Universal Health Care vs. Status Quo Health Plan

The current debate about the validity of progressive plans for nationwide health coverage, and its feasibility, reminds me of a major problem I have with human society: we all know why things are wrong, and freely share that information, but solutions are awfully hard to come by. Further: unless a solution is deemed "perfect" then the naysayers publish their holes in it, and it is disregarded.

Bear with me, but what if cocaine was legalized? Conservatives and progressives alike will acknowledge that prohibiting a thing leads to black markets.

The black markets in drugs mean the costs of doing business are higher—but that means so too are the profits. These profits (and turf) are protected violently by gangs and drug cartels. Gang culture is built around said profits. Remove the profits through legal competition and the gangs fade away eventually (just as they did after alcohol prohibition was repealed). Yes, there will be secondary social costs. Yes there will still be petty crime due to addicts—despite lower-cost drugs. But you can offset those social costs by taxing the product to build rehabilitation centers, which are preferable to building more prisons and morgues. You get credibility points for admitting that people have a right to do what they like with their bodies. Freedom is freedom, warts ‘n’ all.

To me, this is an appealing argument. But radical solutions like this fall into the "never get done" category because you get the following two statements, one from each side of the aisle:
1. This new plan will expose our children to legalized drugs, and that is an unacceptable risk. We cannot change to this new system.
2. The current war on drugs is a total abject failure and children are dying from violence and addiction. We must adopt a radical and new policy to succeed.

So you get the people that on one hand won't abandon the status quo because a new plan is too risky, but you've got the people on the other hand who think the status quo is so bad that a new policy must be adopted. In which hand you stand depends entirely on your own personal experiences.

In science we see this every day. Embryonic stem cell advocates say the potential cures for diseases that could be produced from embryonic stem cells is justification enough for their use. But pro-lifers say that the current lines of stem cells, as well as research into turning adult skin cells into stem cells, or what have you, is better because of preservation of life.

Or take space travel. You have people like Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, who think humanity's survival depends on us leaving this planet and colonizing the stars. Then you have people like me, who think humanity's survival depends on us stopping our pointless (and expensive) skyward daydreaming and spending more time fixing the planet we've already colonized. I'm interested in fixing the status quo, Hawking prefers new and radical.

Maybe what I'm describing is the endless seesaw from which compromise arises. The problem with compromise, however, is that usually no one ends up happy.


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