One of the reasons why conservative ideology has stood the test of time is because of its deceptive simplicity. Think about it. I can sum it up in less than a few sentences: Government = bad. Free markets = good. Everyone can succeed if they just work hard enough. If you aren't successful, then you're just lazy and worthless. Stop stealing my money to enable the moochers.
So of course when dealing with a complex issue such as health insurance reform, conservatives view the issue through the same rigid framework. Don't have insurance? Tough shit.
Recently Southern Beale blogged about a pro-HCR rally she attended a few weeks ago outside of Senator Lamar Alexander's office:
Reaction at this busy intersection was mostly positive. There were quite a few horn honks and thumbs up, a couple of thumbs down, but not as many as I had expected. One person, predictably, shouted "get a job!" There's always one asshole who has to remind us of the country's unemployment rate. I'm not being sarcastic here, either: I have yet to attend a rally or visibility event where there wasn't one person shouting "get a job!" Probably the same guy, too.
You see that? Conservatives have a simple solution for the health care crisis! Apparently if we want health insurance, all we have to do is get a job! If only I had known this sooner! I forgot all about how easy jobs are to find! I can't believe I didn't realize that employers are willing to offer all their employees great health insurance benefits! Wow! Jolly gee wiz, Rush!
Of course, when I said that the conservative ideology was "deceptively simple", I was damn serious. I would even go as far as calling it nefariously simple. To illustrate my point, let me tell you a story about a guy I knew named Rory.
I spent my later teenage years as a cook at Pizza Hut. Rory was about ten years older than me, and he worked the same position. The job paid close to minimum wage - around $6.00 per hour. He was a nice enough guy. He had a short fuse, but was able to keep himself in check most of the time. During the several months that we worked there together, we became comfortable enough with each other to be considered "workplace friends".
One day Rory came to work with a broken finger. It was wrapped up in bandages, making it look twice as large as his other fingers. I asked him if he went to the hospital to get it fixed. His response? "Hell no".
You see, Rory didn't have health insurance. A visit to the emergency room would have cost him at least $300. That would have eaten up 75% of his bi-weekly paycheck. Because he couldn't afford care, he was forced to treat himself. He took his finger, which had been snapped backwards to his wrist, and had to set it himself by (very, very painfully) snapping it back into its proper position. He described the process in excruciating detail. I stared at him in disbelief as he recounted his story.
Even though he didn't have insurance, Rory wasn't worthless or lazy. He had a job and worked full time. However, the mere fact that he was employed doesn't mean that he had meaningful access to health insurance.
It wasn't that Pizza Hut was mean, it's just that the company made it especially burdensome for it's non-managerial employees to get access to the health insurance benefits. Among the requirements? First, you had to work full time - forty hours a week. Second, you had to have been working there for at least a year. That's an entire YEAR you're supposed to go without access to employer-provided (and therefore, cheaper) health insurance. Thirdly, the "cheaper" employer-based coverage that Pizza Hut provided cost around $200 a month. Imagine working at job at $6.00 an hour, pulling in about $800 a month. Now imagine $200 automatically being deducted from your check, leaving you with around $600 a month. How the hell are you supposed to be able to afford that? $600 a month isn't even enough to cover the bare necessities.
Put yourself in Rory's shoes. You can take part in a health insurance plan that eats up a quarter of your monthly pay OR you can pay the rent and buy yourself food. You can't do both. Make a choice. Rory did.
It's so easy to throw around pithy sayings like "get a job". In the black and white world of conservatives, "get a job" makes total sense. Their false dichotomy of "wealth producers" vs. "wealth moochers" allows them to blithely ignore the real stake that millions of Americans have in meaningful health care reform. Those down on their luck become society's "losers". Single mothers on welfare become "parasites". We can safely put on our blinders, comfortable in the assurance that our sense of empathy and our ability to relate won't be awakened.
I'm sorry, but things just aren't that simple.