What the State Can, or Should, Do: Education or Healthcare?
Any State that sees its founding Declaration (of Independence) invested in the protection of Life (among other things, of course) and has no comprehensive health care system is shaky, at best, when it comes to moral credibility, to me. However, in this post, I want to make a comparison that should, at the very least, argue for consistency across what we already have.
There are no provisions for a State compulsory schooling system in the Constitution or elsewhere, in fact, the very issue was borrowed from Prussia in the mid-1800′s. However, most take it that schooling is something the state ought to provide for free. I have heard it argued that by providing comprehensive schooling (which is presumed to be the same thing as ‘education’) the State makes good on its promise to provide for the Creator-endowed right, “the pursuit of happiness” (a very odd and nebulous right as I see it).
Regardless, if the State were to say that it was going to abolish the compulsory requirement to attend school and stop taxation to fund that program, our society would be in an uproar. We expect schooling to be free, if people choose to excercise that option. We also expect, of course, our roads to be paved, libraries to be free as long as we get the book back on time, police to come over without charge if we are not being cited for a violation, and so on.
If it is so uncontroversial that the State ought to provide a free, comprehensive, and mandatory schooling option to its public, then, why is the same approach to healthcare so controversial? It seems that ‘life’ and ‘health’ are closely related, if not the same exact thing. And it seems straightforward that Life is the most explicit right we have—it is this very point that fuels much of the legislative activism against abortion.
So, given that the right to a free school is widely seen as acceptable—even when it is not a particulary clear right the State owes us—and that Life is such an uncontested right: Why would healthcare be any different?
Here is my proposal for those who oppose a free, comprehensive, healthcare system: You should first work to abolish the compulsory school, since, after all, health seems to be a much more explicit right to provide than schooling. And after compulsory schooling is abolished, you need to justify having libraries, police, and roads.
After all, we hear plenty of horror stories of poor libraries (where you wait for months for one mediocre book), bad cops (who abuse their authority), and terrible roads (goes without saying). Make no mistake these stories canresult in a great deal of suffering and even death. And, of course, the schooling system wrecks havoc in many ways on grand display in the absurdity that is No Child Left Behind. But we still find them all acceptable and part of what the State can and should do for us. So, horror stories of healthcare should not deter us in the very same way to want that too, in fact, it seem more fundamental to our right to Life than the other three I have mentioned.
If one is willing to argue for the abolition of all other State niceties, then, I think she can credibly make an argument against a free, comprehensive healthcare system. Until then, there is a lot of explaining to be done.
(By the way, this argument is without even considering the implications of such issues within a Catholic ethic of charity.)
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Sam,
Good point. I’ve been asking myself the same question for a long time and ask my fellow conservative and libertarian friends the same question and their argument is that the State probably shouldn’t be paying for schools, because they’re terrible anyway and much worse than private schools. I don’t even need to go into why that is a bad argument in itself though… not worth it. I think it has gone unexamined why the State pays for education and why it couldn’t pay fully or to some extent for health care. At the end of the day, your child can’t go to school if he/she is sick and you can’t afford proper care for your child!
We had a decent public health care system in Venezuela. Some hospitals were great and some other ones were absolutely shameful. But at least you got SOME basic care at no cost. I would hope that a developed nation would do a better job than a third world nation can in sustaining a good public health care system.
Health care and schooling are very different things (as are roads, libraries, the police, etc.) It’s not surprising that the best way to provide health care might be different than the best way to provide schooling, or roads, or whatever. Certainly there’s nothing inconsistent about thinking this.
Certainly there’s nothing inconsistent about thinking this.
Yes, as the health care issue is usually framed, there is.
There are horror stories in countries like Canada, to be sure but the right does not acknowledge the horror stories that exist in the united states. The latter are a matter of class injustice, while the former is a matter simply of the limits of any human system. I’ll take the former over the latter any day.
Interesting that the Pope insisted on beaning treated like any other patient at the hospital and waited his turn for an x-ray. None of that american “why should I have to wait? I have money” nonsense. You opponents of universal health care would be wise to take a lesson from him.
Blackadder is right, as usual. What the state provides for K-12 education is very different than healthcare. I’ve needed to take my youngest to an emergency room visit recently, however I’ve never needed “emergency education” for any of my kids. All kids pretty much get the same thing for, say, 4th grade math whereas how can you appropriate ahead of time the budgeting necessary for the same 4th graders having playground accidents?
This reminds me of how people throw police and fire together and call it “services” as in “We need to cut services.” If you cut patrolmen, crime might go up as a result because criminals are smart. But if you trim the fire department I don’t think that flammable materials will suddenly begin conspiring to catch fire. There’s an static versus dynamic thing going on which I think is somewhat parallel to the point at hand.
BTW, the Pope has access to the the best medical services available and we Catholics wouldn’t have it any other way. I certainly think that he is more important than me and would give him my place in line any day or to a priest or sister. “Universal health care” so-called will make the lines longer and that is why we object to it.
But at least you got SOME basic care at no cost.
Wow, the doctors and nurses muct have worked for free if there was no cost.
Ohhhhh…. you mean “no out-of-pocket cost to the patient?” Got it.
BTW, the Pope has access to the the best medical services available and we Catholics wouldn’t have it any other way. I certainly think that he is more important than me and would give him my place in line any day or to a priest or sister.
This, of course, is your attitude toward him. He thinks of himself quite differently. You are free to have whatever view of the Pope’s “importance” that you wish. What you should not do is think that you or anyone else with money is more important than someone who is poor. The Pope’s (and the Church’s) challenge to american Christians is that we understand this: Wait in line. You ain’t so special.
