XtinaS passed along this Livejournal post by alchemi responding to Mickey Kaus’s argument that social equality is more important than money equality. And the response begins with “Bullshit,” and continues thus:
Yesterday, at work, I was standing in a urinal relieving myself when one of the founding partners of the law firm next door came in and had a piss next to me. I immediately thought: so this is what Kaus is after. Sure, the guy may spend as much money as I made in ten years on a down payment for a villa for his third mistress, but because we are not socially segregated and can pee next to each other, I should be freakin’ thrilled! Thank you Mickey Kaus.
Snerk.
Alchemi then goes on to define what he means by money equality, and why it’s so important:
I don’t (nor, I suspect, do any of the leftists I know) mind if rich people make money. What bothers us is that there is a tremendous inequality in financial security, financial risks, and financial consequences of disaster. The point is not to have equality in luxury, but equality in necessity; it’s not the financial heights to which one can achieve, but the depths to which one can fall.
Some would claim there is an inherent conflict attempting to manage risk in a complex capitalistic system. My impression is the opposite is true. Disproportionate risks distort the market. They minimize market access, create perverse incentives and prevent efficient solutions.
Despite the conception of the right (and the Democrats who voted for MBNA-approved bankruptcy reform) that bankrupts are simply spendthrifts whose free-spending irresponsibility caught up with them, the hard truth is that a survey showed that half those filing for bankruptcy protection did so after an illness or accident left them with medical bills too overwhelming to handle. And insurance isn’t enough to keep people from disaster. As Elizabeth Warren wrote in the Washington Post in 2005, while the reform bill was still pending:
As part of a research study at Harvard University, our researchers interviewed 1,771 Americans in bankruptcy courts across the country. To our surprise, half said that illness or medical bills drove them to bankruptcy. So each year, 2 million Americans — those who file and their dependents — face the double disaster of illness and bankruptcy.
But the bigger surprise was that three-quarters of the medically bankrupt had health insurance.
How did illness bankrupt middle-class Americans with health insurance? For some, high co-payments, deductibles, exclusions from coverage and other loopholes left them holding the bag for thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs when serious illness struck. But even families with Cadillac coverage were often bankrupted by medical problems.
Too sick to work, they suddenly lost their jobs. With the jobs went most of their income and their health insurance — a quarter of all employers cancel coverage the day you leave work because of a disabling illness; another quarter do so in less than a year. Many of the medically bankrupt qualified for some disability payments (eventually), and had the right under the COBRA law to continue their health coverage — if they paid for it themselves. But how many families can afford a $1,000 monthly premium for coverage under COBRA, especially after the breadwinner has lost his or her job?
Often, the medical bills arrived just as the insurance and the paycheck disappeared.
Bankrupt families lost more than just assets. One out of five went without food. A third had their utilities shut off, and nearly two-thirds skipped needed doctor or dentist visits. These families struggled to stay out of bankruptcy. They arrived at the bankruptcy courthouse exhausted and emotionally spent, brought low by a health care system that could offer physical cures but that left them financially devastated.
Think about what it might be like if we had universal health coverage in the US. People who became ill wouldn’t have to sell their homes and go without food. Risk would be spread among the entire country, not just among those in a company. People could have greater freedom to freelance, become entrepreneurs, or simply switch jobs if they didn’t have to worry about how they’d get insurance. The greatest beneficiaries would likely be those who make too much for Medicaid, but not enough to purchase insurance if their jobs don’t provide it. They’re the ones who are in the most vulnerable position, having to forgo health care unless it’s a dire emergency, and least able to absorb the costs should disaster occur.
There are plenty of examples of risks that are minimized because of governmental action, and Alchemi gives a few:
It is because of the SEC that investors feel secure enough to invest in stocks. Without risk management… no stock market. It is because of the FDA that people have confidence in to buy meat. While they would buy meat anyway, it is easier and more efficient when consumers can feel secure that what they purchase will almost always meet minimum standards. Free public education reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk of having groups of unemployed, unskilled and bored people who would distort the market by causing havoc.
I think the recent melamine-in-pet-food-and-perhaps-now-in-the-human-food-supply scandal, ably covered by Litbrit at Shakesville, really points out how there are certain risks that we, as a society, have determined that the individual should not have to bear. And one of those risks is having to determine whether food is safe and free of industrial chemicals meant to give a false reading of protein content. And while Alchemi points to schools as an example of risk management, it’s important to note that school funding is not at all what it used to be, and that huge inequities exist (New York’s prior governor George Pataki, for example, fought tooth and nail against equitable funding for New York City schools, even though he lost at every court level. He infamously said that the “sound basic education” guaranteed by the state’s constitution only required that the schools prepare students well enough to flip burgers), exacerbated by funding formulas that rely on local taxes.
However, nobody but a few true believers on the right really think that government-funded free education for all isn’t a good idea. And after decades in which the specter of “socialized medicine” was used to make universal healthcare seem like some kinda pinko commie shit, people are coming around to the idea of viewing healthcare as something that makes the economy and the country stronger, and isn’t some kind of gift to be grudgingly given to the poor if they behave themselves. It’s just another part of the social safety net, the one that, ideally, catches you when you fall.