It’s no secret that if you want to be famous in the Information Age, you just need to make people mad. The news cycle is once again abuzz because someone voiced an opinion that others disagree with. I don’t see how that is news though; happens all the time.
This week it’s the new Miss USA, Kara McCullough, who has the nerve to think health care is a privilege. Not only are we arguing about the anti-feminism of pageants in general (again), we are also up in arms because she has a conservative view on something. Egads.
Well, good for her. Now she will not just be another Miss Whatever, she will occupy the news cycle for a few days, much longer than the normal four-second clip on HLN while she tearfully accepts the crown from last year’s winner.
First, I think pageants are great. Maybe not the tiny tot type where baby girls need a bag full of inhalers to deal with overexposure to hair spray, but I do think women should be able to use whatever the good Lord gave them for positive results.
Serena Williams makes a few million dollars a year using her natural athleticism, working hard, and winning at tennis. No one gets mad when she also uses her face to get $60 million more in product endorsements.
So why shouldn’t a nuclear chemist also take advantage of the fact that Nature was real, real good to her and win a pile of scholarship money in a gown? Yeah, she’s a scientist so take that, haters.
McCullough, now famously, said she thinks health care is a privilege because she has a good job with the Federal government and it comes with benefits. Progressives, as we might have expected, had a hissy. I guess she was supposed to say it’s a right, because the Left always says so.
I agree with her to a point. If we’re talking about entitlements, it’s appropriate to say we have a right to access health care. Having someone else pay for it is a privilege. They are called health “benefits” for a reason.
Yes, it is not ideal that everyone does not have those benefits, but Miss USA was not asked for a solution, nor did her answer take health care away from anyone. If policies of any kind were determined by pageant winners, world hunger would have been stamped out decades ago.
And why do people seem to be crying for universal health care when nothing about health is universal?
Last week I went to the hospital with a grave concern but thankfully it turned out my problem was not serious. I am grateful that I live in a place where I can walk in and see a doctor and have people take care of me. Go USA.
But, the fact is; the reason I went in there is because I broke myself by making bad choices. Shouldn’t I be the one to pay for it?
I am, in fact. I pay ten percent of my monthly income, which earns me the right to expect an insurer to assume the risk of my potential for needing care. If my boss, or the government paid for that policy, it would be a privilege. See how that works?
If I smoke for 50 years, is my neighbor supposed to be happy that his taxes are paying for my lung transplant? Should you pay for my diabetes medication because I won’t stop eating donuts?
The quandary exists because there are innumerable deserving people who use up vastly bigger resources and have greater needs through no fault of their own; people born with congenital heart defects or the devastating childhood cancer. Nothing about that is universal and we have no omniscient advisors to tell us authoritatively that this or that person deserves the benefits, while I and my donuts should pay my own bills.
That doesn’t change the fact that it’s not unreasonable for society to expect me to take care of the problems I create for myself. Why should everyone else foot the bill when I let my health go?
Let’s try it another way. I have the right to work. I am not entitled to a job. Get it?
Taxes pay for national defense, education, disease control, and things like water and land management. I have a right to expect those services and provisions. I don’t believe I have an absolute right to demand any more.
Perhaps I’ve lived in Texas, among Texans, long enough to assimilate that it’s really up to me to take care of myself. To that end, I quote a famous Virginian who said we only have the inalienable right to pursue happiness. No one owes us actual happiness, not even an insurance company.
