Monday, October 26, 2009

HEALTHCARE REFORM AT A CROSSROAD

Without going back and editing my previous post “Capitalism 201 Gone Wild Fosters Inequality”, I’d like to continue to focus on core values of different economic systems, and their role in health care reform.

As I said before, our free enterprise system values money and physical things. I would like to expand that by saying that it values power, money, and the acquisition and pursuit of money; and values physical assets and the acquisition and pursuit of physical assets.

In the second system mentioned in my previous post [let’s call it the Denmarkian system – smile], value is placed on familial and community relationships, human rights, human dignity, mutual cooperation, mutual respect, and creativity.

We, the people, have to decide which fundamentals [for lack of a better word] of the above systems do we want to embrace in
health care reform.

In the last post, I stated that our free enterprise system is in opposition to the Denmarkian system. They don’t fit together.

In our present free enterprise [capitalistic] system we see health care as not a human right, but a privilege [some entitlement, with limited access and conditioned on a persons ability to pay] . In the Denmarkian system, health care is a human right [it is universal without conditions].

The progressives in the Democratic Party are more closely ideologically aligned with the Denmarkian system. Conservatives and members of the Republican Party are more closely ideologically aligned with our present free enterprise system, as are some moderate Democrats.

The American people are torn. They were raised in the [United States] Free Enterprise system, but deep down, I believe if they had a choice of core values, and understood the benefits of the Denmarkian system, they would embrace that system; though to what extent I know not.

And so we stand at a crossroad where a majority of representatives [218 in the House, 51 or 60 in the Senate] from 50 states must decide whether health care is a human right or a privilege. The choice they make [I believe] will have moral, ethical, and economic repercussions for years to come.
-





-


-

-
-
-

No comments: