So I had a lovely debate with a gentleman recently. A man who was furious about Obama's lie that "if you like your policy, you can keep it" regarding the ACA.
For an in-depth analysis of this particular lie, you can look at Politifact, which called it the Lie of the Year.
Basically, this person was not wrong in what they were saying about Obama either being wrong or being ignorant. He chose to express his position in incredibly offensive and condescending terms, but ultimately, what he was expressing was correct. Obama promised something that was expected to be false.
But, let's look at this a little closer, since I don't favor an entirely cut-and-dry take on the issue:
The ACA raised the minimum standards by which insurance carriers could offer policies. As a result, certain gaps in policy coverage had to be filled in and patched over, otherwise the policy would no longer be legal. As a technicality, it was entirely up to the insurance carriers whether or not they were willing to bring the policies up to code or else disband them completely. To that end, while Obama didn't explicitly lie, he did suggest something that put insurance companies in a very tight squeeze; lose profits or look like the bad guys. Unfortunately, the plan backfired and was turned on Obama as the villain of the escapade.
I'm not so much interested in the actual incident itself as the implications of minimum standards being raised, so I'll leave it to you, my dear reader, to formulate your own opinion on president Obama's choice of words in connection with the ACA.
It was in this argument that I was confronted with this particular position:
"The
notion that no job at all is somehow better for someone who had a job
before is just.... Well, in the words of the Dude, 'It's just your
opinion, man.' Shouldn't the person accepting the job have something to say about it?"
As far as argumentation goes, this is at once a very typical and an incredibly stalwart defense. In order to defeat it, I have to admit that it's better to regulate people for their own good in certain circumstances. Fortunately, I'm completely okay with this. Of course, it means that the argument dissolves therein because it becomes a simple matter of opinion.
I do not think it's an unreasonable proposition to suggest that people will accept substandard living conditions if it's all that they can get. From there, I do not think it's unreasonable to suggest that standardizing a minimum living condition has a long-term viability that is completely lacking in the philosophy of "it's better than nothing."
Maintaining the status quo is only a healthy course of action if the status quo provides. If it does not provide, then we must dismantle it and build a new status quo. The unfortunate reality of this ideal is that people will get caught in the crossfire. During the transition, insurance carriers will drop millions of policies, leaving many without insurance- including some who were "fine" with the substandard policies they had.
This is a very Big Brother notion. That we can choose what's best for people. Ultimately, that's a complicated issue that no one wants to address directly. Why?
Well, just look at our prototypical sides of the issue. Liberals want no regulations on issues of abortion and birth control. Conservatives want no regulation on issues of guns.
Liberals want to be rid of our stringent regulations on marijuana. Conservatives want to be rid of our stringent regulations on corporations.
In truth, both sides are playing both sides of the fence. Sometimes, we like to regulate, and sometimes we feel that regulation is inherently problematic. At what point can we reasonably start to regulate behavior? There's no distinctly simple answer, but the easiest one I'm going to lay out for you is when they negatively impact the lives of people around us who don't otherwise have a say in the matter.
This is... a step with many philosophical implications, and I am not committed to it, but it seems the most consistent position.
This would effectively allow us to regulate smoking, weapon ownership, emissions, obesity in parents, wage laws, working conditions, insurance policy standards, treatment standards, and depending on how we define "people," abortion.
This strikes an odd resonating note with me, because I'm actually very pro-choice, but I cannot deny that if we define human life as anything before birth, then abortion becomes a philosophically inconsistent position to support. There's no straightforward solution to that problem either. The definition for life is so convoluted that it would be impossible to objectively define it. We have to arbitrarily pick a point that represents when life is first determinable. Alternatively, we could allow select abortions in this gray area with a lot of "if - then" statements. Neither option is particularly appealing, as they both lead to very complicated scenarios.
"If the mother's life is in danger, then..."
"If the fetus has a developmental or genetic problem, then..."
"If the parents are determined to not be ready, then..."
"If the child cannot be supported, then..."
Who gets to define "ready"? Who gets to define that arbitrary point that we call life? Do we just pick a spot and never stray from that? Is it 8 weeks? 12? Why? What criteria are we using, and why does that criteria take precedence?
Potentiality is an equally problematic argument, since every egg and every sperm have potentiality.
Anyway, this is all wandering off-topic towards another abortion discussion, which I'm okay having another day. My point is this: Regulation is necessary to the betterment of humanity. "It's better than nothing" is not a sustainable approach to life in the long run. It destroys the have-nots and gives more to the haves. Basically just entirely unacceptable in a fair and just society.
Gah, life is complicated.
Thoughts?
-
Waddles
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