is simply the optimal strategy for any powerless minority in government. Any alternatives they propose can be shot down by Democrats, so their only option is to regain power by fomenting disgust with Democratic policies. This is the same way that Democrats overtook Republicans in the last two elections. The solution to this would seem to be to vote for centrist Republicans to rebalance Congress and restore their incentive to engage is productive discourse. With the likes of Palin, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly still having a stranglehold on Republican rhetoric, this appears a sadly distant possibility.
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