Health Care: It's a Civil Right

Jon Cohn has a long piece about the efforts by certain states to repeal health care reform, or at least exempt themselves from it.  Cohn talks about the repeal effort in terms of the terrible cost to sick citizens of the various states, and that's true. But it's not the full truth.

The truth is that health care in this country is a civil right, and our current system severely constrains the political, social, and economic freedoms that all Americans ought to enjoy. But simply in economic terms, sick people are trapped in a system that turns their pain and suffering into astounding sums of money, with comparatively little value in return.

The difference between  cost and value in this equation is pure exploitation, and one reason health care must be seen as a civil right in this country. Otherwise, we live in a country where it's perfectly okay to exploit certain people for their contingent facts. We know that's wrong for race, for gender, even for religion. Why is it okay for illness?

But it's an even bigger problem than that: a sick person isn't going to risk losing employer-provided insurance by organizing a union, whistleblowing, or reporting discrimination in the workplace. And even with insurance, sick people often end up spending most of their spare money and time on their health - instead of volunteering in the community, or supporting important causes, or running for elected office.The ordinary activities that we allow and expect from our citizens are denied to sick people by the direct and indirect costs of their care. This is a massive drain of social and economic capital away from sick people and towards major corporations: in effect, a tax on some of our most powerless citizens.

And none of this is intrinsic to illness: instead, it is entirely due to our society's response to illness. Our health care system denies sick people their full and free participation in American society - and reform will help change that. And fifty years from now, the people who are trying to stymie reform will seem every bit as craven and oppressive as George Wallace does today:  "Employer-based insurance today, employer-based insurance tomorrow, employer-based insurance forever!"

Cohn hints at the magnitude of this issue by mentioning that "the U.S. fought a large war, about a hundred and fifty years ago, in order to settle the issue of state nullification". Actually, that war didn't quite settle the question - at least not for the George Wallaces, and not for the state politicians trying to repeal reform.

Cohn is right: repeal would sustain real financial costs on sick people. But worse still, it would rob sick people of the grand promise of reform: the ability to participate in American society as full and free citizens. Health care is a civil right, and progressives should not be timid in saying so, nor in naming the politicians opposed to reform as they really are: oppressors, bigots, and enemies of freedom.

Photo credit: Ozone Ferd