Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, usually a solid advocate of
civil liberties against government intrusions, can’t for the life
of her understand what all the fuss about the loss of economic
liberties due to ObamaCare is all about. Shell shocked by the
shellacking that the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli received at
the hearing Tuesday, she went into a deep sulk and threw the
intellectual equivalent of a
hissy fit.
How dare the conservatives on the bench ask Verilli if he
recognized any limiting principles on the government’s powers under
the Commerce Clause to coerce activity? By simply posing this
question, the conservative justices had revealed just how dark,
primitive and – above all – uncompassionate their conception of
freedom was. She wrote:
sure.)
But if she’s having trouble understanding the conservative
conception of freedom, I’m having difficulty understanding her
conception of compassion. So here are some questions that might
help clear the cobwebs off my Neanderthal brain.
One: Liberals insist that the individual mandate forcing
everyone to buy coverage is necessary to prevent freeloaders from
saddling everyone else with the cost of their emergency care. One
can defend this provision by appealing to individual responsibility
(as the awful Mitt Romney did) or the need for a more rational
health care system, or, if liberals were honest, putting in place a
funding mechanism for universal coverage. But why is forcing
someone to buy a product against their wishes on the threat of
fines or jail compassionate?
Liberals might say that the individual mandate is not
compassionate, but the system in whose service it’s being deployed
– universal coverage – is because everyone will get better care.
But that only raises more questions: one conceptual and one
empirical:
Conceptually, if we subtract the cruelty of the means from the
alleged compassion of the ends, will there be a net increase in
compassion?
Empirically, if people don’t experience significant health gains
under universal coverage, as there is
scientific evidence to believe they won’t, does the mere
intention of compassion matter?
Two: The individual mandate shows that it does not matter
to Lithwick and her fellow progressives that they have to resort to
conscription to enact their grand compassionate designs. But does
who they are conscripting matter? In the bad old days of the draft,
the fact that politically powerless minorities ended up serving
disproportionally more than rich, powerful white kids made the
system even more immoral.
Shouldn't that doom ObamaCare too?
In our current health care system, a mix of taxpayers; (rich)
hospitals/providers and (even richer) private insurers are stuck
with the tab for uncompensated care. There are many problems with
this. But isn’t it at least more compassionate than ObamaCare that
would force asset-poor young people – trying to pay off their
college debt and hang on to some beer money – to subsidize the
coverage of relatively wealthier prospective geezers? If maximizing
compassion is the issue, shouldn't we stick with what we've
got?
Three: In the Manichean worldview of Lithwick & Co.,
one can have compassion or freedom but not both. That would be news
to Aristotle who, for a dead, white, male, wrote some rather lovely
stuff in the Nichomachean Ethics about how freedom is a
pre-requisite for genuine compassion.
If anything, the evidence that compulsion leads to more
compassion is slim at best. Despite the fact that doctors and
hospitals have a legal obligation to treat emergency cases, the
total amount of uncompensated care provided in America currently
adds up to only $40.7
billion annually or about 3 percent of our total health care
spending (hardly the kind of problem that justifies a draconian
2,500-plus page government power grab). This is comparable to the
3 to 5 percent of billable hours in pro bono services that big
law firms, that have no equivalent compulsion, aim to
offer.
Why is it obvious that, absent a legal requirement, doctors
would offer any less free care than lawyers? Is it at all plausible
that people who have chosen healing the sick as their vocation
would simply walk away as poor people “bleed out on the curb,” as
Lithwick worries?
Three: Related to the above point, have liberals ever considered
that freedom and compassion are not enemies, but friends? That
incentivizing, rather than forcing, compassion might be a better
way to go? For example, how about offering, say, Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation tax breaks to buy coverage for the uninsured?
I can already hear derisive laughter. But does that show that
opponents of ObamaCare are indifferent to compassion – or that
liberals have contempt for freedom?
No doubt it’s my naivety that is causing me to ask such
simple-minded questions. But perhaps liberals can enlighten me – in
the name of compassion, you know.
civil liberties against government intrusions, can’t for the life
of her understand what all the fuss about the loss of economic
liberties due to ObamaCare is all about. Shell shocked by the
shellacking that the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli received at
the hearing Tuesday, she went into a deep sulk and threw the
intellectual equivalent of a
hissy fit.
