Ken’s Take: If you buy the premise that Americans’ core values are individual choice, personal accountability, and rewards for ambition then the rest of the argument falls neatly into place.
My question: These days, how pervasive and strong are these core values ?
Call me cynical, but I’m starting to think that too many folks would rather leave their decisions to other, blame others for their irresponsibility and claim entitlement without ambition.
More ‘Take’ follows …
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Excerpted from: WSJ, Why Government Health Care Keeps Falling in the Polls. Oct 25, 2009
Regardless of how President Barack Obama’s health-care agenda plays out in Congress, it has not been a success in public opinion. Opposition to ObamaCare has risen all year.
We continue to hear both sides of the health-care debate argue about particulars of insurance markets, the deficit impacts of reform, and the minutiae of budgetary assumptions. These arguments, while important, do not address the deeper issues involved.
Public resistance stems from the sense that the proposed reforms do violence to three core values of America’s free enterprise culture: individual choice, personal accountability, and rewards for ambition.
First, Americans recoil at policies that strip choices from citizens and pass them to bureaucrats. ObamaCare systematically does so. The current proposals in Congress would effectively limit choice across the entire spectrum of health care: What kind of health insurance citizens can buy, what kind of doctors they can see, what kind of procedures their doctors will perform, what kind of drugs they can take, and what treatment options they may have.
Second, Americans believe we should be responsible for the consequences of our actions. Many citizens bitterly view the auto and Wall Street bailouts as gifts to people who took imprudent risks, imperiled the entire economic system, and now appear to be walking away from the mess. Similarly, Americans are cold to a health-care system that effectively rewards individuals for waiting to get insurance until they get sick—subsidizing their coverage by taxing those who responsibly carry insurance in good times and bad.
Third, ObamaCare discourages personal ambition. The proposed reforms will institute a set of government mandates, price controls and other strictures that will make highly trained specialists, drug researchers and medical device makers less valued now and in the future. Americans understand that when you take away the incentive to make money while saving lots of lives, the cures, therapies and medical innovations of tomorrow may never be discovered.
Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704335904574495131591949574.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
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More Ken’s Take: I think the resistance is more fundamental: everybody wants uninsured citizens to get healthcare– just so they don’t personally have to fund it.
The 50% of people who pay income taxes don’t want their rates goosed up; Seniors don’t want Medicare cut; Juniors don’t want to buy health insurance that they don’t need; Union members don’t want to pay taxes on their gold-plated plans; Companies don’t want to pay higher taxes — unless they can pass them on to consumers.
It’s as simple as that.
The Homa Files 