Friday, March 17, 2017

Winners and, of Course, LOSERS

One of the conceits of bothsides journalism is that Both Sides really have What's Good For America in mind, that all we're debating about is the means to that glorious Good end. There isn't actually much room for conversation about what that Good would be, which would reveal the fact that some people think it's Good that old people die because they can't afford medical care, and some people don't.

Slightly more subtly, literally any policy change will have winners and losers, whether that is its intended goal or not. While I am not always Obamacare's biggest fan, one thing you can say about it is that there were very few losers except some rich people who had to pay a bit more in taxes. That is actually a pretty impressive accomplishment. Personally I think our ideal health care would involve a few more losers (insurance industry, hospital and pharmaceutical profits, some doctor pay, etc.) so that most of the rest of us could win more - we pay an absurd share of our GDP in health care costs, to bring that down somebody's gotta lose - but credit where credit is due.

The reward for not making more losers is, of course, is that the Republicans want more of us to give our precious bodily fluids to buy a few more yachts for rich people. Sometimes you should just make more losers.