Why We Don't Let The Houses Burn

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.

2. No more annual limits or life-time limits for patient care, by 2014.

3. Your kid can now stay on your health insurance plan until they are 26.

4. 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.

5. 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