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Healthcare and Liberal Thought

It has been a while since my last post. Classes started a few days afterwards and have dominated my time outside of work. There have been lots of readings on Metaphysics and Epistemology, which are always tough with so many abstract concepts that must be absorbed. I promised a follow up on The Problem of “Other People’s Money”, but will preempt that for now in order to further refine philosophical views on the healthcare debate. In particular, over the past month, I have continually heard mostly emotional arguments from liberals in favor of government run healthcare or some form of a “public option,” with the arguments generally parroting that of the Obama administration, who argue that the rising costs of healthcare are unsustainable, and thus we cannot continue with the “status quo.” On the former point, I think most of us are aware on both sides of the political spectrum that the current path is unsustainable.  On the latter point, I can’t think of anyone who believes we should continue with the status quo. Somehow, however, Obama, Reid, and Pelosi can’t seem to separate the fact that someone who opposes their proposed solutions can also agree with them on those two points, yet this triumvirate conflates anyone’s opposition to their proposals with a necessary belief that those opposed don’t want to see things change. So far they have continued to repeatedly promote such flawed logic, demonstrating that the era of post-partisan politics has yet to begin.

In my last post, I discussed how charitable giving patterns indicate persuasively that liberals, who are particularly adept at making moral arguments as to why the government should do this or that to stamp out greed and bring equality to the people, give far less of their time or money towards charitable activities, regardless of income, that could actually help the human condition. They simply expect the government to solve all social ills, instead of rolling up their sleeves to help solve problems or opening their wallets to those who will. While there is no direct connection of charitable giving to the debate on healthcare, I would argue that a key relationship is their tacit belief that only government can solve the healthcare problem and that it will actually produce a viable remedy. The moral argument in this case is that everyone has a fundamental right to healthcare, but are being denied that right due to the greed of insurance companies who Obama likes to say are making “record profits” through unnecessarily high premiums. Yet as an industry, health insurance companies have only a 3.3% profit margin, less than the 4.6% average for all businesses in the country, as reported by Karl Rove in a recent Wall Street Journal article.  Rove goes on to note that drug companies enjoy an average 17% profit margin. But even that is less than software companies, which earn a 22% profit margin on average. So Obama is simply wrong on insurance company profits, just as he was wrong when he demonized oil companies for making “windfall profits” during his campaign. Yet I have not seen a single liberal challenge his dishonesty in either case.

I wonder if it has ever occurred to liberals that Medicare and Social Security are both going bankrupt, and that between these two government programs there is over $100 trillion (yes, trillions) in unfunded liabilities. Moreover, we have an unprofitable Amtrak train service and a Postal Service that is always flirting with bankruptcy. Yet they want the government to either take over or control an industry that represents roughly 1/6 of the entire economy? There must be other factors at work here than simply wanting healthcare for all Americans, since it would be foolhardy to believe that government, with its track record of failure, could become a viable and competitive player in health insurance. In fact, government regulations have inhibited competition in the health insurance market, thus contributing to the rising costs of healthcare. State regulations won’t allow insurance to be sold across state lines, so there tend to be monopolies within the states, lessening competition. There is also the need for tort reform so doctors don't pass the high cost of malpractice on to patients or order unnecessary tests playing defensive medicine. Another problem is that corporations get favored tax treatment that small companies and individuals don't enjoy. Further, states impose regulations that put specific mandates on what insurance companies must offer. This is why you can't pick and choose from a menu of choices that could lower your premium, as you can with car insurance. So even though there are a number of relatively simple things that can bring down healthcare costs without the government becoming a player and taking on debt, such commonsense measures aren’t even on the table.

A huge factor in healthcare costs is the personal health choices that people make on a daily basis. Americans smoke, exercise too little, and eat too much. Thus, heart disease and diabetes are contributing to skyrocketing premiums as insurance companies try to cover ever higher costs, particularly as people approach end of life. As well, people demand more and more technology to keep them alive. This costs money and drives up premiums. So how come all of the blame is placed on the feet of the insurance companies, and none at the feet of the insured? Has it been conclusively demonstrated that all or most insurance companies are greedy and systematically bilking the insured? While I don’t believe that case has been made, I am fully aware there are some  insurance companies who attempt to maximize profits through the practice of rescission, and also “cherry-picking” the most profitable customers. Yet rescission is a violation of state laws unless the customer intentionally lied or omitted pertinent medical history. Cherry-picking is something the states should take action on. If an insurance company can bring in someone with a pre-existing condition and keep the actuarial pool integral, they should be required to do so. But they should not be forced to take on all customers, since this could destabilize the pool for all. For those that don’t qualify for insurance, high risk health insurance pools should be made available at the state level (as some states have done), which is a reasonable display of compassion provided by taxpayers.

I haven’t said much new in this post, but have mostly summed up thoughts that I have outlined over the past several posts. What I want to emphasize is that liberals should cease advocating government redistribution of wealth and being paranoid about greed in the capitalist system, particularly when they benefit from our capitalist system as do conservatives, even holding a slight income advantage. Instead of calling on government to do all of the heavy lifting, my admonition is if liberals truly want to make a difference in the health insurance market and are concerned about profits, they should be proactive and start non-profit health insurance companies themselves (which would have the added benefit of creating much-needed private sector jobs), instead of reflexively looking to government. Or instead of swallowing the government’s currently proposed solutions without any thought as to its far-reaching implications, ask what can be done to simply improve the existing system before advocating game-changing legislation that could do tremendous harm while doing very little good. This is not the type of legislation that should be crammed through along party lines, affecting each and every member of society, when the vast majority of Americans are happy with the healthcare system as it is now, but recognize there needs to be sensible reform. What is currently being proposed by the Obama administration and the Democratic-led Congress is far from sensible, if not downright irresponsible. And the rush to legislate only reinforces my belief.

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The Problem of “Other People’s Money”

This post is a continuation of my previous blog on who really cares about the needy, as I continue to work through the book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, by Arthur C. Brooks. I want to work through the third chapter, appropriately titled “Other People’s Money.” Brooks notes that as one might think, politicians are uniquely situated when it comes to handing out favors at no expense to themselves (in other words, at your expense but with no thanks to you). But he also notes that we see the same behavior in vast swaths of “regular” people as well. A significant number of Americans, and Europeans as well, consider themselves charitable simply because they support policies of income redistribution through taxation (my emphasis added). And this does have an affect on private giving. One would assume that those people most concerned and vocal about economic inequality would be the most likely to give to charity. But that is wrong. The data demonstrates that for many people, the desire to donate other people’s money displaces the act of giving one’s own. People who favor government income redistribution are significantly less likely to behave charitably than those who do not. Even if the policies they support do not come into effect, they are still far less likely to donate to charity. For many Americans, Brooks, argues, political opinions are substitute for personal checks, but people who value economic freedom, and who are opposed to forced income distribution, are far more charitable.

The reality is the political left is effectively conceding a tremendous amount of moral authority in deed to the right wing when it comes to charity, while their words indicate otherwise. In 1996, a large sample of Americans was asked to respond to this statement: “The government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality.” Forty-three percent of respondents disagreed with this statement; 33 percent agreed. However, when it comes to charity, these two groups were radically different. Not only were those who disagreed significantly more likely to give money to charity than those who agreed, they also gave away, on average, four times as much money per year on religious giving, and three and a half times as much to nonreligious charities. A 2001 poll asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement that “the government has a basic responsibility to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.” A large majority (75 percent) agreed with the statement. But the 25 percent who disagreed were more likely than the others to give money both to secular and religious causes. Even when controls are set for income, education, religion, age, gender, marital status, race, and political views, people in favor of forced income redistribution are privately less charitable than those who oppose it, regardless of how much money they earn.

