There is one word in the canon of
conservatism that no liberal would dare to use. That word is “dependency”.
Often, when the right has a term or framing that scares Americans, politicians
like Obama try to pick it up. He’s done it with “family values” and “Obamacare”.
But nobody would accept that they want to make people “dependent” on the
government.
America holds this fear- a
decidedly overpowering fear- of becoming dependent. Romney’s latest web ad, for
example, promises “recovery, not dependency”. Tea Party conservatives
have been calling the Affordable Care Act a “government takeover of
healthcare”. Part of the basis of modern (post-Reagan) conservatism is a fear
of the poor becoming dependent on government handouts.
On a logical level, the fact that
“dependent” is an insult baffles me. It’s not as if, without dependency on the
government, we become autonomous creatures rubbing sticks together in the
forest and foraging for our dinners. It’s also not as if this is a preferable
alternative. The entire point of an economy is that everyone is dependent on
everyone else for our survival. This is the basis of enterprise.
Nowhere is this concept more
obvious than in healthcare. In welfare, calling people “dependent” does
truthfully contrast with employment off of welfare (though this is still not
entirely a fair framing). But those who get healthcare from places other than
the government are still dependent.
Nobody is pulling themselves up by
their own bootstraps and caring for their own health. Nobody expects that those
without healthcare are successfully diagnosing their own diseases, performing
their own surgeries, and maintaining their own bodies. (I’m reminded here of
the episode of House where Dr. House tried to remove his own tumors in
his bathtub. It didn’t exactly work.)
No, the alternative to being
dependent on the government for healthcare is being dependent on large
profit-seeking corporations for healthcare. Depending on corporations is not a
pretty sight. They control large amounts of money and can threaten jobs if
their demands are not met. It happened on a small scale in Minneapolis, when
the Vikings threatened to move out and take revenue unless taxpayer money was
funneled into an unnecessary, extravagant new stadium, despite the fact that
the one they had worked fine.
We cannot allow corporations to
control our health. I can’t decide who’s on the board of directors of my
hospital or the HMOs involved in my care, but I can decide who I elect into
office. I want the government to intervene in healthcare. I'd love to be
independent, but when it comes to a choice between dependency on an
accountable, elected government or an opaque, profit-focused corporation, I'll
take government dependency any day.
