Left vs. Right

A brief precis of the positions taken by conservatives and liberals over the last 150 years or so:

• Liberals opposed slavery; conservatives defended it.
• Liberals favored giving African Americans the vote; conservatives opposed it.
• Liberals supported giving women the vote; conservatives opposed that too.
• Conservatives imposed Jim Crow laws and segregated the South; liberals favored equality.
• Conservatives orchestrated mass lynchings; liberals fought them.
• Conservatives exacerbated the Great Depression with their economic policies; FDR's New Deal ended it.
• Conservatives created the anti-communist witch hunts; liberals supported personal freedom.
• Liberals enacted the Civil Rights Act; conservatives opposed it.
• GDP is always lower under conservative governments; always higher under liberal ones.
• Most people are worse off under conservative economic policies; liberal policies allow everyone to improve their status.
• Conservative opposition to universal health care shortens life expectancy and increases infant mortality; lives are longer and fewer babies die with liberal health policies.

Way to go conservatives, keep up the good work!

Sick & Wrong

Michael Moore has got me thinking.

He compares the U.S. health system with those of Canada, Britain and France suggesting in the process that the American system falls well short of where it could/should be. No argument here.

The difference seems to be this:

In Britain and Canada particularly, there are hospital waiting lists, to be sure. Even after the huge monetary investment of Britain's Labour government over the last decade, an elderly person can still six months for a hip replacement - clearly one of the 'horrors of socialized medicine'. I'm sure most people would rather wait six months to have the op, than not have it at all.

But the point is that in these countries they have debates about the system, how to improve it, how make it more efficient, what services should be covered, etc. But in these debates, they are starting off from a shared consensus that universal coverage is a must. There are no pressure groups trying to elbow the poorer people aside. In the United States, we are still having debates about whether it's ok to allow a person to die early because he lacks proper health care. It's NOT OK!

In America there are vested interests (HMOs, Big Pharma, wealthy conservatives) who run well-funded, sophisticated campaigns to prevent any change to the status quo - a state of affairs in which they are all doing rather well. We can never get to the debate about means, because these selfish goups keep the debate focused on ends. In the meantime, millions suffer while the vested interests augment their already substantial incomes.