More to Medical Choice

The Republicans simply cannot conceive of any issue outside of the confines of money. They frame their discussion of Medicare as "putting seniors back in control of their own healthcare decisions." By which they mean letting seniors pay for their own healthcare. It does not seem to have occurred to them that the senior citizens could possibly be making their own health decisions in consultation with their doctors even though Medicare was paying the bills. Now they would no doubt say that with Medicare paying the bills a Government Bureaucrat is sticking his nose into the decision making process. But the fact is that while giving seniors a check for $6000, or however much is finally agreed to, to spend on health insurance might take the Government out to of the equation it sticks a corporate bureaucrat right in its place. The Republicans are blind to the problem in this because to them the market is magic and can only make things better and the government is evil and can only make things worse. However, the Government Bureaucrat is at least to some extent beholden to the American people as his/her boss, or boss's boss is following the direction of an elected official. The corporate bureaucrat is beholden only to the stock holders of the company who seek only profit. The government is at least on some level concerned with the best possible health outcome, the insurance company only with cost. To the Republicans only if the money is coming out of your own personal pocket can you be said to be taking full responsibility for your healthcare decisions. They see Medicare as limiting seniors freedom to choose because they have not considered the restrictions which these seniors would face outside medicare which they are being freed from by the Government. The Republicans do not consider the lack of choice faced by people who cannot afford to take all the available options because they either have never faced such a circumstance and/or they blame the individual for having gotten themself into such a position. In this way the Republican party has lost both its concept of the reality of the daily lives of Americans as well as its hold on the underlying social contract.