Health care is a moral issue first, economic second. Here’s what conservatives must do to win and what Democrats must do to lose in 2018.
If you’re watching the cable news channels this morning, you may have heard something that I’ve never heard. “Trump has been the driving force for the healthcare debate in Washington. And his opponents aren’t arguing about what the good that will do for the country. They’re arguing about what it will do for the president.” At this point, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve missed them. If you did, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the cable news anchors are full of hot air.
That’s because the right-wing media is in the midst of a debate, and the sides aren’t talking, and the facts are on the table. But the reason for the impasse isn’t “fact-checkers” on one side or “fact-checkers” on the other, but rather the difference of worldviews.
I’ll be honest: I’m a fan of Obamacare. I worked part time for one of the state exchanges and I got a decent benefits package. I still think we should have a single health care plan for this country.
But I’m also an entrepreneur, and I want to be able to hire people. I want to be able to pay for their healthcare with a single payment, not some government program. And I want as much control over healthcare costs as I can get. I don’t want politicians telling me what to do with my insurance when it expires.
In the old days, that would have meant something on the order of universal coverage, and government-controlled costs. In the new era, it means that I can keep my current insurance plan and I won’t have to worry about costs.
And that’s where Trump and the Republicans have screwed up. They want to eliminate the insurance market entirely, and they want to turn America into a socialist state where citizens have a job that pays them $15 an hour and medical services are free or nearly so.
This isn’t a left versus right, right versus left argument. It’s a Trump vs. the Republican Party. Trump is a right-wing nut job who hates social welfare programs, and Republicans are a bunch of self-serving bigots who hate immigrants and are terrified of any changes that make it harder to get a job.