So why does support for government income redistribution efforts suppress charity? According to Brooks, the most straightforward answer comes when this support translate into policy—when governments tax away people’s earnings and pay for services that might otherwise be supported privately. The truth is government spending on charitable causes leads people to give less to charity. Not just liberals, but everyone everyone gives less privately when the government gives more. Brooks believes the most likely reason for this is because people tend to see government aid and private charity as substitutes. Economists, notes Brooks, have a name for this phenomenon: the “public goods crowding out effect,” which he states is a potent theory for opponents of “big government” because it suggests that taxing and spending may have less net impact on citizens’ welfare than imagined. Numerous studies have demonstrated that a dollar in government spending on nonprofit activities displaces up to 50 cents in private giving. The highest level of crowding out occurs in assistance to the poor and other kinds of social welfare services, and indication that government social spending for the needy benefits recipients far less than its face value. For a charity that is reliant on both public funding and private giving, this means that nothing is “free” about government support, as it not only lessens the effect of fund-raising efforts, but also makes an organization more dependent on the government.

“Crowding out,” notes Brooks, only explains lower personal giving if the government is taxing citizens and redistributing the income to people and organizations in need. Yet if increased government spending is only an idea or a political position, should it have no affect on giving behavior? In other words, I might stop giving if the government actually picks up support for my favorite charity, but would I stop just because I think the the government should do so? The evidence is that actions are based on beliefs, and not actual policies. It matters little whether the government is actually redistributing income and lessening inequality—what appears to displace charity is a person’s support for these policies. People who think the government should redistribute income more are less likely to donate to charity than people who don’t think so. Brooks argues this is nothing more than substituting political opinions for private donations. The opinions may or may not be sound, but the giving is conspicuously absent. Politically, this is a left-right issue—because income redistribution is a left-right issue in America. Although 77 percent of self-proclaimed liberals say the government should redistribute income more than at present, only 24 percent of conservatives say this. So Brooks further argues that substituting a political belief for personal sacrifice shows a lack of tangible personal responsibility toward others in need and represents a “deeply troubling relationship” between ideology and personal action on the political left.

So what is placing America’s far left so far outside the charitable mainstream and exempting so many of them from a sense of personal charitable responsibility? According to Brooks, the American hard left has developed a resistance to charity, as they believe the existence of charity is evidence of an unjust society, and should thus be made obsolete by government redistribution. The thinking is that in an ideal world, there is no charity because there is no need for it. Clearly, this is an unrealistic worldview, states Brooks, because our needs are constantly changing, and above basic subsistence levels, the perception of “need” has mostly to do with what an individual sees others as having. And history has not been kind to this worldview. Collectivist systems have been tried, most notably in Central and Eastern Europe, and they have failed. The governments of the Communist bloc ran inefficient systems that ultimately collapsed under their own bureaucratic weight. In some circles, particularly in American academia, a strong philosophy abhors charity as just another tool of power. Usually, according to Brooks, this philosophy stems from the core tenets of Marxism, which teaches: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” The basic Marxist argument about charity is that the rich give charitably because they can, but their actions are inherently corrupt because their control over the resources they enjoy is illegitimate. The problem with this position is the assumption that givers are always rich, and recipients are always poor. It is a common assumption, but it is wrong.

Income inequality, argues Brooks, is a core liberal issue and this is the link between redistribution and charity. This is not to say that no one on the right cares about economic inequality, but it is is the issue that most strongly separates liberals and conservatives today. These differences on whether income inequality is a problem lead to differences in what to do about it, and whether to forcibly redistribute income or not is what represents the wedge between liberal and conservative giving. Those who see inequality in America as a major problem, which is more of an issue for upper-income liberals than lower-income people of all political persuasions, usually want to solve it through government action. In the next blog, we will continue discussing just why liberals worry so much about income inequality.

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Who Really Cares? The Surprising Truth.

I am currently reading the book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, by Arthur C. Brooks. Brooks notes that when it comes to charity, America is two nations—one charitable, and the other uncharitable. Most Americans are generous, compassionate people. However, he states, there is also an identifiable slice of the population that does not donate to people in need; does not volunteer; does not give in informal ways; does not even feel compassion toward others. Brooks was surprised and disturbed by many of the facts and trends that emerged in the course of his research. His analysis is based entirely on data from years of analysis on the best national and international datasets available on charity, computational horsepower, and the past work of dozens of scholars.

The data indicates that political conservatives are, on average, more personally charitable than liberals (for example, in 2000, conservatives gave 30% more money to charity than liberals, spanning every income class, yet liberals earned an average of 6% more in income). He notes this a startling conclusion, but that's not the end of the story. Conservatives aren't more charitable than liberals simply because their politics somehow make them inherently virtuous, it is the worldview and lifestyle of charitable people that is usually more in sync with the right than they are with the left. This is based on four forces in modern American life that he has discovered are primarily responsible for making people charitable. These forces are religion, skepticism about the government in economic life, strong families, and personal entrepeneurism. Lest anyone think Brooks is biased, his expectation when he began his research was that political liberals would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. His political and cultural roots were decidedly liberal, but his research changed his views in his personal search for the truth. Like Brooks, my search is also for the truth, based to the best of my ability on evidence, rational thought, and natural law, all of which led me to my Christian faith.

Here is an excerpt from the book, which is highly instructive about who gives and who just talks a mean game:

Politicians are uniquely situated, one might think, when it comes to handing out favors at no expense to themselves. But we see the same behavior in vast swaths of "regular" people as well. A significant number of Americans (and Europeans as well) consider themselves charitable simply because they support policies of income redistribution through taxation. And this affects their private giving.

The relationship between charitable giving and ideas about income redistribution is by no means obvious. In fact, before I started the research for this book, I assumed that those people most concerned and vocal about economic inequality would be the most likely to give to charity. But I was wrong. Instead, I found a large amount of data all pointing in the same direction: For many people, the desire to donate other people's money displaces the act of giving one's own. People who favor government income redistribution are significantly less likely to behave charitably than those who do not. Even if the policies they support do not come into effect, they are still far less likely to donate to charity. For many Americans, political opinions are a substitute for personal checks; but people that value economic freedom, and thus bridle against forced income redistribution, are far more charitable.

In this chapter, we will see that charity and conservative views on forced income redistribution go hand in hand. As such, through its economic policies and preferences, the political left is effectively conceding a tremendous amount of moral authority to the right wing when it comes to charity.

So there you have it. There are those who put their money where their mouth is, and those who don't but are happy to offer up your money as a means for assuming the moral mantle. Based on their reported charitable charitable giving, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden fit the latter description, while George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been exemplary in fitting the former, in contrast to what many believe. I would highly recommend the book, which is a short, quick read, and will post more excerpts as I work through the book. I'm looking forward to your comments on this post.

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Is There a Moral Argument for Nationalized Healthcare?

I want to give a shout out to Rich Bordner, a friend and fellow philosophy student at Talbot. Rich has a wonderful and insightful blog with a real edge. He is a young man who loves God, and making an impact on people's lives is his passion. He is currently a high school teacher, which provides him with insights that make for provocative and often humorous posts at his blog, The Pugnacious Irishman. Rich sees where society is going because he engages with the next generation on a regular basis. So be sure to check out Rich's blog, who is newly married and back from his honeymoon. He's also back to writing, but we'll have to forgive him if his blog production drops off for a while (or will it, Rich?).

Rich just posted a blog titled Breeding Passive Moochers, with a title indicative of his inimitable humor. In this post he provides perspectives on preparing for his marriage and  personal responsibility, which he then weaves into the current healthcare debate. Rich quotes a recent Facebook post from the Acton Institute that I wanted to also share because it rebuts the "it's the moral thing to do" argument that liberals advance as a reason to support government run-healthcare:

Here are a couple of reasons why nationalized health care is in fact not a morally pure as proponents would like us to believe.

Handing something off to the state so citizens don’t have to take responsibility for themselves and others doesn’t doesn’t really contribute to the moral fabric of a society.

We love to talk about solidarity and the common good but too often solidarity gets turned into “let the state take care of it.” A broader and I would argue morally rich concept of the solidarity and the common good would look to human flourishing and a rich civil society and turn to the state only as the last resort.

It hurts the common good to have the state take over responsibilities that we should bear ourselves or for our fellow citizens. A large nanny state contributes to the “individualism” that Tocqueville warned about: a turning into self that isolates us from everyone but our nearest circle. If the state does everything for us then we don’t need to care about our brothers and sisters and fellow citizens. This means the breakdown of guess what–solidarity. Solidarity is the driving principle behind subsidiarity, voluntary organizations, and charity. Love of neighbor should prompt us to help each other not pass it it off to the state.

