Advice to President Obama

[fpb]

So far, you have been brilliant at splitting potential opponents, sir, and I do not understand why you seem to have surrendered this tactic and gone for its opposite when it comes to by far the most important item of your legislative program. Your health reform proposals have fearsome and committed enemies. Why multiply them by insisting on placing abortion among the basic provisions, and allowing your party to shoot down any amendment that would prevent or even limit this? The opposition to abortion in America is formidable, but it only partly overlaps the ideological (and provincial) opposition to socialized medicine. You are shooting yourself in the foot, running the risk of a humiliating and crippling defeat, and strengthening and enlarging the front of your opponents, by this ill-advised behaviour.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would have thought a libertarian like you would have no time for national health provision?

[becomethesea.livejournal.com]

For clarity, I actually consider myself part of the 'libertarian left' as a general rule. I am generally in favour of both civil liberties for everyone and state programs for those that need assistance. The state will always exist regardless of what my anarcho-capitalist friends believe, and I think that is essential when considering at least somewhat 'realistic' politics.

I haven't been able to closely follow the national health issue, but I really think it ought to be implemented. I watched my own mother struggle (and, eventually get denied again and again) for the hysterectomy operation that saved her life. Unfortunately we had to play the credit card/bankruptcy game for her to have the operation, but she is happier in monetary debt and alive than either still suffering or dead.

I realize the greedy monopoly that exists within the confines of many private health insurance companies, and it enrages me, being a person who holds some fairly 'radical' perspectives on the way medicine and society would ideally co-exist. I don't necessarily think that a state-run option would be much different in the rate of its denial of claims, but I do believe it would at least have the individual's monetary status in mind when the decision is made. There is no real financial gain in denying a state-based claim, since its funding ideally comes from the people themselves.

[becomethesea.livejournal.com]

I'm also compelled to add that though I hold a more liberal view on the overall performance of abortions within society, I am NOT okay with tacking that procedure onto the national health proposal. I agree that it undermines Pres. Obama's ability to get the program going. I do not want the state (aka my tax dollars) to pay for abortions. I've thought, always, that those operations ought to remain private both personally and financially, being the absolute burden of both the doctors and patients that participate in it.