[Peace-discuss] Medicare for all

[Jenifer Cartwright]

Bob,I think the term y're looking for is not "human sacrifice" but "collateral damage." --Jenifer
--- On Thu, 3/25/10, Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu> wrote:

From: Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Medicare for all
To: "peace-discuss List" <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Cc: pengdust at aol.com, melodye at nitrogendesign.com, claudia at shout.net
Date: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 1:47 PM

Like Claudia, and to my knowledge most of the folks on peace-discuss, I am an advocate of Medicare for all. And like Claudia, I'm not interested in the endless argument for its own sake that dominates this list. But I do want to make a few comments.

Much of this argument comes from proponents of "scientific" socialism, which is no more scientific than Scientology or Christian Science or for that matter Market Fundamentalism.

The thing that disturbs me in the argument from the socialist camp, aside from the unbelievable volume of stuff in my inbox, is the notion that the end justifies the means. The argument is that it is better to harm people who would be helped by the current imperfect bill rather than supporting it while continuing to work for a more just medical system.

If any of you think it is OK to kill people in order to achieve some claimed long-term benefit for humanity, which is what would have happened if the bill hadn't passed, think again. The right term for this approach is "human sacrifice". We can do better than this.

Davep and John W make good points, though I think Melodye is correct regarding the relevance of expanded Medicaid. It is going to take a while for the details of the law to emerge. But there is still a lot of work to do, to say the least. Although I am not an Anarchist, I very much agree with the Anarchist emphasis on the value of each person. This has to be the starting place for any moral solutions to our health care conundrum. Human sacrifice is not the way to go.

Bob


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