From a moral point of view, having the state take over health care breaks down solidarity and harms the common good.

This article echoes what I have discussed in previous blog posts regarding the Catholic social concept of subsidiarity, which argues that societal problems should be solved from the "inside out," with government, particularly at the federal level, being the problem solver of last resort that avoids encroaching on the solidarity of lower levels. We must first look to family, and then to the church and charitable organizations before looking to government. At times, there is a role for local and state government, but if we had a truly healthy society, there would be little need for government involvement in assisting those truly in need. There should never be a need for federal involvement because that means there has been a breakdown at all other levels, which should be a cause for serious alarm instead of an opportunity for the federal government to get involved in things for which it is limited constitutionally and is not particularly good at in the first place.

Honestly, I believe taxpayers who clamor for more federal government involvement do so because it's easier for money to simply disappear from their paychecks instead of them becoming personally involved in local charitable activities, taking the time to write checks to their favorite charities, or for those with the wherewithal, creating non-profits that meet community needs. They feel taking the moral high road is somehow consistent with being completely passive, leaving the responsibility on government to solve society's ills. What they don't realize is their lack of contribution in the first place is the missing ingredient necessary to building a better and more equitable society . In other words, it is the moral failure to deliver solutions at the local or state level that ultimately leads to the moral argument demanding solutions at the federal level. The problem is the moral imperative has been lost long before the problem winds its way to the federal level.

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“Public Option” Supporters Prove Ignorance Not So Bliss

I was recently involved in a Facebook conversation that involved ardent supporters of the “public option.” The reasoning was, as I expected, overly simplistic and highly optimistic that the government, by offering a public option, would simply provide one more “free market” option to a myriad of other existing options, thus stimulating competition and bringing down “absurdly high rates” (as one public option hopeful put it). When I asked specifically how adding this option to 1,300+ existing options would stimulate competition and bring down rates, there was no reply. Basically, I think those who support a public option have squishy good feelings about it, but lack an understanding of what a public option would entail, and other than knowing that premiums must be paid, have little understanding of how insurance works. For starters, a public option doesn’t have to compete, because it has the coercive power of the federal government to decide how much it will confiscate from the public through taxes to subsidize the option it is offering. Health insurance companies don’t have this luxury. They must offer a competitively priced product to consumers based on calculated risk and cost, which is purchased on a voluntary basis, and make a decent profit for shareholders (for the record, there is no truth to reported “record profits”). Furthermore, the taxes they pay provide the funds the government will use to subsidize its public option in order to compete against the insurance companies. If public option supporters don’t see that as a rigged system, then their ignorance is indeed not so bliss.

At this point, it would be instructive to offer a short primer on insurance as as a means to rebut the demonization of the industry by legislators and special interests promoting the public option. Wikipedia provides an excellent definition of insurance as “the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for a premium, and can be thought of as a guaranteed small loss to prevent a large, possibly devastating loss.” Insurance is a form of risk management, based on statistics and probability, that pools together the premiums of the many insured, with the premiums used to fund accounts reserved for later payment of claims—in theory for a relatively few claimants—and for overhead costs. As long as an insurer maintains adequate funds set aside for anticipated losses (reserves), the remaining margin is an insurer's profit. The Wikipedia article sites seven principles of insurance, but I will focus on three that are germane to this discussion. First, the larger the pool, the greater the probability that actual results will meet with expected results, due to the “law of large numbers.” Basically, you need similar risk spread out over a large number of people in order to have a reasonable assurance that the number and amount of claims will meet the expected distribution, allowing the pool to maintain integrity.

Second, premiums must be affordable. If the premium is so large relative to the amount of protection offered, then it is not likely anyone will buy insurance. The premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer. This demonstrates that insurers are engaging in calculated but warranted risk. The premium is not solely based on charging as much as the market will bear in order to maximum profits, though the insurance company must obviously turn a profit which is in their interest as well as the insured who expect there will be enough reserves to ensure payment of claims. Finally, there must be limited risk of catastrophically large losses. In this case, if the same event can cause losses to numerous policyholders of the same insurer, the ability of that insurer to issue policies becomes constrained, not by factors surrounding the individual characteristics of a given policyholder, but by the factors surrounding the sum of all policyholders so exposed. So insurers must limit their exposure to a loss from a single event to a small amount of the insured. A classic example of this is earthquake insurance. With respect to health insurance, this may apply to people with the propensity for certain types of diseases that could produce exceptionally large claims. There are some that may take issue with this principle, but again, it is in place in order to maintain the integrity of the risk pool for the benefit of the insurance company and the insured.

Now there are some insurance providers that do unethical things such as: 1) dropping the insured who become sick and thus expensive, even though their premiums adequately reflect the risk for bringing that person into the pool, 2) refusing someone coverage for a predisposition to a disease they don't have now, when they have statistical room to bring that person into the pool without putting the pool at risk, and 3) refusing people with pre-existing conditions that could be brought into the pool with reasonable actuarial risk. This is where I think government does need to step in to ensure win-win scenarios, and no further. In the first example, this is clearly a win-lose proposition, while the last two are “judgment calls” that all too often deny coverage based ostensibly on maximizing profits. Yet many of those in favor of the public option believe government should force insurance companies to take all of those with pre-existing conditions and also cap premiums to some arbitrary multiplier, not considering how disastrous this would be for all the other members in the pool. This would further encourage people to purchase insurance after they get sick instead of getting into a pool as early as possible which would be in accord with the first principle of large numbers discussed above. Moreover, there would be no incentive for anyone to live a responsible and healthy lifestyle if they could simply acquire insurance at a an arbitrary, government-forced premium whenever they get sick, and then drop it when they get well.

Regarding the public option, there is already Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP coverage for children. So we already cover the truly needy, and a good number of the "47 million uninsured" are eligible for this coverage. So I believe society is already extending great compassion. It is arguable, though, just how many of the uninsured can afford to be insured but choose not to purchase coverage. There are myriads of choices that people make on a day to day basis that determine their ability to get coverage, so I would argue the best thing we can do is to look for ways that we can make coverage more affordable and accessible without resorting to a public option that will only bring the inefficiency, bureaucracy, and politicization that will be endemic to a government-run option. There are several commonsense reform proposals advanced by Republicans in Congress such as equalization of tax treatment between corporations and individuals or small businesses, wellness programs that will lower costs by avoiding disease, tort reform, medical-saving accounts, and allowing insurance pools to cross state lines. Against the rhetoric of President Obama, no one is suggesting that nothing be done. It simply makes more sense to implement sensible reforms to the existing market-based system than to create another government program.

A strong argument for not creating another government program is that there are few things the federal government can do effectively and efficiently. The military is one thing the government does effectively, but hardly efficiently. Other examples are the Postal Service, Amtrak, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (who played a key role in the current economic crisis), Medicare, and Social Security. Medicare will be exhausted (i.e., bankrupt) by 2019. It's not actuarially sound, and neither is Social Security, which is a glorified Ponzi scheme that will begin paying out more than it receives in 2017, ultimately going bankrupt in 2041. As I stated previously, the government doesn't have any pressure to be competitive, efficient, or actuarially sound because it has the power to tax. At this time, government should be spending its time fixing Medicare and Social Security, whose total unfunded liability is over $100 trillion, instead of trying to get in the game of a public insurance option when it has failed miserably at these two programs. The public options offered by the states of Massachusetts and Tennessee have not brought down costs, but costs have ballooned instead. So if the public option hasn't proven efficacious at the state level, why would we want to pursue this at the national level where there is no recourse if the result is bad? At least in the case of a state program, one would have the option to move to another state.

When one compares how we live today in America to the way we lived 100 years ago, the differences are astounding. Our capitalist system has provided us with transportation for virtually everyone, air conditioning, refrigerators, jet travel, vacations, including life-saving medicines and procedures. Yet we complain so much about what we don’t have as if we were meant to have everything we think we deserve, and believe we have an entitlement to the latest advances in medicine and technology simply because they exist. I don't understand it. We are truly blessed, yet when we can't get what we want, we automatically think that government can solve our problems when it simply can't. We must realize that everything that government gives is taken from people who could better deploy capital in a more efficient manner that helps themselves, their families, and their communities. That includes those who take the risk to start and run private insurance companies, which have provided outstanding, market-based solutions that have vastly improved our quality of life. Yes, there is much room for improvement of the current healthcare system, but it is something we should celebrate as a true blessing, instead of a scourge on society, while implementing measures that would provide lower costs and broader accessibility for all.

