Morality by coercion
Posted by Marc Hodak on September 27, 2007 under Collectivist instinct | 
2 Comments to Read
It sounds like a joke:
A rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest and a Baptist minister joined Senate Democrats in making a moral argument for the legislation.
The legislation in question is SCHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
While most people who aren’t Democrats or Republicans would say the two parties are barely distinguishable, I would say that when it comes to spending, nearly all Democrats are focused on the worthiness of the end, while many Republicans are concerned about the process.
Typical Democrat take:
“In St. Luke’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus instructed his disciples to ‘let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them,’” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We urge Congress and the president to support our bipartisan legislation and let little children have health care.”
This looks like generosity, but it’s generosity with other people’s money. (It’s also a lie, since most of the recipients of this new bill already have health care. Isn’t lying immoral?) Typical Republican take:
Senator John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans, denounced the bill as “a step toward the Democrats’ ultimate goal of a single-payer, government-run health care system.”
This looks like a concern about process, but it’s easy to interpret as lack of compassion. So there is always a Republican who will play to the Democrats’ gallery:
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, responded [to Ensign]: “That’s a nice, sweet, cute little argument, but it does not solve the problem of how you help these kids. I am not about to allow these children to go without health care.”
which is where the Republicrat charge arises. Helping the children is great populism, but it’s nearly always tied to a disingenuous policy when you get into the details.
The easiest way to get enough people to agree to pay for a disingenuous policy is to promise enough people that the money won’t be spent too far from home:
The bill would increase the federal money available to every state next year.
So, a rabbi, a priest, and a minister agree that forcible redistribution of money for a dubious purpose in what will no doubt be the least efficient way possible is the moral thing to do. What a joke.
KipEsquire said,
We already have taxpayer-underwritten healthcare for the poor, including poor children.
It’s called Medicaid.
If there is a “poor kids” gap, then it is by definition a Medicaid gap. So why not just fix that?
SCHIP is a totally unnecessary, duplicative program that serves no purpose except to give politicians something to point to each election year.
Nick said,
This program is a lie and a crock. All the headlines call this a program for “poor” children, but note that the politicians carefully avoid using the term “poor kids.” It’s “little kids” or just “kids.”
The reality is that this program is for lower-middle class kids (whose parents make upwards of $75K a year), almost all of whom are already getting good health care. The democrats are simply using this as an opportunity to crowd the insurance market out for these kids. But the headlines are all about “poor kids” (who are NOT the object of this program) instead of “government takeover of existing insurance for non-poor kids.”
Even if some lower-middle class kids are falling through the cracks, why not try to target them better for such aid? Because that would be too hard to do without creating “perverse incentives” (as MH says) and it wouldn’t satisfy the Dems long-term objectives for a government takeover of the health care market.