It really does all go back to Reagan. The mess, I mean. Paul Krugman explains.
What I don't get is how it's so easy to convince people that government is bad and therefore they should trust the market instead. With government -- which is supposed to be of us, by us and for us -- if it's bad, we have the chance to make it better.
Supposedly, with the market, if it's bad, you can shop around. Except that, in a lot of cases, health care included, there really isn't much to choose from. (Most health care markets are dominated by one insurance company.) And in the particular case of health care, it's simply ludicrous to think people shop around. Most people get their insurance from their employer, and employers don't really offer options. And when you're sick, an expectation of comparison shopping is unreasonable.
Anyway, it's crazy to me that Reagan and all his acolytes since then have managed to convince the American people that government is the problem. Especially when they've been proven wrong in so many ways. A "zombie doctrine" Krugman calls it. I wish I'd thought of that.
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This "shop around" conservative talking point strikes me as strange, too. It only makes sense with commodities that are readily available from different suppliers. As you say, that applies to almost nobody's health care.
Before reading the Krugman piece, I thought "zombie doctrine" would refer to the fact that people who say it sound like zombies. "Government bad." Try visiting Somalia, they are government-free there! But it's a good double entendre for our likes. And it's true: thoroughly discredited, it keeps clawing at the door.
I'm glad you bring this up given the chance. It bears repeating: "government is NOT the problem." It's only a problem when co-opted by big business.
The real problem is what the Reagan movement did to the country, mostly behind the scenes -- purposefully dividing the electorate on social issues to distract it from objecting to a dismantling of civilizing institutions and regulations designed to protect the public from the excesses of big corporate greed.
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