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Healthcare: We Have Met the Enemy, and it is Us

I’m sure that all who are following the debate over government-sponsored medical care have heard a plurality of pundits, so this post is designed to make a few points that I think need to be considered in the debate that aren’t discussed enough. There is a lot of scapegoating directed at the insurance industry by the current administration in order to sell the benefits of government-run healthcare, which is unfortunate, as it is the same old demonizing tactic used last year against the oil companies during the presidential campaign: the charge of “record profits.” In a capitalist society, profits are a good thing, with record profits being even better since it would mean the economy is growing and prosperity is spreading. In this particular case, however, health insurance companies aren’t enjoying profits that are setting any new records. And they are not the enemy even if they were. Just as with auto and home insurance policies, health insurance companies allow us to pool risk and gain access to medical care and drugs that would otherwise not be affordable except for the very wealthy. The current administration would have us believe that since the system is not perfect, it should be completely dismantled and run by government bureaucrats. Instead, I feel we should be thankful that we have a system which works well for most, but requires commonsense reforms such as those proposed by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Senator Mitch McConnell.

One problem with health insurance is that over the course of several decades a "middle man" (the insurance company) has come between the patient and the doctor, thus affecting market dynamics for better or for worse. Yet if government further gets in the middle it will only make things more complex, not less, because now you're adding a political component, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what will happen when healthcare becomes political. Unlike house or car insurance, health insurance is highly personal and something we take advantage of on a more or less regular basis, depending on our current state of health. We have come to expect more and more things to be covered such as the latest medicines and procedures, and it has also become a game of nickel and dime things instead of just big things. Patients and doctors apply pressure to insurance companies to cover sex-enhancing pills, massages and other elective options that are probably better paid for out of pocket. Naturally, premiums rise as insurance companies cover more medicines and procedures. So insurance companies, which must have enough reserves to pay claims and make profits that allow them to invest in their businesses are in a damned if they do, damned if they don’t proposition when it comes to setting practical limits for what they can cover and what they can’t.

A huge issue is the fact that many Americans don't lead healthy lifestyles, yet expect the modern miracles of medicine to save the day. Moreover, we expect these miracles to cost nothing more and have come to feel we have a "right" to new medicines or technology simply because they are available. Yet when the insurance company won’t pay for these miracles or raises its premiums to do so they are at fault when in large part we have brought many illnesses on ourselves through our own poor choices. I am so tired of people complaining about how greedy insurance companies are, because if we didn't have them, we would have to pay these costs out of our own pockets, which most of us couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do. Yet it is us, when we abuse insurance through poor life choices, that have caused premium costs to increase since we demand more while living unhealthy lifestyles that drive up those costs. In fact, preventable illnesses are at the very core of spiraling health costs in America, most directly related to smoking and obesity (due to poor diet and lack of regular exercise). So instead of pointing the finger at insurance companies, I think we should begin pointing the finger at ourselves for living lifestyles that unnecessarily drive up healthcare costs. In large part, we have met the enemy, and it is us.

An important thing we must realize is that all of the new medicines and technologies that make us well or keep us alive cost money to develop. Pharmaceutical companies must literally invest hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to bring a drug to market, and must absorb the cost of drugs that don’t make it to market. This is not purely science as drugs must go through painstaking clinical trials in order to receive FDA approval. If pharmaceutical companies were not investing their “record” profits on breakthrough drugs, then there would be no new miracle drugs. So we shouldn’t be upset that pharmaceutical companies make big profits if we are looking forward to the next breakthrough drug to cure or treat an existing or future disease. As well, if insurance companies don't make a profit, then they can't pay claims, and since insurance is based on actuarial tables that aren't perfect, there is always the chance that some new disease comes along (such as HIV/AIDS) that causes profits to go down and premiums to possibly go up. Or there may be a new “must have” breakthrough technology that makes premiums go up further. So we have to understand that insurance companies are taking on qualified risk and are not just kicking back reaping profits. It is a tough business.

In general, healthcare access and cost presents a very complex problem that requires sensible, yet imperfect, reform. More competition between insurance providers and sensible regulation is what is needed (such as not allowing insurance companies to simply “drop” existing customers because they contract a disease that is expensive to treat, when the whole purpose of actuarial tables was to account for this risk). I am deeply conflicted about forcing insurance companies to accept pre-existing conditions since these can "break the bank" actuarially and affect others in the insured pool adversely. If the government takes on healthcare, then taxpayers will pick up huge costs as there will be no practical limit to the care that people will lobby the government for since they see their fellow taxpayers as a bottomless pool of money. Of course, the government would have to ration care based on decisions from bureaucrats in Washington, instead of actuarial tables and competition in the open market. So this is all the more reason for the federal government to keep away from becoming an insurance provider beyond the current tax-funded Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP programs (in fact, it should get out of these programs altogether and remand to the states since this is not the proper function of the federal government in the first place).

Fundamentally, I think insurers should stop covering unnecessary things such as sex-enhancing pills and massages, to name just a couple. Insurers should offer a basic, catastrophic package for anyone, which would be attractive to young people that don't use healthcare very much and who are also willing to pay if they do need something other than catastrophic care. Yet these same people that can afford healthcare should not be able to simply go to an ER when they get sick and expect someone else to pay for it. It is a grossly inefficient way to receive care. So I would be open to an individual mandate such as that for car insurance, where you set the deductible level with a private insurer that provides some level of reasonable options based on risk profile. Those at certain poverty levels should be eligible for government assistance with premiums (where they would pay something, and never nothing), while those who are unemployed should keep their existing policy with government assistance, possibly at a lower level of coverage. The idea is that everyone gets covered and stays covered.

Finally, I believe that once someone is in an insurance pool, they should be able to stay in that pool without worry of being dropped, but still have the opportunity to move to another pool if it is more cost effective for them. This would at least set a baseline for moving forward so we can get everyone on some type of coverage without a government takeover. For those not covered with pre-existing conditions, possibly we could expand the Medicare and Medicaid pool on a one-time basis as a part of the baseline, instead of forcing them on insurers. Beyond that, as citizens we will be responsible for gaining access to health care among the private and existing public options available depending on the personal situation. Existing employer-provided plans should be portable, so that when one leaves the company their insurance goes with them at the same cost, and an option would be provided to move down to a more affordable level if the person cannot afford it, or whose next employer cannot provide the same level of benefit. Now I am realistic, as I don’t expect an ideal solution since humans are involved, but I do expect a better free market solution than the one currently available. Those who listen to the siren song of government are unfortunately, I believe, looking for perfection, but will only find disappointment when they find that what they’re hoping for won’t live up to expectations.

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Closer to Truth?

This past week I had a married couple as guests at my home, and as usual when they come to visit we invariably get around to discussing religion since Philosophy of Religion & Ethics is my current course of study. I’m not sure if they are agnostics or simply skeptics, though my guess is that it is more the latter. Both are highly intelligent and moral folks who are concerned with living good lives, being kind to others, donating to good causes, and being loving, attentive parents to their young children. But they tend to look strongly askance at anything of a religious nature, though they admit there are some good things that come out of religion that are beneficial to society. Fundamentally, John and Sharon (not their real names), are skeptical that any of my efforts in studying religion necessarily allow me to get any closer to truth than anyone else, no matter how much I may study. Why do they conclude this, and am I simply wasting precious time and energy studying philosophy? Since they both feel there are other people who study as much as I do yet come to different conclusions, their logic is that we cannot get to truth since everyone doesn’t necessarily come to the same conclusions concerning the existence of God, or further that Christ is indeed the Son of God who died on a cross and resurrected on the third day.

