A droning accusation that many leftists fling at their conservative and libertarian society-mates is that they lack empathy, i.e., non-leftists are heartless. They typically ascribe self-serving motives to the alleged lack of empathy. There is a good reason to believe that those leftists are so busy projecting their own heartless selfishness on others that they do not realize that those castigations are boomerangs.
An examination of their cries for “Medicare for All,” “Universal Healthcare,” or “Socialized Medicine” reveals their lack of self-awareness.
The Democrats running for president preen their supposed virtue by proposing policies for “universal” healthcare.[i] They claim that healthcare is a “human right.”[ii] None of them, however, are proposing universal healthcare. They are merely proposing universal healthcare for the wealthiest, most powerful and most privileged people ever to walk the Earth, people residing in America. They are proposing healthcare for the elitist of the elite people in human history. The heartlessness of the Democrat candidates is revealed by their unwillingness to fleece the wealthy in order to provide the “human right” of welfare to everyone in the world.
Of course, none of the candidates will say anything that would tarnish their self-congratulations by admitting how stingy they are with the money they could take from the wealthy to serve humanity, i.e., admit that they are only extending healthcare the smallest group that will serve their selfish political interests. They do not extend their feigned beneficence even to all of South America, much less the devastatingly poor of Africa, Asia, and Oceana. Contrary to the empathetic image of themselves they serve up to the public, their empathy is severely constricted.
Bernie Sanders is most explicit on such matters. He believes that “open borders” is a Koch brothers’ idea.[iii] He would severely limit who could get into America so that the money he takes from millionaires and billionaires[iv] is spent in a way that serves his political objectives (human rights and universal coverage be damned). But, even with open borders, the “human right” of healthcare for all will be unaddressed for all but about 5% of humanity. Heartless!
[i] For example, see “Health Care as a Human Right – Medicare For All.”
[ii] See “Bernie Sanders schools Vox on immigration.”
[iii] Id.
[…] “The Selfish Leftist Heart” pointed out that, despite presumed morality of their proposals and their apparent sincerity, viable American politicians never actually propose what they say they are proposing, “Medicare for All” (“MFA”). Instead, they propose MFA only for people who reside in America, all of whom are wealthy compared to the billions of vastly poorer people around the world (but, of course, those people cannot improve politicians’ election prospects). […]
[…] “The Selfish Leftist Heart” pointed out that Medicare for All (“MFA”) is a misleading moniker for proposals that provide health insurance coverage for only a select, relatively wealthy group of people who happen to live in America. “The Immorality of Medicare For Less Than All” explained how (1) MFA supporters give themselves too much credit for being empathic when they sanguinely and uncritically condone proposals that deny billions of poorer people their “human right”[i]/sup> to healthcare, and (2) if the first point was brought to their attention, many of them would switch their demands to “Medicare For Everyone in the World” (“MFE”). The post ended with this: “However, neither MFA for Americans only nor everyone in the world is a moral proposition” and a promise to explain why that is true in this post. This post will sort out what is immoral about MFE. […]