Colorado is burning. More specifically, tens of thousands of acres in
the foothills and even some of the
plains of Colorado are burning. Local, state, and federal resources have been diverted
to fight these blazes. Why? Because many homes
are burning and many, many more are still at risk. That’s what we do in America.
We look after our neighbors as best as we can.
Yet I hear some say that families who choose to live in fire-prone
areas bear the sole responsibility for locating their dream homes in the
foothills and so do not deserve the fire-fighting resources for which the rest
of us pay through taxes. I find this argument despicably mean-spirited and just
plain morally bankrupt.
But, there is a more utilitarian reason why these good people deserve
our protection. They pay taxes. Many of those now so precariously nestled up
against the Rocky Mountains no longer have school-age children or otherwise
educate their children in private academies, but they pay property taxes that
are used to educate children in public schools who choose to live in safer,
cheaper, and less picturesque locales.
In turn, the rest of us pay taxes that go to all fire-fighting efforts, even though we live nowhere near the
danger.
This is a good example of what is called the social compact or social contract. We take care of them and they
take care of us through the workings of a neutral government.
Americans decided that the social compact was a good idea for America at
the birth of America, as the newly minted Americans rejected the “live and let
die” mentality of the feudal system they left behind in England. The feudal
system was based on a kind of trickle-down
theory, but our founding fathers had already learned the hard way that it
was just a scam to allow the rich aristocracy to get richer and the poor serfs
to “eat cake.”
Okay, does this make sense? The social compact is not Communism. In
fact, we would not even have a free market economy if every individual still
had to depend upon their own personal resources to protect and educate their
own. This social compact has freed up the teachers to teach, merchants to merch,
police to police, and just about everybody else to go to work without having to
worry about what is happening to the ole homestead in their absence.
Yes, it would be great if local, state, and national politicians were
more in touch with our needs, faster to respond, and more efficient in the
execution. But, even as you gripe about
the gummint taking money for nuthin
out of your pocket, please keep in mind that you are driving on roads built and maintained by the gummint, crossing
bridges built by the gummint, drinking
water made safe and pumped into your home by the gummint, picking your kids up
from gummint-run schools, protected by
gummint police and fire fighters, listening to weather reports put out by the
National Weather Service, and hunting, fishing, hiking, and biking isn national
parks.
You can live in a cabin and write conspiracy manifestos like the Unabomber
or a cave (actually a swanky compound) and plot to subvert the gummint like Bin
Laden or you can join the rest of society and accept that the social compact is
a good thing or at least a necessary inconvenience. Because it all evens out in
the end. Quid pro quo.
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has upheld the
Affordable Health Care Act, please think about the above argument and then consider
the following:
1. No Child can be denied coverage on her
family’s plan for a pre-existing condition. This provision will extend
to adults as well, by 2014.
- No more annual limits or life-time limits for patient care, by 2014.
- Your kid can now stay on your health
insurance plan until they are 26.
- Insurance companies must now spend
80-85% of the premiums they
rake in, on actual health care and sickness prevention programs. You will
be getting a rebate from your insurance company in September, 2012.
- Insurance companies can no longer drop
your coverage if you get sick.
6.
A discount
for some prescription drugs for seniors, currently caught by the infamous
Medicare “doughnut hole.”
7.
Free health
screenings for seniors.
8.
All citizens
will be required to accept the personal responsibility to either buy insurance
by 2014 or pay a tax, so that the rest of us don’t continue to pay higher
premiums for uninsured trips to the emergency room.
9.
Health
insurance exchanges will be set up by 2014, so individuals can buy into much
cheaper group plans.
Is the ACA perfect? Of
course not. It was a political compromise based upon many bipartisan ideas,
including the GOP idea about the individual mandate instead of the Democratic
single-payer plan. Will it need to be tweaked in the future? Most certainly. Gummint
programs are like new car models. It takes at least two years on the market to
find the big design flaws and correct them. I suspect it will take until about
2016, to work out most of the kinks.
The ACA will NEVER equal
perfect health care and I am not saying it will. Not every pothole can be
filled. Not every criminal can be arrested. Not every home can be saved from fire.
Not every child can be guided through school. Not every sick person will get
well again. But gummint tries as best as they can, because we the people have
agreed that we need this kind of cooperation and collaboration, to promote the general welfare of this
country.
For those of you who
still believe that private enterprise represents our sole salvation from a slow,
cranky, and cumbersome government, I will borrow (and modify) a phrase from
President Reagan, “Private enterprise will not solve the problem. Private
enterprise IS the problem.” Sure, private enterprise might be able to get some
of these things done better than gummint…if they wanted to. The problem is that
they don’t care about actual people. They call us “muppets.” The general welfare is simply not the end of
business. Profit is the end of
business. Profit has always been and will always be the end of business. Live and let die.
That is why I’m still
betting on the gummint to put out fires and now, to guarantee healthcare
coverage for all.
J. Brandeis Sperandeo
