A few days ago Andrea wrote a post titled
"Are You Entitled?" in which she loosed a minor rant about the subject of
entitlements and what we are
entitled to ... a list that included food, clean water, health care, and education. Her last line pretty much summed it up: "... there is very little we are really entitled to, without working for it, or trying to work for it."
I thought I'd piggyback on Andrea's post with a few comments of my own on the subject of
entitlements.
In what passes for current political discourse, the word
entitlements is usually spoken with a sneer of disdain by conservatives, who tend to define it as "something given by the government and paid for by a hardworking American to someone who didn't earn it and doesn't deserve it."
Not so fast there, bucko.
Social Security is considered an
entitlement program, but I have paid into it my entire working life, and so yes, I believe I'm
entitled to the monthly check I'll start drawing soon.
Medicare is also considered an
entitlement program ... but because one pays premiums for its coverage, I believe they're
entitled to it.
Some would consider my military pension an
entitlement ... to which I'm
entitled by paying 23 years of my life for it.
Things get more murky when we talk about things to which I think we should all be entitled, but are less clear in funding. I personally believe everyone is
entitled to a basic education at least through high school, followed by either a trade school certificate or a collegiate baccalaureate degree. It's true that we'll always need dishwashers and mechanics and street sweepers, but a modern, high-tech world needs people with advanced education to drive the nation forward. I don't think there's a more important investment we can make than universal, free education for all who want it.
I also think we're
entitled to air we can breathe, water we can drink, food that's safe to eat, and medicine that's safe to take. If your business pollutes the air, poisons the water, or provides the food we eat and the medicines our doctors prescribe, you should be required to bear the cost of treating your waste and keeping your products safe. Obviously, businesses aren't known for their altruism ... they will pass these costs on to consumers ... but they have to be borne one way or another, because free education doesn't mean much if you're dead.
I also think that everyone is
entitled to free basic health care, and I like the idea of something like Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" concept, using a single-payer plan funded by a tax in the same way Social Security is funded. I can hear the howls of horror and outrage already as conservatives rail against socialized medicine (whatever that is) in which decisions about our health are made not by doctors but by ... gasp! ...
government bureaucrats. The horror! Of course, one might ask what the difference is between decisions made by "government bureaucrats" and decisions made by the "insurance company bureaucrats" that make those decisions now* ... but obviously faceless insurance company bureaucrats represent the triumph of free enterprise, while faceless government bureaucrats represent meddlesome and incompetent government.
I know I've been rambling and sarcastic, but my point is this: there are entitlements and there are entitlements. They all have to be paid for somehow, and so if you're going to thunder about the fiscal horror of entitlements, make sure you understand what type they are, what their benefits are, how they're being funded, and what we get that we pay for.
And now I'm entitled to stop writing.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
* Case in point: our dentist has gone through hell with our dental insurance company to get paid for the extensive work Agnes has had done in the past year. Over a period of nearly a year, the insurance company rejected our dentist's repeated requests for payment, insisting on more and more documentation, including additional copies of x-rays already submitted, and eventually paying its own estimate of what it thought was the right amount. In the end, our dentist wrote off a significant chunk of his bill ... good news for us, but he's a businessman, after all, and I'd rather he didn't remember having taken a loss on us the next time we go in with dental problems.
