Health care and inequality

Racism and economic problems are inextricably linked in America, I would say that it is more fair to say that nearly all societal issues are caused by or made worse by our brand of predatory capitalism. I ran across a couple relevant bits today, the first was a Facebook post that has been getting shared around, probably for months now, talking about how people seem to actually believe medical care really does cost what it says on the bill you receive, and that is used as an argument for why it would be too expensive to provide free health care in the country. It's a good point, by the time you receive your bill you are getting the markup for the entire supply chain of medications, paying for the overhead and R and D costs, as well as the actual labor that went in to your treatment. The thing is, medical treatments rarely actually cost that, by that I mean the providers, all the way back to the drug companies that make it, are not running up expenses that justify the prices they are charging.

When you hear about insurance companies pulling out of the Obamacare markets you have to keep that in mind, they aren't pulling out because they are going broke, they are pulling out because they think they aren't getting rich enough and have decided to pursue different ways of stealing your money.

So while they are lying, blatantly, about what it costs to treat people, even that argument is the wrong one:

The idea that it costs too much to keep people alive is farcical on the face of it. If a government can't manage to do that, then why do we put up with it? That duty is the barest minimum any responsible leader should be working for. That means that no matter the cost you damn well pay it. The rest of us do. So even if the insurance companies, pharmaceutical producers, and everyone else in the vast incestuous family that is the American health care system is right, and treatments for diabetes do cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, then so fucking what? Pay it, that is what taxes are for, to make sure the government has the money to keep its people safe and alive.

Fortunately it doesn't cost as much as they say, which means it is entirely affordable to cover every American, or rather it should be, obviously things don't work that way at the moment.

Not unrelated to our national health care issues is the current opioid epidemic plaguing mostly middle America and the rust belt, but pretty much nationwide. This article crossed my path today, about an Ohio sheriff who won't let his men carry Narcan, which is used to help people survive overdoses. This guy is thankfully in the minority, but the article mentions a few things of interest, the reasoning behind it is very much an example of victim blaming, "they chose this" and all that, but at about three separate points it mentions people who talk about the financial cost, not to families or individuals, but to governments and law enforcement departments. It's more subtle than the health care argument, but the subtext is "it is too expensive to save these people's lives".

The subtext to that of course is "These people's lives aren't worth saving".

The common thread is that we can't do things that benefit the common good because it is too expensive, and this goes back right to the countries' founding, there is a reason slavery wasn't explicitly banned in our founding documents, the young America needed money, it needed cheap labor, and it had it already in the form of the slavery operation already in place, the founding fathers, at least some of whom apparently didn't care for the practice themselves, could have banned it, but only at what was to them an unacceptable cost, perhaps they were right, perhaps the country couldn't have been formed successfully without it. But perhaps it didn't deserve it either, what good has America achieved since the founding to make up for the evil it brought in at it's birth? Sure there has been good, but enough to make up for... all that? I suspect not, particularly as the country and culture seemed to have learned precisely the wrong lessons from that whole ordeal.

Hand in hand with economic inequality is victim blaming, it was easy to do with black people of course, and easy to hang on to that practice, extending it to any of the poor was simple enough and done without thought. It can't be the fault of the government if people die of hunger, this is the greatest country in the world after all, so if it isn't the countries' fault it must be the victi-citizens instead.

Caring for the least fortunate of our people should not be a controversial issue, it should not be left to the churches and charities, we are all citizens and all deserving of a proper life, it is the sole responsibility of the government to provide that for it's citizens, to give them hope and to change the culture that makes that idea so dominant. If it can't do that, it doesn't deserve to exist.

Fortunately I think in many ways it is trending that way, the Republicans are finding it hard to undo even the crappy health care system we have under Obamacare, and there is a large and growing swell of support for expanding it, or going to a full single payer plan. When we get used to the idea that everyone deserves help no matter their financial circumstance, it will go a ways towards addressing some pernicious cultural issues as well.

It won't be an easy road, or a short one, and perhaps the road will take to long for many people and they will seek other options, but there is at least hope.