Word: reform
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...contemporary common wisdom about morality—first, that each person should be free to pursue his desires so long as he does not harm anyone else; second, that such desires cannot be judged inferior to those of someone else. Taken together, these two judgments mean that health-care reform is incompatible with our national moral ethos. Public option or not, finding some way to extend care to the uninsured requires at least some sacrifice by those who are adequately covered under the current system. On an economic level, reform includes inherently sacrificial effort. Welcome or not, redistribution...
Americans seem willing to make this sacrifice, but just barely. About one half of Americans support health-care reform, even though only roughly one fifth of Americans predict a material gain from such support of a national system. According to a recent CBS poll, only 22 percent of Americans “said the reforms now being considered would help them personally,” while 30 percent even believed that “reforms would hurt them personally.” In the same poll, 53 percent favored “the government offering everyone a government administered health...
...public to join this slim majority. Since Americans now shy away from a hierarchy of moral preferences, even those who would maintain their current care based on selfishness cannot be condemned. If forsaking current comforts for others would not be obligatory under our contemporary moral decorum, appeals for medical reform would then lose nearly all their persuasive force. While objectors rightly note that inaction hurts the uninsured, precisely because the currently comfortable might intend no harm, this complaint proves relevant but non-essential. In our modern mindset, sacrifice for the sake of another is obviously an act above and beyond...
...flimsy attempt at cost-curbing that did little to expand coverage and almost nothing in the way of new protections, such as those for consumers who have pre-existing medical conditions. The risk is at least as great for Republicans. "The small-bore, crabbed and nearly meaningless reform plan they produced in the House after months of nothing but complaining about the Democrats just reinforces the notion that they are a Party of No," said Norm Ornstein, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute...
...Midterm elections, however, are rarely about the merits of the opposition. Democrats will be ready to trumpet health care reform if it passes, but it's not clear that will be enough to sway voters, who rank jobs and the economy as their most important issues. "Five or 10 years from now, maybe, this bill will seem as a success, who knows?" says Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which tracks congressional races. "But I don't think it will give Democrats a lift next year." Perhaps. But most Democrats aren't eager to see what kind...