From Dependency to Dependency

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.