Flaming Strawman at Daring Fireball

I love John Gruber's blog, Daring Fireball. It's full of great stuff- Mac geekery, design, typography - everything that makes me tick. Heck, I even wore my Daring Fireball shirt to Disney World. But Gruber and I differ politically.

This week, in response to an erroneous article (since corrected) claiming that Stephen Hawking wouldn't get treatment under the proposed Obama health care plan, he makes the case that conservatives' arguments against nationalized health care are "weird" because some are looking at the U.K.'s healthcare system and drawing contrast to the U.S. system.

This is an argument I'm seeing more in more in this debate - pointing out some tiny bit of hysteria by a few conservatives (such as some of the town hall protesters) or some "fact" that's not quite correct and and dismissing conservative objections as silly as a result. I'm, frankly, disappointed in Gruber for falling victim to this.

John, you're an intelligent man whom I have high regard for. But surely you can understand that:

a.) this debate should not be an "Obama's proposed plan or nothing at all" approach, which is how the debate has been framed thus far. Sure, there are things in the U.S. healthcare system that aren't perfect, but we don't live in a perfect world. The fact remains that people travel from all over the world to the United States to access our medical system. I live less than 75 miles from the largest medical center in the world. I've had relatives from overseas travel here for treatment at great expense to themselves and their families. They chose to come here - not Canada and not the U.K. - because the best doctors are here. I've also got a lot of doctors in my family, most of whom are from overseas. They have all come here for medical school and for their residencies. Why? Because they wanted to learn from the best in the best medical system in the world. They come, learn and go back to their countries to practice medicine. And their American education is highly regarded there.

b.) conservatives' objections to Obama's plans have nothing to do with actual health care reform. Rather, we can't stand the scope of the "change" and the resulting government takeover of a private economy. It's too far-reaching. It's too much all at once. And it's too drastic. What we want is something that is less restrictive for all and doesn't penalize those of us who don't have our hand out looking for something free and actually don't mind paying for something that we use. Health care is a commodity, just like cars or computers or food. Anyone who thinks that things should be given to them at no cost are living in a childish utopian fairyland, not the real world. Besides, when are "free" things ever actually any good? The phrase "government cheese" exists for a reason. And look at the ridiculous One Laptop Per Child project. You've railed against that piece of deluded crap program plenty of times.

c.) conservatives want to reform the health care system, too. But we don't believe that the government running the healthcare system is the solution. We still love in a capitalistic country (for the time being) and are incensed at the constant intrusion into our personal lives by the government. We resent the slide toward socialism that we're witnessing in our country and can't believe that people are stupid enough to let our system of government go simply so they can have "free" medical care or cash for their old cars or "free" TVs or whatever the government program du jour happens to be. We don't want to be like Canada or the U.K. or France or anyone else. We want them to be like us.

d.) we resent the way that this entire thing has been rammed down our throats. Just because a political party wins an election doesn't give them the right to force a completely different way of life or form of government upon the country. It does not give them the right to bully and intimidate the citizenry into submission. It only gives them the right to frame the debate. The Democrats, rather than exploring options and taking the time to consult with doctors and insurance companies to truly try to come up with some new ideas about what would really work in bettering the system instead resorted to demonizing them and resorted to what amounts to a smear campaign in order to force through their agenda. We also don't see any reason why there was this huge rush. We were told that this had to get done before the August recess - that it needed to be done NOW. Had we not just been sold that same line of crap on two "stimulus" bailout bills that turned out to be the worst, most expensive legislation ever put upon the nation, that might have worked. That, and the fact that the Democrats wanted to push through the bill quickly before even bothering to read the damn thing, made us feel as though we were being duped. Haste makes waste, the old saying goes. It turn out it was correct once again, as the details that are now emerging from the bill now show.


No- our arguments against Obamacare are purely philosophical in nature. There's no other agenda, and it's not that we want to see people suffer. We just don't want to see our country go further down the Socialist rabbit hole in order to supposedly provide health care for the small percentage of people who don't have it. Health care for people who are broke is one thing (poor is a state of mind), but forcing people who can - and are - paying for their own health care to use a government system is simply wrong (under the proposed plan, all healthcare would eventually roll into the government plan). I hate when I'm told that I can't go see a doctor because they don't take my company's health insurance, but I don't force the people of my community to pay for me to go to a particular doctor (which is what the government making us all pay for the health care of other people really is.) I either find the money or I go to a doctor that's in my network.

So, John, please quit misrepresenting the issue. There are answers out there. Obama just doesn't have them.