The Public Option

The recent hysteria over the various town hall meetings about Obama’s Public Option is perplexing. The question of whether we should have some form of publicly-run heath care is not perplexing, however. The whole debate can be reduced to one fundamental question: is health care a basic human right? If Obama were to look America in the face, as it were, and ask that question, America would have no choice but to support the Public Option.

If you give a man a choice between doing what is just, and doing something that is (if not evil) less just, but will make him more money, more often than not he will choose the latter. It is human nature. Health care cannot be put at the mercy of human nature, it should not be left to the market.

Now, I don’t want to suggest that all humans will always choose making money over what is just. Compassion is as much a facet of human nature as greed, it’s just that compassion often succumbs to matters of money. Another way to frame it is this: if you give man a choice between what is just, but will cause him to make less money than he currently makes, and an option that is less just, but will allow him to maintain his current income, he will choose the latter.

What I can't figure out is why all the radical conservatives have chosen health care as their battle. Why on earth would anyone not want a nation where health care is available to everyone? There would be fewer pregnancies (so fewer people drawing down welfare), less disease, fewer homeless, fewer poor people, fewer people unable to work because of chronic health problems, and more jobs in the medical field. The pharmaceutical companies stand to benefit, even if they can't demand as high a premium, because there would be more doctors prescribing more medicine to more people! AND, most people would still have a choice- if they wanted to go with private healthcare, they still could!

The semantics within the name “Public Option” are no accident. Ironically, one of the main arguments against Obama’s plan is that people fear that they would lose their ability to choose a doctor, choose a health care provider that best suits them. But Obama’s plan is called the Public Option. The plan simply adds another option. The naysayers will have more choices!

Of course, there is the matter of taxes. No one wants more taxes, and if you’re a hard working American whose employer provides healthcare, funding for which comes out of your paycheck, you don’t want your taxes to be funneled into someone else’s healthcare. I get it. But how about compassion for your fellow man, for the greater good? After all, everyone wants healthcare for themselves and their family. You could argue that everyone thinks that they deserve health care, that it’s a basic human right. Well, at least for working Americans, right? Herein lies the crux. It is a matter of justice. It is a matter of morals. It is not a matter of economics or politics.