Debate is important. Especially when it comes to something as vital as health care. But when it comes to debate, as one senator put it, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”
Bryan Griffin’s Tuesday column was long on opinion, but misleading on facts. First of all, Democrats agree with Griffin’s focus on efficiency. It’s humorous, though, that this point came after an entire column whining about the role of government. It may be Griffin’s opinion that government isn’t efficient, but it’s a fact that the government’s track record on efficiency is excellent. In fact, government is the most efficient disburser of benefits in the United States. Medicare and Social Security overhead costs are a minuscule portion of their total cost. Private insurance overhead is three times as much.
Implying that private charity will replace the billions of dollars in support that government provides for children, the elderly and the disadvantaged is ridiculous. To then go on to say that these programs are inefficient is equally ridiculous. They may not turn a profit for a corporation, but that’s not their intention. They provide the assistance they were created to provide.
Shoehorned into this column about “efficiency” is the complaint that healthy people are mandated by the recent health care legislation to buy insurance. This entire anti-mandate argument highlights a split that I’ve noticed recently between the Democratic and Republican parties: Democrats like the mandate because it provides help for the people who need it, because it’s constitutional and because it works. Republicans don’t like it because it was proposed by Democrats and because they need to moan about the “unconstitutional” bill from now until November. Ask Bill McCollum, Republican candidate for governor right here in Florida, how his lawsuit to overturn health care reform is going in courts (hint: not far).
Democrats understand that we’re not being forced to choose between private charity and government assistance. There is a place for both, and both are essential to a healthy society. But it’s simply untrue to say that government is inefficient, and it’s simply untrue to say that Democrats support government programs to help people just for kicks. When we see a problem, we set out to solve it, and sometimes that solution includes the government.
Nicholas Mildebrath is the editorial chair of College Democrats.
