Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

On an individual basis, *anyone* who has any significant healthcare expenses is being subsidized by others who don't. That's what private insurance is, and that's what the ACA does. The number of people who can afford to pay for their coverage without being "subsidized" by their coverage is vanishingly small. So everyone, or almost everyone, is "subsidized." (When rich people are covered by their insurance, we acknowledge that their wealth gives them a moral claim to whatever they want, so we don't dwell on that.) The whole point of health insurance is to make this subsidy happen.

Undocumented immigrants work. That's why they want to be here. They make less money than most people, but they also use less healthcare.

Now, I understand that you have a standing objection to universal healthcare on the ground that 'we can't afford it' (not quoting you there, but I also don't think I'm misrepresenting your views). We actually can afford it, objectively, much as we can afford military spending in excess of the next several militaries cumulatively, or to put men on the moon, or to be fighting wars on mainland Asia for decades. 'We can't afford it' is not a statement of accounting fact, but a euphemism for 'that's not important to me.'

Saying that healthcare for immigrants will be "almost entirely subsidized" is the same sort of rhetorical. "Subsidized" is a great word because it rests on baseline assumptions about who deserves want. Immigrants are here, working. If your view is, they can pay taxes directly and drive economic activity that generates more taxes indirectly, and they don't deserve any benefit from government spending, then, yes, it follows that letting them participate in health insurance is a form of subsidy.

Maybe that's not what you meant. But you're still assuming that if the government spends money on immigrants, it's a subsidy, which is too say that immigrants pay taxes but shouldn't expect to get anything back. Would you ever say that Mississipians are subsidized by defense spending because they pay less in taxes but receive the same (or more) per capita benefits? The framing of the basec complaint -- "poor people are getting something they don't deserve" -- is fundamentally conservative.

This is the most tortured reasoning I’ve ever seen. It’s so flawed in so many ways, I just give up... this is a useless back and forth.

But I am a bit offended you think I’d stoop to a shit concept like “deserve.” William Munny’s response to Little Bill at the end of Unforgiven is my view on the breadth of its application in life, and what pleading for it more than often reaps.

ETA: Morrie in Goodfellas deserved his cut. And how many bankers deserved to be jailed for 2008 again?