Smashmortion
Thursday, August 13 2009
You should know by now that the health care bill under consideration in the House will not established “socialized” medicine in this country. There is no single-payer element (a la Canada), nor anything that would force doctors to become employees of the governmen (as in Britain). These ideas are simply not being discussed.
Now I happen to think these are both ideas that should be discussed, but I have a hard time supporting them in practice – at least, in this country. And one reason for my difficulty is that I support a woman’s right to contraceptive drugs and services, including abortion. My concern is that a truly government-controlled system would subject women’s reproductive rights to the whim of whichever party was in charge, to an even greater extent than is now the case.
And, indeed, one of the arguments I hear from progressive women against the government increasing its role in health care is precisely this: they don’t want their reproductive choices to be subject to the political process. I have resisted blogging about this issue, even though I recognize its importance, because I don’t really have anything useful to say. (I know: crazy, right? I’m never going to make it as a blogger.)
But fortunately, I can link to this excellent article from Dana Goldstein. She does a superlative job of explaining the various positions and issues: on the one hand, conservative politicians oppose health care reform, but also want to ensure that any government involvement does not wind up paying for abortions; on the other hand, progressive politicians want health care reform, but don’t want the increased government involvement to limit women’s options. And meanwhile, private insurance pays for a great many abortions, but the government is banned from doing so by law. It’s a long article, but definitely worth reading in full. I am not even going to excerpt it, because I think you need to read the whole thing.
And, of course, the article does a tremendous service to us all by putting the lie to some of the more outrageous claims about health care reform.
