Yes, the Left Wants to Take Away Your Health Insurance
Healthcare has been a running (and thus divisive) theme of 2019’s Democratic debates so far, and as such, it’s suddenly become very fashionable to either espouse or decry “Medicare for All!” big-talk; nearly every candidate polling above 1% has come out in support of some form of MfA.
It should come as no surprise that healthcare has become such a hot-button issue — a lot of things have happened since 2008, among them the fact that deductibles for employer-sponsored healthcare have increased eight times as fast as wages. Something is wrong.
With that established, the debate shifts (amongst Democrats) not to whether they should provide Medicare for everyone, but rather how they should do so.
The most prominent question then becomes one of if they should “take private insurance away” from hundreds of millions (67%) of Americans, or if they should mandate a switch to a government-shouldered “single-payer” option.
A single-payer system purports to offer a lot: truly “universal” healthcare, at little-to-no cost, for everyone, entirely regardless of their social or financial status.
It should be acknowledged, though, that while it sounds wonderful, there are a few issues with such a plan: hospitals may make less money and thus have less funding, big-ticket healthcare employees like doctors will see lower wages, and taxes on middle class will rise.
These cons are far preferable to those of our current Frankenstein of a system, especially the bit about higher taxes—stay, lower your arms, fellow freedom-lover; I know how much we all revile taxes. But it’s not 1760 anymore. We have representation.
The Libs want to take away your insurance
The most pervading argument against MfA is, incidentally, one of the strangest: the idea that single-payer plans will deprive somewhere around 200 million Americans of their privately-insured healthcare plans. They’re just gonna take away the insurance you love so much and leave you out to dry. You heard me right. Tax dollars alone aren’t enough — they just want to take, and take, and take.
Yes, as the ever-forgettable Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) put it:
This plan that’s being offered by Senator Warren and Senator Sanders will tell Union members who gave away wages in order to get good healthcare that they’re going to lose their healthcare because Washington’s going to come in and tell them they got a better plan.
He’s right, you know. They’re going to tell people that we will stop their wages from being garnished to pay for something that should’ve be a fundamental right anyway — but not only that! They’ll also give them something that’s probably even better than what they’d previously been receiving. Absurd. So yes, in accordance with the piece’s title, we’ve concluded that Liberals do want to deprive you of your private insurance.
Why does it even matter?
Who the hell is in love with their private insurance, anyway? Does UnitedHealth Group have a bunch of grimy-fingered, obsessive stans, chomping for their every tweet? Has Wellpoint Inc. Group got a thriving Tumblr fandom? Is anyone actively worshiping their employer for being so kind as to garnish their wages to provide them with something should already be basic right for a citizen of the richest first-world country? No. The answers to all of those questions are emphatic no’s. So why does anyone even ostensibly care about retaining their private insurance?
Private insurance is a means of maintaining division
My working idea — I’d give myself far too much credit if I were to glorify it with the theory label — is that the well-off tend to like their private insurance because it elevates them over large swathes of the population; it reinforces the class divide.
Employer-based insurance is a harmful instrument of Capital.
The percolated capitalist dogma is that you only deserve as much as you put in — this is not inherently poisonous, but it becomes so when applied to something like healthcare. The guy flipping burgers at McDonald’s deserves antidepressants just as much as the software engineer down at Google, who deserves them just as much as the depressed student across the way; people generally do aspire to become valuable members of society, and proper health care is a must-have for the typical citizen be able to reach that point.
It’s a bit nonplussing that employers can dangle insurance-carrots as perks— come work for me and I’ll lop off part of your wage so you can have the privilege of resting assured, knowing that you (and I) are not screwed if you get sick! You’re welcome! A system that warrants this is avaricious and unethical; it is so utterly unconcerned about its workers. It’s inane, for instance, that a diabetic could be forced into choosing a particular employer solely because that employer’s health benefits would enable them to bear the exorbitant prices of their insulin.
Yes, to be frank, and to shift the blame away from Capitalism as a whole, the burden should never have rested on employers’ shoulders in the first place, nor should it have been left as a relatively unregulated market for insurance corporations to mercilessly exploit. Citizens’ health is ultimately incumbent upon their government, and ours has, up to this point, failed us.
There‘s a particular exchange between Bernie Sanders and John Delaney that really stuck with me after the last Democratic debate. I quite liked Sanders’ retort:
People’s lives are not commodities to be bought, sold and profiteered; healthcare and education are not instruments for the upper echelons of Americans — for the bourgeoisie, if you will — to toy with.
It’s true that we’ll all lose our private health insurance if the leftmost Democrats have it their way, but is that even an issue, or is just a straw man talking point?
Truly, the arguments against single-payer healthcare boil down to one, single crux: profit. Doctors will profit less. Hospitals will profit less. My family will profit less. Our nation as a whole will profit less. But for your God’s sake — even though a single-payer system would increase your wages — think of something other than Capital for once! The societal profit of universal healthcare is hard to understate; a happier, healthier and more productive America is something we should all strive for. Single-payer is a necessary step on the ladder.
Financial profit cannot continue to be our bottom line.
