May 2009 Archives

A couple of my friends were whining on Facebook about the prospects for a government health-care proposal:

...a government health care plan would be nice, but [I've] been to the DMV too many times to think it would be good.

don't you think the gov't has its tentacles in enough crap? gov't run healthcare doesn't work! Look at Canada

Public health. From the same people who brought you public transport, public toilets and public housing.

And I figured: these guys are talking about the issue as if people were still proposing British-style nationalized health care here. This is so out of date; this is so beside the point that they're not even talking about what is likely to come out of Congress.

So I wrote back: Come on, guys, smarten up.

What we have in Massachusetts is likely to be the model: health care institutions remain in the private sector (they're heavily regulated already).

Also, health insurance remains in the private sector; individuals are required to buy it; and low-income people get a subsidized plan.

This is about the best approach that is politically possible, given the public demand for universal coverage, and we can thank Romney for it. Even the Heritage Foundation contributed ideas to it. It's market-based. Instead of subsidizing the providers, it subsidizes people. It's not monolithic.

Sure, purist libertarians can get their dudgeon up about the mandatory purchase rule, but basically, Catholic social teaching doesn't give a tinker's curse about the prissiness of secular libertarian ideology when it comes to health care.

The major moral downside is that a state mandate forces all insurance plans to cover unethical anti-life "procedures" such as abortion. And that is very bad.

But adolescent whining about the Post Office and the DMV (which actually is quite good in this state) is useless: that's aimed against monopolistic British-type systems that have no support here. Even the liberals don't believe in them any more.

Congratulations to the Third Church of Christ (Scientist) in Washington, D.C.

It's gotta be tough belonging to the Christian Science church; it has very high demands of faith, it's shrinking numerically (I remember reading that 75% of the members were elderly urban ladies), and it's got buildings way too big for its present congregations.

For example, this ugly box on 16th Street in D.C. was built in 1971, and when it became too expensive to maintain -- the congregation has been running a 20% deficit on its budget for several years -- they wanted to tear it down and replace it. All reasonable enough.

But the Third Church actually had to fight the city's Historic Preservation board and the D.C. Preservation League for eighteen years to get the right to tear it down, ever since the building was a mere 20 years old. The preservationists considered this example of architectural Brutalism -- concrete buildings in blunt geometrical forms -- of Great Historic Value.

Which makes sense, if you want to preserve a record of 1960s human folly. Just for aesthetic reasons, I'd be happy to buy a raffle ticket to win the right to push the demolition button on it.

The congregation finally won city approval to remove it and start over, so best wishes to them: I'm sure they'll replace it with something more attractive, which will be good for the neighborhood near the White House.