There’s a Reason The 14th Amendment Didn’t Have A Trigger Option

I can say that I no longer give a damn about healthcare reform.  I no longer give a damn because I know that whatever we finally get will be a watered-down compromise that is more about ensuring that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can be said to have lost the battle.  Both sides are of course under enormous pressure to deliver.  A loss for the Democrats will be seen (stupidly) as a referendum on Obama and the progressive movement, and a loss for the Republicans will be seen as a referendum on the GOP.  Both sides are so firmly entrenched that neither can afford to be said to have lost.  So both sides will deliver some bullshit compromise measure whose effects will be impossible to explain in one or two sentences.

The beauty of the 14th Amendment is that it is both incredibly complex and incredibly simple.  If you doubt the former, take a Con Law class.  And if you doubt the latter, remember that elementary school students are taught that the 14th Amendment abolished slavery.  Sure, that explanation leaves a lot out, but it explains perhaps the most important part of the Amendment.  The 14th Amendment is also beautiful because it neatly and cleanly accomplished what it set out to do.  There’s been a lot of peripheral litigation over the scope of the Amendment, but never any serious debate over whether it’s legal to own a slave in the U.S.

One has to wonder how effective the 14th Amendment would have been if instead it had been written as a trigger option.  Perhaps it would have required states to grant citizenship to a certain percentage of slaves by a certain date, and if those states failed to do so, then the 14th Amendment would take effect.  It could have left it up to the states to determine which slaves to grant citizenship to, and perhaps even let states define citizenship, thus allowing states to game the system by saying that “X percent of our slaves have been granted citizenship,” when in fact that grant of citizenship did not comport with the intent of the drafters of the 14th Amendment.  Can you imagine such a system succeeding?  Probably not if your definition of success meant that there would be zero slaves in the United States.

Similarly, any trigger option that leaves it up to the states (read: private insurance companies) to cover the uninsured will not succeed if you define success as meaning every U.S. citizen has healthcare coverage.

Instead of delivering legislation that is as clean and as effective as the 14th Amendment, Congress is going to deliver us a bill that will best be described as a kludge or a patchwork.  The 14th Amendment wasn’t a kludge and it wasn’t a patchwork.  There’s something else it wasn’t, too: a failure.  And a failure is what I predict this bill will be.

I think it’s funny that on the one hand the GOP yells and screams “listen to the doctors!” about medical malpractice reform.  But when they’re told that the majority of doctors support single-payer universal healthcare, well, it’s not so important to listen to doctors anymore.  The problem is fundamental.  Many people (like me) believe that every American, by virtue of being a citizen in the greatest country the world has ever known, has a fundamental right to medical care.  Others, (like most of the GOP) believe that no one has a fundamental right to healthcare and instead should have to work to pay for it.

Personally, I don’t understand why I don’t have to work to pay for the military that keeps me safe, the fire department that keeps me safe, and the police that keep me safe, but I should have to pay for my healthcare coverage.  If it’s the job of our government to keep us protected from being killed by terrorists, then why shouldn’t it also keep us from dying of preventable illnesses?  One preventable death is too many, regardless of whether it comes from a shoe bomb or poor prenatal care. 

At this point, all I hope is that the Democrats don’t decide to try and buy off Republicans by giving them tort reform.  Here’s what’s going to happen if they do: Within ten years, Democrats will no longer be able to count on the support of trial lawyers, because trial lawyers won’t be able to afford to donate.  Republican challengers will then take out vulnerable Dems, and once they own Congress & the White House, they’ll gut the portions of the healthcare bill that they didn’t like, and keep tort reform.  Hope the Dems keep that in mind…

Comments

[Michael Kirsch, M.D]

Regarding the government paying for your health care, should there be a personal element of responsibility? Is health care an absolute right or a privilege? Police protection is a right; we don't have to earn it or purchase it with private funds. It's easy to claim that everyone should have health care, without defining the level of care (Cadillac) or who will pay for it. Resources are finite and the available medical benefits are infinite. www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com

[Justinian Lane]

I think it should be an absolute right. How much healthcare everyone should have is beyond my medical expertise. I know resources are finite, but I believe that if we came up with a single payer government solution, costs would drop dramatically thus enabling our dollars to go further.

I just don't understand why under the current system it's "ok" for seniors to get free medical care, but not for younger people.