Engineering classes give insight to policy; the ‘fairness’ hypocrisy in health care

I came across an interesting article in the Washington Post recently that got me thinking about health care. The ironic thing about it is that the subject of the article was a comparison between our own and Britain’s heath care policies, and the UK’s NICE institution, a subject I am familiar with from an engineering class I took last semester. Here’s an article I wrote discussing the UK’s current health care policies, how they differ from those in the US, and how the concept of unfairness in the US’s system translates into a type of discrimination in universal health care. Here’s an excerpt:

The most commonly heard complaint by critics of our current system is that health coverage is often unavailable to the less wealthy and economically disadvantaged people. Without appropriate funds, the poor are unable to afford proper health services because their insurance plan does not provide enough coverage for certain procedures. Critics often hail this as unfair, as everybody should have equal opportunity to receive health care. But, now there is the British counterpart, where availability is determined by the age of the patient, the possible effectiveness of the procedure, and the longevity of the patient, post-operation. Which is more ‘fair,’ the poor man whose insurance corporation does not cover the operation, or the aging man who cannot receive effective cancer treatment because he is going to die shortly of old age, anyway? Difficult to say.

Essentially both ‘unfair’ decisions are made by an institution, whether a private insurance company or a government-funded NICE. To see if one fairness outweighs the other, let’s say that, curtly put, each person has made a mistake. The old man looking for cancer treatment? He aged, and became, essentially, worthless. The poor man? He was either born into poverty and failed to rise out, or has been unable to keep himself afloat, even on our country’s capitalist economy. It seems obvious that while of course, there are always inevitable difficulties and complexities, the man in poverty played more of a role in landing himself in the current position than the elderly patient. Of course, it is essential that Americans remain empathetic to the plight of those less well-off and benevolent and determined to bring those up from lower economic status. It is not, however, responsible to bring entitlement to some while discounting the situation of others.

Recently hidden in New York’s political newscape is the recent passage of the Citizen’s Empowerment Act, proposed by our own attorney general Andrew Cuomo. Now, I am generally no fan of Mr. Cuomo’s; his behavior during the AIG bonus fiasco was repulsive, and his demand to release a list of all honest employees who received said bonuses was truly infuriating. However, the proposition of this bill has redeemed him somewhat in my opinion. 

Essentially, this bill was proposed because the state of New York is divided into 10,521 separate districts, each with its own unique taxes on top of state taxes. In addition, many of these districts overlap (my house actually exists near one of the exact spaces of an overlap of 3 districts). This causes homeowners to have to pay a few different sets of taxes, leading to an occasional discrepancy where they will be paying low taxes on one district(say, education), and much higher taxes on another. As said previously, this is all on top of state taxes. This produces an unnecessary burden on families both wealthy and poor, to pay for town and county services which, more often than not, are poorly run. 

The gist of the bill states that, should a town decide it wants to, it can consolidate or even eliminate these districts and thus its extra taxes. This is done by means of an open vote, with 10 % of voter’s signatures necessary to authorize the consolidation. This would eliminate taxes paid for libraries, schools, and other forces. Meanwhile, it would streamline vital services such as fire and police, who can run into jurisdiction issues in the current system. 

For the most part, I am in full support of this bill. Two of the things I like most in this world is the possibility of less government bureaucracy and lower taxes. This bill seems to promise both. It is also very democratic in nature, requiring a vote before anything is considered. Still, a few reservations exist on my end. Will this mean higher state taxes in already one of the most taxed in this union? Or will this have the benefit of giving less money to public schools, forcing them to streamline their spending and focusing on the betterment of curriculum instead of wasting money on other projects? Will this lead to an increase in centralization of state power? Or will it not matter, as I believe on the town and county level people can govern themselves without anything lower than just the state. Hopefully, this will further my idea of a very, very, very limited government, but we shall wait and see. For now, I commend Mr. Cuomo for the suggestion of this bill.

I completely understand that politicians are in the business of politics, not political science or legal studies, but I still found this little post from VK rather amusing. Speaking about Sotomayor, Harry Reid produced this gem earlier today: “I understand that during her career, she’s written hundreds and hundreds of opinions. I haven’t read a single one of them, and if I’m fortunate before we end this, I won’t have to read one of them.” 

Great job, Harry!