Health Care, Restaurants and the Unity of Man

Once upon a time, I was reading an article by Tony Bourdain about how to be a good customer. The article ended with a note that if you were clear when communicating to your waiter, complimentary about the good things and reasonably tolerant of the mishaps that you would be welcomed to your favorite restaurant like one of the staff. I wondered for a minute at why that would be a good thing and then suddenly it all donned on me at once... and I understood the economy.

Follow me for a moment, I'll explain myself.

I've been following the health care debate and one of the most frequent preambles I hear is "Why should I pay for someone else's..." whatever. I see people decry the plan as socialism or communism, though I have to wonder how many of them actually understand what those economic systems involve. People seem afraid not so much that they are going to get bad health care so much as someone else is going to get health care on their dime.

The implicit argument is that our resources are clearly defined. What's mine is mine and these lines shall not be blurred. The problem with that is there is an artificial stasis that must be imposed for that state of affairs to be true. Once you accept that items are consumed or that commerce ensues, then the lines between what is yours and mine start to weaken.

Most of us do not have all we need to survive our lifetimes. Even if someone has a billion dollars in the bank, they do not have the clothing or food that will last them until their dying days (assuming they have a life expectancy lasting more than a few months). Your house will need maintenance, your vehicle will need repair and you will need to restock your supplies. While it is possible for someone to be self sufficient, most of us aren't expert farmers/carpenters/tailors/mechanics with land and resources in practically unlimited supply.

To live you're going to have to approach someone else and either trade currency, services or goods to them to have something you will need. No man is an island and in this day and age, very few even try. This is the state of things, there's nothing wrong with it and we would do well to remember it.

Going back to the restaurant, when you sit down to your favorite dive to eat, you're embodying this social/economic system perfectly. Someone is going to give you food, you're going to give them money and then they will take that money and go get food for themselves. If you follow that chain long enough through vendors, producers and so on, you'll eventually trace the line of money back to the guy who gives you a paycheck. It's all connected.

In the debate over health care, there is no doubt that it's criminal to deny someone suffering what they need because of a few lines of red tape. Except for the cruel, no one wants to see their neighbor hacking up a lung or sweating blood because an insurance company won't cover a pre-existing condition. They want this for themselves or a family member as little or even less so. The fact that the common man needs protection and access to what they need is not in debate.

What is in debate is how best to get it to them. If we use public funding to do this, people worry that somehow they will have less because of it. On the one hand, that might be true if taxes increase. What won't be true is that if they don't set something up, they will remain unaffected.

The uninsured who pick the vegetables you eat affect you. The diseases that go untreated and spread further than they should as a result affect you. The cures that aren't coming because there's no profit in them affect you. The health of the individual affects the health of the community and that means that even if you keep all your money, get good health care yourself, the fact that there are millions of uninsured and people who need help but can't afford to get it affects you.

We do not exist each in their own vacuum. We're dominoes spaced variable widths apart and you might be able to knock a huge portion of us down, but you're not going to be able to avoid the fact that one day, the domino next to you can and might take you down if you don't work to keep them all standing. It would be good if those who shout half truths or tear down plans they've never read remembered this fact before shouting opposition and regurgitated rhetoric licked from the lips of some talking head.

I don't know all that's in the proposed health care plan that has spurred the debate. I doubt I am going to like everything I find there. I am glad that people are debating and that dialog is started. I pray it's productive. But what I won't do is tear it down without reading it nor will I assume that just because it may require me to give a little more than I do already that somehow it's parasitic and I should only accept it if it does not affect me.

Because truth is that whether or not it passes, whether or not my taxes go up, it will affect me. Because I am a person living in the world. And the people this bill might help... they are too.

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