Sam – Sorry I accidentally deleted your comment… Please repost.
The inconsistancy is very simple. It runs something like the following:
Schooling is provided because we think we the State should ensure that the public are literate (and other things too).
Roads are provided because we think the State should ensure that the public can get places and send stuff places.
Police are provided because we think the State should keep the public safe.
Libraries are provided because we think the State ought to give the public free book access and other stuff.
All those things things, and the other things the State levies taxes for, are provided based on a common belief that they are things the State can and ought to provide. They are certainly different and the way they are provided varies, but the general principle is this: Stuff that the State gives the public is based on a value of some good that can and ought to be provided to the public.
If schooling, roads, police, libraries, and more, are provided, then, they refer to certain goods that the State can and ought to provide.
We also think that Life is a good and a fundamental right to be guarded and promoted by the State. Therefore, along with the other goods that the State provides, health—the literal life of our physical bodies—ought to be one of those goods.
If it is not one of them, then, the other ones seem to be lesser goods to Life to want the State to provide. Or, perhaps, we do not believe in a State at all, which would abolish the very idea of the State securing goods for a public.
Either way, unless the goods of schooling—literacy, numeracy, and so on—are of higher import than the physical health of our bodies, then, its seems inconsistent to accept compulsory schools and not accept State healthcare.
The Pope’s (and the Church’s) challenge to american Christians is that we understand this: Wait in line. You ain’t so special.
Right. That’s what I got from his new encyclical: “You ain’t so special.” I’m surprised that he didn’t decide to use that as a subtitle.
Universal health care” so-called will make the lines longer and that is why we object to it.
Evidence, please? In fact, there is none. In fact, in countries like France, waiting lists are far shorter than in the UK. Get past the ideology, please.
I think it would be great if public education were eliminated and turned over to the private sector. But there’s little chance of that happening.
Hopefully if Obama care does go through, some areas will come up with similar programs to vouchers whereby you can get credits for opting out of the public health system.
Here, I think, is the problem. Sam speaks as if whether the government should be running something depends on how important it is. Health is important, therefore the government should be in charge. I don’t think that’s right. Lots of things the government does are less important than other things not run by the government. Food is pretty fundamental, but we don’t have the government run the grocery stores.
In my view, whether the government should be running something depends on whether it would do a better job of doing so than anyone else. If you think that having the government build and maintain roads would work better than having private companies do this, then you should favor the government doing it. If you think the government would do a better job of building and selling cars than having private companies do this, then you should favor the government doing that. If not, not. If something is really important, then the fact the government would do a lousy job of providing it is a reason to oppose having the government do it, not a reason to support it. (The choice here isn’t all or nothing; one might think that some government involvement in an area might be good, but that having it do too much would be bad; so for example, one might think that the government should pay people’s medical bills but not actually run hospitals, or that it should do so but only for the poor, or whatever).
Blackadder:
Your argument here is very strong, I think. I think that the second part is perfectly coherent and not inconsistent at all. It is a pragmatic approach to where the Fed should be a part of important things. I especially like how you divide up and complicate the many ways we might conceive of that happening.
Such a rich approach, however, does not excuse the somewhat hasty characterization of my position in the first paragraph. My position is not “Health is important, therefore the government should be in charge.”
My position is this: Insofar as Life is important, the government should ensure that people be healthy by providing access to healthcare, since that is not the case i the US, it should at least provide as much as it does for education which seem to be a less essential good.
If people are starving in large quantities, then, food becomes an issue too. And, by the way, the Fed spends lots of money on public health and subsidizes food. Healthcare access would add to this.
Let me try a different tact. You say that Life is important, and therefore the government should ensure people are healthy by providing access to health care. There are different ways, though, that a government might go about doing this. For example, it could decide that the best way to ensure people are healthy and have access to health care is to take over all the hospitals, etc. Alternatively, it might decide that the best way is to keep hospitals, etc. private, but to pay for them through taxpayer dollars. Or, alternatively, it might decide that the best way is to keep hospitals, etc. private and to keep payment private, but to impose strict regulations to ensure that you get the best results. Or you could do the same thing, but with less regulation. Or you could decide that the best way to ensure that people are healthy and have access to health care is to enforce property and contract rights but leave the rest of it to the private sector.
It seems to me that, in choosing among these alternatives, one should go with the system that will do the best job of ensuring the health of the people. If that means nationalization, then you should do that. On the other hand, if that means that the government has a very light footprint (say, by simply enforcing property and contract and leaving the rest to private initiative and effort) then it should do that.
Let’s just clarify one point. Congress is not considering having the government run health care. Health care providers would not be civil servants. We are talking about paying for health care — an individual and emmmployer mandate, exchanges, a co-op, even a public plan and an expansion of Medicaid. Bu teven the last two are not a matter of the government running health care directly, simply giving people access to private health care.
Blackadder and Kurt really begin this thread anew in a way that I wholly unqualified to comment on. The point is that, once we consider the complexities of the situation we realize that perhaps the impossible implication of rethinking schools, healthcare, and the State in general is the only way to move forward. Doing so, of course, carefully and tediously. Thanks to you both.
I wince when either liberals or conservatives try to explain the literal meaning of the original Constitution. When signed, the Constitution legalized the importation and ownership of slaves (importation was not illegal until 1808), only white property owners could vote, and the Senate chose the President. Fortunately, the document is used as a framework that can change. There are many good reasons to have a free education system, and it seems a bit pissy to attack that develoment as basically invalid because it came about 100 years after the Constitution was signed.