One of my basic beliefs is that people’s ideas come from somewhere. Now, that might sound like stating the obvious. But what I mean to say is, that a given person’s feelings are always a product of a number of factors, including their education, their upbringing, and their life experiences. At the core of modern ideologies lie some basic assumptions about the nature of man and his relationship with the state. I will expound upon this much more in the future, but for now I want to briefly discuss one element that seems at the heart of the current health care debate – the idea of fairness.
Now, as someone who was always told growing up that “life isn’t fair,” I have been fairly inculcated with the basic belief that things in life don’t always work out in the most “equitable” way. To take an easy example, it is clear that some people are born into well-off families, and others born into poor single-parent homes. The point is, things don’t work out so that everyone has the same opportunities. This is simply a fact of life – there is nothing we can do to make life more fair.
To somewhat oversimplify things, the modern dichotomy between left and right lies on the basic reaction to the dilemma of life’s unfairness. A right-leaning person believes that unfairness is just part of life and we should do what we can to eliminate barriers and obstacles to moving up. A left-leaning person, on the other hand, views unfairness as a problem that can be solved, and thus favors a large, activist government to do so. Neither side is “wrong” in the moral sense. It is just that one side accepts reality, while the other believes they can change things.
Now from my point of view, as someone who is largely a libertarian, I see unfairness as a natural result of different choices in life. For example, it is not unfair that between two equally gifted people, one may succeed and the other may fail. Furthermore, where there does exist some inequality, such as the fact that some are good at sports and others not, it is better to accept that than to try to change it. My belief is that the methods used to change it often do much more harm than good. In the sports analogy, you could make things more “fair” by lowering the hoop for me and breaking one of LeBron James’ legs. But while that would be more equal, no one would say we’re better off.
To use a current example, in the health care debate, much time is spent arguing that premiums should be the same for everyone, and that everyone should have access to the best care. While that would be more “fair” by liberal definitions, what it really means is that the healthy would have much higher premiums in order to balance out those who get insurance only when they’re sick. Assuring everyone the best care means that costs will skyrocket, and doctors will be overloaded. In the end, then, nearly everyone ends up worse off. Is fairness worth hurting so many?
Of course not. One must then conclude that constantly endeavoring to enact fairness is not the best idea. We can understand this in sports. We can even understand it in other types of insurance – why should a responsible driver in a safe car who lives in rural country pay the same as a reckless driver in a sports car who lives in the city? Why should someone who lives in a small condo pay the same for homeowner’s insurance as someone in a mansion? In all of these examples we understand that life circumstances and choices matter. Why not in health care? Why should a healthy 25-year-old pay the same as a 75-year-old with chronic diseases? I’m not saying it’s nice, and we should try and help the older person, but how does it help things to make the younger pay more just to make things more “fair”?
As I said, I’ll go into this further. It’s one of my core things to try and understand why people believe what they do, and then learn to counter the things I disagree with. That is my hope for this website – to offer respectful, logical debate to what may seem to be conventional wisdom. I hope you enjoy reading my efforts!