At core, John and Sharon have the view that what may be true for me, and others that accept Christ, may not be true for others who accept some other religion such as Islam or Hinduism, or who simply conclude that all religions are false. But it’s okay if it’s true for me and provides some benefit, and I shouldn’t be naive in believing that my truth might actually apply to them or others. I didn’t explain that this view is the typical postmodern thinking that Americans have gradually accepted over the past 40-50 years, which posits that there are no overarching, universal truths. Truth, according to postmodern thought is simply a social construct and a creation of the human mind. Yet John and Sharon admit that in their everyday lives, they behave as if there are universal truths. They feel that stealing is wrong, murder is wrong, and that it is not okay to abuse children. But if there is no such thing as objective truth, then why would they live their lives as if it is so, even asserting there are indeed some moral imperatives as just described? It is wholly inconsistent to on the one hand believe that everything is relative and evolving, while at the same time making statements as to how a certain state of affairs ought or should be when things are constantly undergoing change. If everything is relative and truth is what you make it, then the words ought or should are in effect meaningless when used in communication.

While John and Sharon are skeptical there is objective truth, and that Christianity could even accord with truth, it is an interesting thing we all agreed that the moral sense of right and wrong are fairly universal within the human race. Even those who choose to do wrong (presuming they are normally functioning) know implicitly what is the good or right thing to do, but simply choose not to do the good or right thing because they have the free will to reject it. This sense of moral order in the universe is, in theological terms, called common grace, since it may be apprehended by all and is common to all humankind. So herein we may reasonably conclude that even though there is nothing we can know exhaustively, common grace can be reasonably construed (in an epistemic sense) as an objective truth, and is true wholly independent of whether we give it cognitive assent or not. In essence, I’m arguing that on this basis, John and Sharon would be wise to conclude that there are indeed some objective moral truths that are not just true for some, but true for all, including them. In other words, truth is truth, and truth has no dependency on them, yet it is there for them to ascertain should they choose to accept it. I feel they sense this, but are somehow afraid of the consequences of accepting this view.

Now as this pertains to Christianity specifically, as John stated, the truth of a tangerine resting on the kitchen island was readily apparent to him as some form of objective truth, since he could see it, but he has no way to verify there is salvation in Christ, and further since Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and other scholars have concluded that there is indeed no salvation in Christ, then all I am offering is a biased opinion based on personal inclinations instead of some degree of objective knowledge based on diligent study and reflection. Where I believe John’s logic fails is that he doesn’t understand that all of these religions make fundamentally conflicting truth claims in a number of areas, with the possibility that all are false, or one is true. John, Sharon, and I all agreed that there is adequate testimony, both internal to the bible and external to it, that Christ walked the earth 2000 years ago and was crucified on a cross. They both acknowledged that the Bible, as a book of history, has been proven to be amazingly accurate with respect to archaeological finds. So the only point of contention was whether Christ actually raised from dead as eyewitness testimony reported. If he did not, then this naturally lends more credence to the Jewish and Muslim religions (though Islam borrows heavily from Christianity). Since Hinduism is entirely based on myth, there is no particular reason to believe it is true to begin with. So I believe I’m on firm ground that Christianity is at least a reasonable position though I don’t have exhaustive truth of its veracity. Yet I’m open to contrary evidence.

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” – 1 Corinthians 12-18 (ESV)

The bottom line for me is when I weigh the philosophical, historical, archaeological, and scientific evidence for Christianity (for which I have done prodigious research, particularly in the scientific arena), I believe I have done my best in terms of epistemic duty. I conclude that Christianity most closely aligns with reality given the alternatives, and that my belief is thus warranted. Of course, this entirely rests on the resurrection of Christ, which is very difficult to prove conclusively, but again, I believe I have done my epistemic best based on the eyewitness testimonial as recorded in the Bible. Now I don’t believe that someone has to become a biblical scholar such as myself in order to have a warranted belief in Christ, as the Bible takes a clear position that God has made his existence plain:

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” - Romans 1:19-20 (ESV)

So I assert the proper function of humankind is to ascertain that there is a God based on common grace, nature itself, and finally, special revelation through the gospel of Jesus Christ. If this is indeed the truth then anyone who hears the message may respond to it whether they are currently an atheist, agnostic, Jew, Muslim, or of any other religious persuasion. It is an act of their cognitive abilities and their will, again, presuming their mental faculties are properly functioning . As well, they have full freedom to reject the gospel. Regarding John and Sharon, my hope is they will both give serious reflection to the worldview they have adopted, considering the full impact of their chosen philosophy in their lives and in the lives of those they touch.

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Maureen Dowd: “White Man’s Last Stand”?

On Tuesday, July 14, Maureen Dowd posted a rambling piece of hate speech posing as an Op-Ed in the New York Times titled “White Man’s Last Stand.” Not much of a surprise, but I do wonder why this woman holds such a deep revulsion for white men, particularly when she is the product of a white man and woman. The world may never know. Let’s hope she doesn’t follow up with a piece attacking white women, though she did manage to get in a jab at Sarah Palin towards the end of the piece, which had nothing to with the title or topic, so maybe she has it out for white people in general or was simply unable to stay on point. Anyway, the piece was ostensibly about white Republican men, who as a “last stand,” took unwarranted swipes at Sonia Sotomayor during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings this week. In this piece she calls out Republican senators Jon Kyl, Orrin Hatch, and Lindsey Graham as objects of her derision. Apparently Dowd was unhappy with the nature of their questions, which, to Dowd, appeared patronizing and mean-spirited, yet were deftly answered by the wise Latina Sotomayor who drew on the richness of her experiences to thwart this gaggle of white Republican men, “afraid of extinction,” whose only purpose was to trip her up. Interestingly, Dowd wasn’t particularly thrilled with Democratic senator Chuck Schumer’s line of questioning either, but since he’s a Democrat he escaped her deepest hatred since white men who are Democrats are either not afraid of extinction or don’t know that they too may be headed towards it.

What truly angers me about this piece is that in order to build Sotomayor up, it was not necessary to tear down white men in the process. Indeed, Dowd extends her invective by spouting off a litany of “bad decisions” made by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that were wholly unrelated to the Sotomayor confirmation. So perhaps Sotomayor was simply the launching point for all of the things Dowd wanted to get off her chest, as the next thing you know she’s informing us of just a small sample of Sarah Palin’s bad qualities, such as being an irrational, volatile, and “country-music queen without the music.” Though I hardly understand what value there is to this bombastic tirade, it’s a good thing to know the thoughts of a true liberal who’s not afraid to make her feelings known. Perhaps it’s a bit of self-loathing, white guilt, or possibly the woman has gone stark raving mad. I simply can’t think of a good reason to use the confirmation hearings as a launching pad to express her contempt for a whole group of people by viciously assailing honorable, upstanding public servants. And what specifically does the title “White Man’s Last Stand” imply? Is Dowd personally ushering in a new era of government by serving notice to white men, particularly of the Republican stripe, that they are no longer welcome? As the only two people deemed rational in the whole piece were Obama and Sotomayor, it appears that is the case.

I have no idea who Dowd is looking to curry favor with, or if she is looking to curry favor at all. What I will tell you, Miss Dowd, is that you have curried none with this black man if that was your intent. Like Sotomayor, you would deny a group of people their constitutional right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, presumably due to the actions of their ancestors and not their own. The very fact that we have a black president who was able to nominate a Hispanic woman is because of the mostly faceless white men and women who risked their reputations and often their lives to stand with blacks during the days of slavery and Jim Crow that ultimately led to us achieving our long-deserved civil rights in 1964. We could not have achieved this without those whites who respected their fellow man and respected the Constitution. Yes, it was a long struggle and many whites oppressed us as for as long as they possibly could. I personally grew up at the tail end of the civil rights period and was all too often called a “nigger,” as well as being denied access to swimming pools that didn’t allow blacks. Vestiges of this still exist in some places, but for the most part those days are over and I believe few whites today would want to go back. The few that mistreated me during my formative years are most likely still alive, yet I have forgiven them because their mistreatment only encouraged me to work hard with the faith that civil rights gains would yield fruit over the coming years. And they did.

