Why We Need Health Care (Part I)

In the hopes of contributing something to the debate over the direction our country should take in regards to Health Care and welfare programs in general I will be taking a few posts to attempt to discuss the assumptions and reasoning that underlie the belief in welfare in general. 
We begin with a basic problem, there is a vast disparity in wealth among Americans. While some have golden toilets, others have difficulty paying for their plumbing from month to month. While some charter private jets to fly from city to city, others cannot afford a car to drive to work. A portion of our society cannot afford the basics of life in modern America. This raises two questions.

1. Why are people deprived or lacking in basic necessities and comforts?
2. How do we go about fixing the problem.

The first question is perhaps most important but is often overlooked so we can talk about fixing the problem. Before we can determine a solution to the problem we first need to identify the cause. This points us toward one of the bottom level beliefs of liberalism that is so fundamental that it is rarely brought to the surface.

Man is basically good and is shaped by his environment. Thus when educated he can be enlightened and improved, but if left in poverty or surrounded by corruption then he will be almost unable to avoid damaging influence they will exert. 

Thus, an individual in poverty must be rescued from that state. He is nearly  powerless to remove himself from his environment because the environment itself is what shapes and motivates him. Thus, his existence in poverty cannot be his own fault. 

If it is not his own fault, then we must look around for what is creating the environment that is keeping people in poverty. The liberal usually falls back on the great socialist thinkers, the foremost of whom was Karl Marx,   and identifies Capitalism as the culprit. Capitalism is, fundamentally built on gaining wealth for oneself. The vast amounts of money that corporations and companies make must come from somewhere, and often that money comes from the private sector. For  example, take Wal-Mart. The company has built itself around selling base level goods at base level prices, and the majority of their income comes from low income people (like me!) who are unable or unwilling to pay more at other stores. Thus, when Walmart makes a billion dollars, that is a billion dollars that came from lower income families who cannot pay for medical or dental bills, for a car, or for insurance. And, to make it worse, when the CEO receives a 100,000 dollar bonus, that is a hundred thousand dollars in his bank account that came from people who make less than that in four years.

Thus, the culprit seems obvious, there is a lack of money in one area (the low income bracket), an abundance of wealth in another area (the CEO's bank account) and a clear path as to how the money got from one place to the other. The CEO is caught red handed.

Now that we know who caused the problem, we'll look at how to fix it next. 

We Put Ourselves Here, Not Congress

The Healthcare plan put forward by the House of Representatives has set off a powder keg that has turned our whole political system inside out and divided the nation in three groups, one furious about what is being done with their tax dollars, one group, led by the President, furious that they are being opposed so vehementently and called liars, and a third group standing between the other two wondering why everyone is so bent out of shape. I'm not here to flame the fires either way, but there are a few things I would like to say.

1. Shouting and threatening violence does not change minds very often. Be courteous and don't interupt when someone is trying to speak. Even if they are completely in the wrong, our Representatives are in our government and thus deserve our respect because they hold a position of power and responsibility.
2. Proclaiming that we need to kick everyone out of congress is not going to help. Even if that were to happen, the beaurocratic fat that has been built around our government would keep things from changing a great deal. There are a lot of good senators and Representatives who are trying to do their job, but cannot get anything done because of the red tape and the opposition. If you want to make a difference research the candidates and campaign for them, even if it is only to tell a few people about them. The Founders based a great deal upon the assumption that the people would hold their representatives accountable. Our current predicament is just as much the fault of Americans who can vote as it is the Representatives who have been voted in.