How dare the conservatives on the bench ask Verilli if he
recognized any limiting principles on the government’s powers under
the Commerce Clause to coerce activity? By simply posing this
question, the conservative justices had revealed just how dark,
primitive and – above all – uncompassionate their conception of
freedom was. She wrote:
Until today, I couldn’t really understand why this case was(She had no freedom from acid reflux as she wrote this, I’m
framed as a discussion of “liberty.” This case isn’t so much about
freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms. It’s about
freedom from our obligations to one another, freedom from the
modern world in which we live. It’s about the freedom to ignore the
injured, walk away from those in peril, to never pick up the phone
or eat food that’s been inspected. It’s about the freedom to be
left alone. And now we know the court is worried about freedom: the
freedom to live like it’s 1804.
sure.)
But if she’s having trouble understanding the conservative
conception of freedom, I’m having difficulty understanding her
conception of compassion. So here are some questions that might
help clear the cobwebs off my Neanderthal brain.
One: Liberals insist that the individual mandate forcing
everyone to buy coverage is necessary to prevent freeloaders from
saddling everyone else with the cost of their emergency care. One
can defend this provision by appealing to individual responsibility
(as the awful Mitt Romney did) or the need for a more rational
health care system, or, if liberals were honest, putting in place a
funding mechanism for universal coverage. But why is forcing
someone to buy a product against their wishes on the threat of
fines or jail compassionate?
Liberals might say that the individual mandate is not
compassionate, but the system in whose service it’s being deployed
– universal coverage – is because everyone will get better care.
But that only raises more questions: one conceptual and one
empirical:
Conceptually, if we subtract the cruelty of the means from the
alleged compassion of the ends, will there be a net increase in
compassion?
Empirically, if people don’t experience significant health gains
under universal coverage, as there is
scientific evidence to believe they won’t, does the mere
intention of compassion matter?
Two: The individual mandate shows that it does not matter
to Lithwick and her fellow progressives that they have to resort to
conscription to enact their grand compassionate designs. But does
who they are conscripting matter? In the bad old days of the draft,
the fact that politically powerless minorities ended up serving
disproportionally more than rich, powerful white kids made the
system even more immoral.
Shouldn't that doom ObamaCare too?
In our current health care system, a mix of taxpayers; (rich)
hospitals/providers and (even richer) private insurers are stuck
with the tab for uncompensated care. There are many problems with
this. But isn’t it at least more compassionate than ObamaCare that
would force asset-poor young people – trying to pay off their
college debt and hang on to some beer money – to subsidize the
coverage of relatively wealthier prospective geezers? If maximizing
compassion is the issue, shouldn't we stick with what we've
got?
Three: In the Manichean worldview of Lithwick & Co.,
one can have compassion or freedom but not both. That would be news
to Aristotle who, for a dead, white, male, wrote some rather lovely
stuff in the Nichomachean Ethics about how freedom is a
pre-requisite for genuine compassion.
If anything, the evidence that compulsion leads to more
compassion is slim at best. Despite the fact that doctors and
hospitals have a legal obligation to treat emergency cases, the
total amount of uncompensated care provided in America currently
adds up to only $40.7
billion annually or about 3 percent of our total health care
spending (hardly the kind of problem that justifies a draconian
2,500-plus page government power grab). This is comparable to the
3 to 5 percent of billable hours in pro bono services that big
law firms, that have no equivalent compulsion, aim to
offer.
Why is it obvious that, absent a legal requirement, doctors
would offer any less free care than lawyers? Is it at all plausible
that people who have chosen healing the sick as their vocation
would simply walk away as poor people “bleed out on the curb,” as
Lithwick worries?
Three: Related to the above point, have liberals ever considered
that freedom and compassion are not enemies, but friends? That
incentivizing, rather than forcing, compassion might be a better
way to go? For example, how about offering, say, Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation tax breaks to buy coverage for the uninsured?
I can already hear derisive laughter. But does that show that
opponents of ObamaCare are indifferent to compassion – or that
liberals have contempt for freedom?
No doubt it’s my naivety that is causing me to ask such
simple-minded questions. But perhaps liberals can enlighten me – in
the name of compassion, you know.
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