So Miss Dowd, whatever has caused you to be so bitter and filled with hatred for white people, I sincerely hope you will come to grips with it. It is wholly unbecoming of a beautiful and talented woman such as yourself, as you are doing no good service in lashing out at a whole segment of fellow Americans for no legitimate reason by making a caricature of a few white politicians who don’t ascribe to your worldview. As a white woman, I can’t say that your life has necessarily been any more privileged than mine, but you have certainly not had to face what any black person has, which is indeed fortunate for you. Yet, even if you were black, there would be no excuse for this piece. I am highly disappointed in you, but even more disappointed in the New York Times for printing such an ugly and divisive article while purportedly positioning itself as a champion for “tolerance” and equal rights (apparently, this courtesy is only extended to those who agree with your worldview, thereby making the position moot). I certainly honor your First Amendment rights, Miss Dowd, but believe you have demonstrated a reckless degree of irresponsibility, as this piece is little more than hate speech directed at white Americans. You owe them, and all Americans, a most sincere apology.

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The Dangers of Progressivism

This post is the last in a three-part series tracing the roots of the progressive movement. In Part 1, The Damaging Effects of Philosophical Pragmatism, I discussed the philosophical underpinnings of progressivism. In Part 2, Progressivism, Obama, and You, I fleshed out progressivism as a system of thought and its progression during various presidencies leading up to Obama. This final post will discuss the dangers of progressivism, based on Glenn Beck’s new book titled Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine. From the outset, Beck notes that though many people hear the word “progressive” they immediately think of liberals or Democrats, but the truth is they’re not synonymous. Progressivism has less to do with parties and more to do with individuals who “seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State.” Beck calls progressivism a cancer because it is not limited to political systems, but has infiltrated both political parties and the entire political class, which includes bureaucrats, lobbyists, trade unions, and corporations that “all look to government as their own personal ATM machine.”

Progressivism is why, according to Beck, Americans feel as though the candidates they get to choose from are pretty much the same. In other words, do you elect progressive candidate A, or really progressive candidate B? We need look no further than the last presidential election between John McCain, who would be candidate A, and Barack Obama, who has clearly demonstrated that he is candidate B. One of the hallmarks of progressive thought is the concept of redistribution: the idea that your money and property are only yours if the State doesn’t determine there is a higher or better use for it. Teddy Roosevelt made this view clear in his speech on the “New Nationalism” in 1910, and I believe most of us recall Obama echoing this modern-day Robin Hood sentiment in his exchange with Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher during the last presidential campaign. Roosevelt said that personal property is “subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.” Roosevelt’s thoughts on accumulated wealth were equally illuminating. In the same speech he said, “We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.” Theodore Roosevelt was also the first president to call for national health insurance. See a pattern here?

Beck goes on to note how Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was the next president to further the progressive agenda. Like Roosevelt, he didn’t believe there were any restrictions on government power. These two presidents serve as the idols and philosophical foundations for their respective parties, which perhaps explains why both parties seem to continually produce the same results. Like today, the early twentieth-century progressives loved to rely on “experts,” and used them as an excuse to expand their power. George W. Bush presided over a massive redistribution of wealth with his Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Plan. Even “conservative” presidential candidate John McCain cited Theodore Roosevelt as one of his favorite presidents. Beck argues that the presidential election of 2008 was truly a repeat of the presidential election of 1912, in which America was really only offered a progressive Republican and a progressive Democrat as candidates. Over the last century, progressives have successfully moved our country toward more government control and less personal freedom—and they’re still pushing the envelope according to Beck. He doesn’t believe progressives have a master plan to take down America, as he thinks they genuinely believe their view is the best way forward. However, the problem is that fewer and fewer people are able to stand in their way because we don’t teach real American history any more, let alone the real history and vision of the progressive movement. The principles of freedom and liberty and the beliefs of the founding fathers have basically been whitewashed from the curriculum.

As I discussed in previous posts, progressives view the Constitution as a living organism that evolves with time and changes depending on the circumstances. As Beck notes, both the progressives and the founding fathers view the Constitution as a set of handcuffs—but the difference is the founders believed it was the power of the State that was to be cuffed, while progressives believed it was individuals who were cuffed to the greater good of the group. One of these two positions will win out and that will dictate how future generations live their lives. The battle is taking place now between these two philosophies right now in all aspects of our lives, with a few key issues outlined by Beck that the progressives are using to drive their agenda forward: the environment, gun control, education, and religion. I would add to this list healthcare, while as I write this Democrats are ramming through massively expensive, sweeping legislation to nationalize the healthcare system with little thought as to its true costs and its effects on an already weak economy. How could Congress completely redo the healthcare system representing 16% of our economy in just a matter of weeks, without considering that the present system simply needs to be improved? This alone demonstrates that progressives do not represent the people, but represent their own private agendas under the guise of the will of the people, as they gradually remake America in their own image.

References:

Beck, Glenn, Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, New York: Mercury Radio Arts, 2009.

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Obama and Czar-mania: The Change We’ve Been Waiting For?

As of this writing, President Obama’s czar count has reached the tidy sum of 34 (not to be outdone by the first lady, who has 20 servants assistants, but that’s another story). Czars are public officials that are unelected yet have sweeping powers the same as Congress, with no accountability to Congress or a Cabinet secretary (or you, the taxpayer, for that matter). There are currently czars for climate change, executive pay, drugs, health care reform, urban affairs, domestic violence, energy, and so on ad nauseam. Czars are nothing new, as many Presidents have had them, but no President has had this many unelected officials with the tools and resources to make policy while being accountable to no one except the administration. The worst thing is these czar's don't have to undergo Senate Confirmation Hearings, as they are simply appointed by the President. Obama’s use of czars is just one tool in the progressivist toolbox used to build a bureaucratic apparatus that will circumvent the Constitution toward its own ends. It is, quite frankly, a power grab by Obama to advance his utopian agenda with impunity through unelected “experts” that answer to no one but him. Again, this is nothing new, but is entirely consistent with the goals of the progressive movement that began in the late nineteenth century. So perhaps a little history might illuminate the actions of the Obama administration today.

At its inception, the progressive movement’s agenda, in addition to its push for social reform, included a wide array of legislative proposals to regulate business and property. Yet the Constitution, undergirded by the principle of individual property rights, provided an obstacle to these legislative programs. State constitutions were also resistant to progressive legislative programs, noting that the new programs extended the power of government well beyond its constitutional limits. The problem though, as progressives saw it, was a failure of the courts to see the Constitution as a “living” organism, one whose limitations on government ought not be read strictly or literally, but instead interpreted to fit the demands of a new age. For Woodrow Wilson, the structure of the Constitution itself made it nearly impossible for progressively minded interpreters to adapt it to their new agenda. The Constitution rested on a system of divided powers, both between federal and state levels of government, which thwarted Wilson’s efforts to bring about a unity of the “popular will.” Thus, he detested the separation of powers, and was highly critical of this system of government. The ideal model for Wilson was the parliamentary one, where the legislative and executive are essentially united, both rising and falling on the evolving popular will.

Wilson believed government was a living thing that falls under the theory of organic life, which is modified by its environment and shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. Thus it needed to be reformed to reflect the unity of the public mind that progressives believed had been brought about by history. Separation of powers, therefore, had to be discarded and replaced by a system that separated politics and administration. The most contentious political questions had been resolved by historical development (such as the Civil War), so the real work of the government was not in politics, but in administration. Thus the plan for reforming national institutions was to democratize and unify national political institutions while separating and insulating administrative agencies. Wilson believed the original intention of separation of powers could be circumvented by an enhanced presidency that could energize an active national government. To the extent that Wilson could claim to embody the people’s will, he would move institutions of national government by the force of that popularity. These national administrative institutions would then translate that broad will into specific policy.

Though the idea was to democratize national political institutions, the exact opposite was done through administrative agencies made up of a substantial bureaucratic apparatus, shielded from political influence, staffed by educated “experts” who would become the means for facilitating government through regulatory activity. This was clearly at odds with the Constitution, because whereas administration was supposed to be confined to the executive branch, a progressive administration engaged itself not only in executive action, but legislative and judicial action as well. These administrative agencies could superintend the activities of private businesses, and on the basis of their expertise, could make rules and regulations, enforce them, and adjudicate violations of them. Since these administrators were unlike ordinary politicians, they could, ostensibly, be objective and could focus on the good of the whole people. Yet the irony here is that this administrative model called for shifting policymaking power away from popular institutions and giving it to educated elites. Since they were “free” from political or electoral control, in actuality what Wilson was proposing was a distinctly elitist model under a democratic veneer.

