By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on July 23, 2009, Printed on July 24, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/141515/
Here's Rushbo -- drug addict, likely third-world sex tourist and self-appointed guardian of America's moral virtues -- working a bit of gratuitous slut-shaming into the health care debate.
It's comedy gold! See, Rush is up in arms over the fact that smokers buying insurance through the public health 'gateways' envisioned by the Dems would have to pay a higher premium. It's so unfair!
Why? From what I can make out in his "argument," Rush is saying that smokers make a risky lifestyle choice which results in higher health costs. So why don't we impose surcharges on other risky behaviors, like women who have an active sex life?
It's a patently silly argument -- unless they've come up with some kind of a cigarette-condom that makes smoking safe, I don't see much of a parallel. And, as is the norm with so many of these silly attacks on a public insurance option, Limbaugh acts as if private insurers don't charge higher premiums for smokers, which is ridiculous. Not only do insurers charge a premium, but many private companies make their employees who smoke pick up higher share of the costs of coverage. Heck, smokers actually pay higher premiums not only for health insurance, but also in many cases for life insurance, homeowner's insurance and even auto coverage.
So, a typically dishonest rant, but one that does touch on one of the crucial pivot points in the health care debate -- personal responsibility and the mandate that everyone (with a few exceptions) carry insurance.
It's obviously a fraught issue (despite the fact that most of us take mandates on automotive insurance for granted and the same principle applies). Over in the comments of our Big Bacon story -- which details the harms of eating a lot of pork fat -- one reader offered up this critique of the health proposals kicking around the halls of Congress:
That's one major reason why I don't support the Obama healthcare plan. There are too many who purposely abuse their bodies and then expect everyone else to pay for their stupidity. If you have your own medical insurance, fine. That only pays for so much, however.
I guess I'm a Social Darwinist in that those who fuck themselves up deliberately truly deserves to die.
Social Darwinism notwithstanding, this is a common argument. And on the surface a reasonable one -- why should I have to pay for your bad decisions (actually, as a smoker who loves him some bacon and rarely drinks the doctor-recommended 4 quarts of water per day, the question is, 'why should you have to pay for my lack of self-control and destructive stupidity?').
Well, first of all, mandating that (almost) everyone has insurance spreads the risk over the entire population. By having younger and/or healthier people in the pool, everyone's premiums are lower than they'd be if the insurance pool only had people who need a lot of health care.
But it goes a step further. We live in a society, and it is simply false to suggest that as members of that society we don't already pay for people's personal choices, and nowhere is that more true than when it comes to the uninsured.
Here's how I responded to the commenter:
... in theory it's true that people abuse themselves, but the idea that not covering them saves you money is false. When people who lack insurance avoid early intervention that would stave off diseases that are cost a fortune to treat later, the whole system bears the burden, including you.
So, yes, people jam their faces with bacon. They always will. Our national health dollars can pay for diagnosis and early treatment of the pathologies that follow -- with a physician explaining to people the consequences of their actions, giving them guidance on how to improve their lifestyle, telling them that they'll die young if they don't change their ways and maybe prescribing them, say, statins to lower their cholesterol. Or we can use many, many more of those dollars to treat that person down the road when they develop diabetes or suffer from cardiovascular problems, stroke or whatever. It's really a no-brainer -- and that doesn't take into account the lost economic productivity or tax revenues when that person who we didn't treat early becomes too ill to work.
And it's estimated that every American family pays around $1,000 for the uninsured seeking treatment in ERs or being unable to pay their medical bills.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
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