Paul Choiniere has a column in the Day this morning about Sean Sullivan’s long shot candidacy in the Second District Congressional race. He summarizes Sean’s political philosophy:
He feels government has grown well beyond the means of the average taxpayer to support it, that the ever-larger budget deficits are a major cause for concern. He sees the role of the federal government as providing for those things that individuals cannot provide for themselves – a national defense, a social safety net for the most vulnerable, a reliable highway system. Sullivan predicts a national health insurance plan would be a disaster, and feels tax incentives can encourage a private-sector solution. (Emphasis added)
I wish Choiniere had followed up and asked Sean why he feels that a national health insurance plan would be a disaster. After all, Sean is someone who lived most of his adult life under the closest thing we have in this country to socialized medicine: the armed services health care system. Was it a disaster for him? By all accounts it functions well, as does Medicare, as does the VA system, as do most of the national health care plans in the civilized portion of the world. Why does Sean feel that the United States would be the exception?
Republicans have a strange detachment from reality. For many, their political philosophy is like a religion, based not on facts but on faith. They believe government cannot work and do all they can to prove it when they can take the levers of power. No amount of proof to the contrary can shake their faith. If a program works, they will either ignore that fact, work to subvert it (e.g., Medicare Advantage) or appoint people who oppose its purposes to run it. On the other hand, they retain faith in their own prescriptions despite overwhelming proof that they do not work. Consider supply side (a/k/a voodoo) economics, the claim that lowering taxes mainly on the rich leads to increased government revenue. Reagan tried it. It didn’t work. Clinton did the opposite. It worked. George Bush tried it. It didn’t work. Now McCain wants to do it again. The fact that it has been disproved in real life means nothing to these people. They believe and that is sufficient. (And besides, they’re all rich and it benefits them enormously)
By the way, I’m aware that Medicare has financial problems. If the system were expanded to cover everyone, those problems would largely disappear, since the more healthy people we bring into the system the sounder it would get. And it remains true that the Medicare Advantage program, which subsidizes more expensive private insurance, has increased the program’s financial woes.
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