Between Wilson and Roosevelt, progressives of both parties played a significant role in national, state, and local politics throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century. Roosevelt and Wilson reformed politics through federal regulation of numerous aspects of public life, which became commonplace. They inaugurated a new era in American government that, as I discussed in the last blog, was continued by other progressive presidents, with Obama simply being the latest torchbearer of the progressive movement. While Wilson’s concept of government was concerned with shielding administrative agencies from political influence so administrators could run rampant in making policy, Obama’s chosen method to circumvent the Constitution is to appoint a small army of czars reporting directly to him to accomplish the same end. Is this the change we’ve been waiting for? For me, indeed not.

Note: I realize that according to the previous post this post was supposed to discuss the dangers of progressivism, but I couldn’t resist getting in a “jab” about czar-mania. The next post will address that topic.

* References

Pestritto, Ronald J. and William J. Atto, eds. American Progressivism: A Reader. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008.

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Progressivism, Obama, and You

This is the second installment in a series on political philosophy and its practical implications in America. In the first installment, I discussed the damaging effects of philosophical pragmatism, which may appear to be an “ivory tower” topic, but as I will show in this post, directly affects you in the arena of your government. The point I most want to get across is that all of our political leaders have adopted some system of thought, and that system of thought will have direct affects on how they lead this country. This fact cannot be more salient than at the federal level, where each and every citizen is affected, whereas at the state level, if you don’t like the way your state is governed, you always have the option to move to another state. Take note that in the states of California and Michigan, for example, there is a net outflow of people because Americans are “voting with their feet” by seeking out other states that have more opportunities and less onerous taxation. Now at the federal level, most Obama supporters see him as “change,” as if he is something new and different from those Presidents who have gone before him. But the truth is he is not a different type of politician, but the latest in a line of progressive Presidents leading back to Teddy Roosevelt. This worldview and way of governing has its basis in philosophical pragmatism, which I discussed in my previous post.

One of the central figures in developing philosophical pragmatism, according to Nancy Pearcey in Total Truth, was educator John Dewey, who was a leading representative of the progressive movement, and whose writings and speeches along with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were highly influential on democracy in America. Pragmatism, in essence, is an evolutionary logic based on a naturalized version of German historicism, particularly that of Romantic idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel’s historicism taught that the material world is the outworking of an Absolute Spirit or Mind or God, where the Absolute externalizes itself over time through the historical process (history is completely contingent in that it is spontaneous, unpredictable, and open to genuine novelty). Dewey naturalized Hegelian historicism by reconciling it with Darwinism, thus offering pragmatism as a “via media,” or middle way that would overcome the dichotomy between philosophical naturalism and philosophical idealism. Essentially, pragmatists seized on the role of chance as a basis for a philosophy of indeterminacy, freedom, and innovation. The “openness” of the world takes the form of chance at lower levels of complexity, and takes the form of choice at the human level.

In the book American Progressivism: A Reader, Ronald Pestritto and William Atto note that the coupling of historical contingency with the doctrine of progress (namely, philosophical pragmatism) was shared by all progressives to one degree or another, and reveals how the progressive movement became the means by which German historicism was imported into the American political tradition. In fact, Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, was established for the express reason of bringing the German educational model to the United States, which produced prominent progressives that included John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson. Indeed, most modern liberals of today now refer to themselves as progressives, which is something of a homecoming. In general, modern liberals favor an expansive and active central government of the kind we have seen in America since the early part of the twentieth century, as opposed to classical liberalism, which saw the fundamental purpose of government as the protection of individual rights, viewing with suspicion any extension of governmental power into spheres beyond this limited purpose.

Pestritto and Atto note how Dewey complained that the founding generation lacked historic sense and interest and that it had a disregard of history. Dewey endorsed, instead, the doctrine of historical contingency, compatible with Hegelian thought. Natural rights theory, according to Dewey, blinded classical (or what Dewey called “early”) liberals to the fact that their own special interpretations of liberty, individuality and intelligence were themselves historically conditioned, and thus only relevant to their own time. They put forward their ideas as immutable truths good at all times and places, yet for Dewey, the idea of liberty was not frozen in time, but had instead a history of evolved meaning. Dewey believed the history of liberalism was progressive, which told a story of the move from more primitive to more mature conceptions of liberty. Modern liberalism, therefore, for Dewey, represented a vast improvement over classical liberalism.

Pestritto and Atto continue that American progressives took from the Germans their critique of individual rights and social compact theory, and their organic or “living” notion of the national state. Woodrow Wilson wrote of government as a “living thing,” which was to be understood according to “the theory of organic life.” The “living” notion of a constitution, Wilson contended, was far superior to the founders’ model, which had considered government a kind of “machine” that could be constantly limited through checks and balances. As a living entity, the progressives reasoned, government had to evolve and adapt in response to changing circumstances. While early American conceptions of national government had carefully circumscribed its power due to the perceived threat to individual liberties, progressives argued that history had brought about an improvement in the human condition, such that the will of the people was no longer in danger of giving in to factions. Progressives took this doctrine of progress and translated it into a call for a sharp increase in the scope of governmental power. There may be no greater example of this than Theodore Roosevelt’s speech on the New Nationalism in 1910. Roosevelt called on the state to take an active role in effecting economic equality by way of superintending the use of private property. Private property was to be respected, but only insofar as the government approved of the property’s social utility.

Roosevelt argued that new circumstances necessitated a new conception of government, and natural rights were no longer to serve as a principled boundary that the state was prohibited from crossing. Wilson had outlined a similar view of the extent of state power, even stating that he found nothing wrong with socialism in principle since no line can be drawn between public and private affairs which the state could not cross at will. Fundamentally, this view argued that rights-based theories of self-government, such as the republicanism to which the American founders subscribed and of which Wilson was sharply critical, are far less democratic than socialism. Wilson and his fellow progressives believed that rights-based theories of government limit the state’s sphere of action, thus limiting the capability of the people to implement their collective will and thus representing something less than a real democracy. So what we should see now is that a key goal of progressivism is to overcome the Constitution's limits on government and enlarge vastly the scope of government through regulation and redistribution of private property.

So whereas the founders had posited what they held to be a permanent understanding of just government, based upon a permanent account of human nature, the progressives countered that the ends and scope of government were to be defined anew in each historical epoch. Progressivism has a deep faith in historical progress, suggesting that due to historical evolution, government was becoming less of a danger to the governed and more capable of solving the great array of problems befalling the human race. These welfare-state politics of the twentieth and now twenty-first century are built upon a direct and conscious rejection of the original principles of the American Constitution, which were subsequently implemented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, extended by Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and have since been maintained by the progressive polices of presidents for both major political parties. In my view, this includes George Bush’s policies, and now Barack Obama’s more radical brand of progressivism which is on par with that of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In my next post, I will discuss the dangers of progressivism based on Glenn Beck’s new book Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, as well as further reading of the Pestritto and Atto book.

* References:

Pestritto, Ronald J. and William J. Atto, eds. American Progressivism: A Reader. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008.

Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Study Guide Edition). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005.

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The Damaging Effects of Philosophical Pragmatism

This blog begins a series of philosophical posts examining current day social thought in America, and its historical underpinnings. We are all products not only of the current age, but of the ages that precede us in history. While philosophical pragmatism may sound like an ivory tower term dreamed up by philosophers with too much time on their hands (which may be true), it actually is a useful term that reflects 19th century thinking and has had profound implications throughout the 20th century into now, the 21st.  In Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth, she describes philosophical pragmatism as a distinctly “home-grown” American philosophy that has been enormously influential since the late nineteenth century when Darwinism (Charles Darwin’s theory of the transmutation of species, or rather, evolution at the macro level) crossed the Atlantic. It’s core assumption, according to Pearcey, is that if life has evolved, then the human mind has evolved as well, and all the human sciences must be rebuilt on that basis. This ethic has had no small effect on American thinking, as Pearcey notes, as it has not only altered the way Americans think, but also the very structure of American social institutions.

