Pursuing liberty without equality in health care, Rep. John Fuller, R-Kalispell, sacrifices both.
In a recent column [“Medicaid Expansion Will Be Disastrous,” April 10], Mr. Fuller claims that when people pay for their own health care “they can live the lifestyle they please.” Implicit here is those who cannot afford health care are not entitled to the same freedom. It is liberty without equality, and when one is pursued at the expense of the other, neither survives.
The representative criticizes Medicaid expansion for something that private insurers already do: make your health-care choices for you. Private insurers are not evil, but health-care decisions are tailored toward a bottom line. Fuller decries health-care choices being made with “political motives” by “unelected bureaucrats;” instead, he opts for the value of an American life to be decided by someone who stands to profit from it.
Equality, the first self-evident truth Jefferson carved into the marble of our shared history, is considered in the question Uwe Reinhardt once asked: “Should the child of a gas station attendant have the same chance of staying healthy or getting cured, if sick, as the child of a corporate executive?” Is equality self-evident when 128,000 Montana children live without access to health care — the number of children Medicaid provides that chance for? At the expense of equality, is liberty attained when the insured are also denied doctors, treatments and procedures regularly? The freedom to choose between going into debt or rolling the dice is no freedom at all.
Every system has its flaws. But acceptable flaws do not have to include 128,000 children without access to health care. Acceptable flaws do not have to include deciding between debt and illness, and acceptable flaws should never mean that the value of an American life is decided by someone who stands to profit from it.
As Americans, we must remain dedicated to those self-evident truths without compromise: that all are created equal, and all should be free.
Ty Wycoff
Kalispell