The ethics argument for health care reform

The health care debate is too much for any individual to understand completely. That’s why reading a bill on the Senate floor doesn’t contribute to the debate, other than to slow it down. There are persuasive arguments on all sides: doesn’t go far enough, goes too far, costs too much, gives too much to the insurance companies, is unfair to the insurance companies, and on and on.

I only know two things for sure about it, one ethical, one historical.

First, the ethical argument: What kind of society do we want to be a part of? Remember Lincoln asking if we wanted to be part of a nation that was half slave, half free? Remember John Kennedy asking if we wanted to be part of a wealthy nation with millions suffering from hunger. It’s time for Americans to ask ourselves whether we want to be a part of a society that provides its political leaders and most everybody else with health care, but leaves fifty million—one of every six Americans—uninsured, with additional millions worried sick that they’ll lose their insurance.

An ethical person must reject this status quo as unacceptable, a violation of the Golden Rule and of the principles of virtue ethics. So the system needs to be changed.

Now the thing I know about history: Theodore Roosevelt first proposed health care reform in 1912, then Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. All failed. If the current attempt fails we’ll likely go many years before reform is even attempted in the Congress.

So an ethical person must work to pass reform now—not necessarily the House bill, not necessarily the Senate bill, but SOME bill. The ethical person doesn’t want his country to take care of five-sixths and leave the rest to fickle fortune

What kind of people are they on Wall Street?

The beginning of ethical behavior is asking yourself, “What kind of a person do I want to be?” Next comes “What kind of group (or company or town or society) do I want to be a part of?”

Lincoln asked if we wanted to be part of a nation that was half slave, half free. John Kennedy asked if we wanted to be part of a wealthy nation with millions suffering from hunger. It’s time for Wall Street leaders to ask themselves whether they want to be part of a society that pays top earners thousands of times as much as it pays ordinary hard workers, and enables the top people to live in 18,000 square foot homes while some ordinary workers live in their cars.

These questions have been posed before—by Spartacus, by Nat Turner, by Marx, by Mao. When the questions came as demands from people on the bottom they always had terrible results—think slave revolt or the “Great Leap Forward.”. But when they were posed by leaders of society they often led to constructive change—think Social Security or the Marshall Plan.

It’s time for Wall Street leaders to lead, or risk provoking our political system into a “cure” that will likely be far worse than the disease.