Pearcey notes that at its heart, pragmatism is a (purely) Darwinian view of knowledge (epistemology). Pragmatism means the mind is nothing more than a part of nature, rejecting the older view that the human mind is transcendent to matter, in favor of a Darwinian view that mind is produced by matter. This presumption subverted both traditional and liberal forms of theism, since both forms make mind prior to matter. In traditional theology, a transcendent God creates the world according to his own design and purpose, whereas in liberal theology, an immanent deity externalizes its purpose through historical development of the world. Notwithstanding the differences between the two, both views hold that mind precedes matter, shaping and directing the development of the material world. Yet Darwin reversed this order, by positing that mind emerges very late in evolutionary history as a product of purely natural forces. Mind is not a fundamental, creative force but merely an evolutionary by-product. For the pragmatists, this “naturalizing” of the mind was the most revolutionary impact of Darwinian theory, implying that mental functions are merely adaptations for solving problems in the environment. So to get this right, our beliefs are not reflections of reality, but rules for action aimed at a payoff, not aimed at truth. As the pioneering psychologist William James opined, truth is the “cash value” of an idea. If it pays off, then we can call it true.

Previous to this system of thought, notes Pearcey, the dominant theory of knowledge was based on the biblical doctrine of the image of God. It is because human reason reflects the divine reason that we can trust human knowledge to be generally reliable. God created our minds to “fit” the universe that he made for us to inhabit, and when our cognitive faculties are functioning properly, they are designed to give us genuine knowledge (more specifically, epistemologist Alvin Plantinga argues that our beliefs have warrant if produced by properly functioning cognitive faculties in a congenial epistemic environment, according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth). Yet the pragmatists, states Pearcey, faced squarely the implications of evolution. If blind, undirected natural forces produced the mind, they said, then it is meaningless to ask whether our ideas reflect reality. To pragmatists, ideas are simply mental survival strategies—continuations of the struggle for existence by other means.

In general, pragmatists hold the belief that knowledge is a social construction, in that individuals don’t create knowledge, groups do. William James however, was more charitable in that he allowed each individual to decide what works satisfactorily for them, suggesting that something is true for someone if it meets their needs. In other words, whatever you decide, that’s your truth. In essence, this was the precursor to what we now call postmodern thought, which is becoming increasingly dominant in American culture today. The “pragmatic” thing to do, these days, is to believe there is no objective moral truth, and that we make our own truth. Whatever works, is true. What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me. But what is important to understand here, according to Pearcey, is that pragmatic success does not make a claim true. And therein, I assert, lies the fallacy of pragmatism. It avoids truth claims, but in so doing actually makes a truth claim which is, ostensibly, an objective truth. In my view, the wholesale acceptance of a Darwinian system of thought that is not properly aimed at objective truth is ill-considered, and will lead us down a highly dangerous path if carried to its logical conclusion. We need look no further than the 20th century regimes of Mao, Hitler, and Stalin, all of which accepted and implemented, with horrific results, a purely Darwinian worldview. The key question is if that is our inevitable trajectory as we continue to reject objective truth under the rubric of “pragmatism.”

* References:

Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Study Guide Edition). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005.

Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford, 1993.

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Can Government Provide a Healthcare Solution?

My plan was to begin a new series on philosophical pragmatism and its damaging effects on society, but I will delay that topic until my next post so I can talk a little about “government solutions,” which, in my view, is more of an oxymoronic exception than it is an actual truth. In a number of exchanges with my Facebook friends recently, I have seen expressions of skepticism and a lack of faith in the capitalist system of the United States.  Yet their alternative to resolve the “evils of capitalism” always seems to be more and bigger government, as if government represents some paragon of virtue and ethics that the unenlightened masses lack. My view is since government is made up of fallen people, then it has the same imperfections as the fallen people that make it up. This means that those in government who are supposed to represent the people can have personal agendas that are counter to the will of the people, and can enact legislation that may be ultimately bad for the people. This is particularly a problem at the federal level, since all people are affected, and is precisely why the people should hold government accountable, which includes getting the federal government out of areas in which it lacks competence or purpose.

"While the 10th Amendment explicitly limits the power of the federal government, today it has become little more than a quaint, and toothless, sentiment. But that wasn't always the case. The Founding Fathers were no fools. They understood that those who are inclined to power are also tenacious defenders of that power once they have achieved it."

Let’s take for example the current healthcare debate, with some feeling government-run healthcare is a “fundamental right.” I don’t agree with this because fundamental rights are, and I believe should, be strictly within the limits of natural law. In other words, those rights given by the creator that are unalienable: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Beyond that, we have rights based on the social contract that people make with government which gives it authority over certain moral and/or political obligations. So I don’t see healthcare as an unalienable right, but as a potential policy directive added to the social contract between the people and our government. Otherwise, we could go on forever with people continually declaring certain rights, giving more control to the government that coerces others against their will to pay for those rights (since a right costs something if some good or service must be provided to honor that right). You will ultimately get more and more people demanding rights with less and less people to actually pay for them. So regardless of where the debate over healthcare goes, healthcare is certainly not an unalienable right.

With respect to healthcare, I believe free market capitalism, though it is not perfect, provides for the most win-win scenarios based on a free exchange of market-based services. And within a framework of rule of law and property rights, the free market system works beautifully. Somehow, though, people expect it work perfectly, which is anything but realistic. Based on human nature, there will always be market bubbles that form and burst and there will always be creative destruction as technological advances are made. The healthcare system demonstrates the very issues that have come about with the advancement of innovative, life-saving technologies over the past five decades. But these technologies come at a price and have contributed to about half of all growth in costs (with preventable illness making up 90% of all healthcare costs, much of this due to obesity and smoking). Yet If we look at the way that people live now compared to 100 years ago, we see that due to capitalism, people now enjoy a far higher standard of living. Still, Americans are not satisfied that we have an exemplary economic system which needs to be defended, even though it isn't perfect.

My understanding is that most people who go to a doctor when their medical situation is advanced, or go to the ER, are those that can afford insurance but choose not to purchase it because they have other priorities. The ER is for those that need critical care regardless of whether they have insurance or not, with the insured bearing the full burden. But the ER is also used by those without insurance even if the need is not critical, which the insured pay for as well. The truth is we will always have those that don't purchase insurance when they can afford it, who drive up costs in the ER, and those who make poor health choices in life that drive up insurance premiums directly or indirectly based on whether they have insurance or not. People of today behave irresponsibly mainly because they can, since social mores and personal responsibility don't have the value they once did, and of course, the fact that the government will step in with other people's money in exchange for cheap votes and expanded powers. So I am certain that government-run healthcare is not the solution, since it won’t fundamentally change human nature.

The truth is any solution will be imperfect. Yet I continue to believe strongly that capitalism and our system of government as framed by the founding fathers is the best system to respond to the current issues in healthcare. What is needed is more competition rather than less, with the federal government not involved as a player in healthcare, but involved only in policy that facilitates the free market system. This would include the federal government getting out of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, remanding these to state and local governments that will provide this safety net for the truly needy in a more personal and efficient manner. Within the free market system, there should be a premium to pay for those who don’t (or won’t) accept responsibility for their lifestyle choices that cause preventable diseases. That is why it is perfectly acceptable to me that insurance companies be able to set premiums based on the lifestyle choices of the insured, and practical limits on how much care they will pay for. Those who refuse to purchase insurance when they can afford to should not be able to take unlimited advantage of the ER, particularly for non-emergency care.

The bottom line is Americans need to become more physically active and more responsible about their life choices, and if they don't, accept the consequences. It is unreasonable for someone to smoke, drink to excess, and live a generally unhealthy lifestyle expecting someone else to foot the bill. The government should not enforce this, but should work with insurance companies and healthcare providers on common sense policies that support their efforts to provide the best possible balance of coverage that would include preventive measures and reasonable limits on care based on objective criteria. We are all going to die some day, so we shouldn’t expect to be kept alive when our time has come solely because medical technology allows it. Doctors, along with their patients and patient families, have been making end-of-life decisions for generations, long before insurance. The blessing of private insurance has greatly improved the availability of healthcare, so let’s celebrate it and accept the fact that it has limits, while looking for ways to make it more available that preserves the efficiency and efficacy of the free market.

* References:

Jamieson, Bob, in Letters section. "Could America Ever Become the Not-So-United States?" The Wall Street Journal, 20 June 2009. Available from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124545060728632553.html. Accessed 20 June, 2009.

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