Healthcare

I always figured that Americans would receive gov't-sponsored healthcare at the nexus of national security and law enforcement. That is, when the gov't hits a point where it needs the DNA and/or biometric data of the citizenry as a means of protecting its borders or policing internal relations, then the citizenry will get "free" healthcare in the form of regular preventive checkups. When the gov't needs the citizenry to yield its medical data, only then will the gov't be incentivized to provide those necessary medical checkups. Yeah, people screaming for free healthcare is in and of itself not enough to move the gov't to do something it doesn't particularly want to do. The only way it happens is when the gov't itself needs to get it done. And when the technology matures enough to allow these developments to happen.

Well, that's where we are now, right? The gov't needs the citizenry to be tested to accurately account for the spread of Covid-19. And here's the deal with those tests: they're not likely to be particularly accurate at first. And by only testing those with symptoms, you actually don't learn much about how the virus has penetrated the population. So you need everyone (yeah, all 320 million of 'em) to get tested multiple times; say, every 4 weeks for at least 24 weeks, right? Then you'll be able to confidently map out which areas are at risk and which areas no longer need to be worried about (again: there is a point where spreading the virus becomes the strategy). And what does it mean to be "recovered" from Covid-19? Only further testing will tell. So ongoing testing for everyone is the first step to any kind of solution and hopefully the first step to preventing the next virus outbreak (*).

Indeed, Covid-19 has shown us the level of healthcare all Americans should be receiving: regular checkups. Once a year, you get your fluids checked, receive any necessary vaccines or inoculations and your bio-metric data is cataloged. This is not an open-ended system where your kidney transplant is automatically paid for but a basic preventive examination where everyone gets checked out to determine how dangerous they are to each other. This type of preventive checkup system would save an awful lot of lives and improve those saved lives, too. (And would produce a need for expanded labor in Healthcare related fields and a subsequent need for expanded education in Healthcare)

Gov't sponsored healthcare in the American political landscape has, I think, basically always been a Hail Mary of the self-pitying Left, that wants to blame politicians for perfectly natural events and then pat themselves on the back for 'speaking truth to power', when their very definitions of 'power' are distorted and dangerous. Ted Kennedy for decades in the Senate was the master of giving impassioned speeches only when he knew he was going to lose 96-2, making a big show of his attempts to stop injustice, when really what he was doing was distancing himself from his own inability to get votes or make a worthwhile argument to his fellow senators. And that to me was what the healthcare was in the hands of liberal pols: not a plea to consider a new method of satisfying the healthcare needs of Americans but a white flag in the form of empty angry rhetoric. Medicare for All would not have protected us from this or necessarily even projected this occurrence. Medicare for All isn't a real plan, it just sounds like something people would agree with and politicians are just looking for agreement.

But shit's different now. For the first time in our existence, the gov't needs us to have healthcare more than the citizens even want it for themselves. (And that's when action happens: when it gets forced on the people) This virus is going to create an immense amount of changes in our system over the next 2-3 years: the banks are going to need to completely redefine basic terms just to pay their taxes this year, the states have a whole new sense of what is and isn't in the federal domain and the courts are going to be litigating the last three weeks for the next five years. Our lives as workers, students, parents, tenants, taxpayers, etc., are going to be dislocated and/or restructured. And that's just domestically! Internationally, it's all going to change. All of it. It kinda has to: trade and transportation and tourism protocols are going to be completely redesigned, which means suddenly the standards of countries we don't live in will matter a great deal to us. This virus has awakened things in us that we didn't know were there.

Will the gov't be providing these regular free checkups to the citizens? Eventually, I reckon, but probably not in the next month, which is when we need them. But afterwards, plans like this may sink in and take hold. Seriously: just regular checkups would save a lot of lives and teach the living to live better. The expanded economic potential of a happy healthy populace is incalculable, how can we afford not to develop a comprehensive health care plan?

A fascinating element of this: this isn't about race or guns or the environment or industry or region--holy fucking balls, it isn't even about money! It is literally only about public health. The level of the gov't's interest in the public health is now clearly laid bare. There is no need for politics: Medicare for All would not have prevented our current situation and the Republican version of...well, nothing at all....is simply not a productive response for the good of the land.

So the citizens need medical checkups and the gov't needs us to have them. Now you've got something for politicians to work with. And they have the mandate now to be creative (what every politician dreams of!). Rather than shooting for the moon, build it up from the bottom, collect the data, make sure the shit works and go from there. Annual checkups, that's all we need and its a great place to start. But gov't-sponsored healthcare will only exist when it is in the government's favor to provide it and the derived data is indispensable and we may have hit that time.


And that brings me to my real point: data. Data is what the political economy wants from us and it is what we have to offer. I'll be further outlining my thoughts on this subject in a series of blog posts that I have only begun to work on (though I have been contemplating for several years).

Changes are coming and the sooner we awaken ourselves to that fundamental fact, then the sooner we can position ourselves to fight for the good stuff and eliminate the wasteful practices of the past. The virus is not going to kill us off (at least, I'm pretty sure it won't) but for the survivors it will be a new world. And we should strive to make it better than the old one (**).



(*) Oh yeah, there's no reason to think this is the last one. There will be more, the earth will keep coming up with new ways to kill us off/make us stronger, that's just what it does.

(**) Don't get me wrong: I've been a big fan of the old world. But it hasn't been nearly as good as it should've been.