In the prior post, we have Representative Anthony Weiner of New York’s 9th district arguing that health care is not like other services we purchase on the open market. According to Weiner, it’s not a “commodity”. And if health care is somehow set apart from other services, then it’s best delivered by the government, which would cut out the profits of the evil insurance companies that Weiner repeatedly sets up as the straw man to attack. Weiner goes so far as to compare health care to national defense, for instance.
But my take would be quite different. I view my health care precisely as a commodity to be purchased as I see fit. It involves a relationship to a primary care physician, to be sure, but if I’m going to have a procedure done in a hospital, I’m not hiring the surgeon for his or her relational skills but for their competence in the work provided. I may have a relationship with my lawyer or mechanic – or my doctor – but I’m free to choose them as I see fit – without the government having any say in it whatever. My personal health care is not part of any federal constitutional duty – like defense. To say otherwise is appallingly sloppy and juvenile thinking about the constitution and much else.
More to the point, I don’t view insurance companies as bringing nothing to my health care table; they’re just a financing mechanism based on a private contract that I enter into and for which I pay with my own money. Rather, I view pols like Weiner as bringing nothing to the table. He’s the one who wants to nationalize my body and decide for me what I can and cannot have.
I think my health care is a service like others I purchase – and very much a commodity. And as far as I’m concerned, the government can bugger off.
My body is my own as is my choice of services.
