Thursday, August 20, 2009

One-Word Answers to Begged Questions

From the Times letters to the editor today:

To the Editor:

Alternate Plan as Health Option Muddies Debate” (front page, Aug. 18) provided an interesting discussion of the “co-op option” as a potential factor in the reform of our health care system in the light of what appear to be bleak prospects for the “public option.”

Is it reasonable to imagine that there is a third valid approach — that of the establishment of one or more new private-sector, for-profit health insurance companies — that would offer quality coverage at premiums lower than the present average?

NO.

For all you logical fallacy fans, let me anticipate your complaint that the writer is merely making an awkward rhetorical construction. I’m counting this as “begging the question” because the writer, despite his demure language and humble request for permission to exercise the innate mental faculties of a human being, so clearly presumes the uncertain premise that this third approach exists, is valid, and will accomplish what he asks permission to imagine it accomplishing. After all, he’s delighted to tell you all about it.

Bonus action:

If invited, the general public might be motivated to provide a sizable portion of the capital in hope that the net result would be successful competition in that business sector, which would bring down the cost of health insurance across the nation.

This solution would, to quote Homer, truly be a wonderful, magical animal—producing the bacon of lower premiums, the ham of covering the uninsured, and the pork chops of being private and for-profit. In other words, such a plan would be a pig. And hoping for this to work is like hoping for that pig to fly.

So who is this fuggin' guy, anyway?

Peter Raudenbush
Falls Church, Va., Aug. 18, 2009

Well, as we say here (or will from here on out), Okay There, Guy. That's well and good. But if you think that pig's gonna fly, there's a really groovy cat I think you should meet: Peter Raudenbush of Falls Church, Virginia, circa last month:
Congress is considering several health-care reform plans, but I favor a plan that will support the basic requirements of this administration: coverage for everyone, guaranteed choice in health-care providers and a public plan for those who cannot afford the cost of commercial plans, all paid for without adding to the budget deficit.
So why am I being so uncouth as to rake a guy I've never met over the coals? Aside from the fact that he submitted letters for publication in two of the nation's leading newspapers a month apart contradicting himself? Neither one of these Peter Raudenbush characters is any sort of teabagger. In fact, their ancestor Peter Raudenbush January 1, 2009 gave fifty bucks to Obama's transition fund, and a still more distant ancestor, Peter Raudenbush 2008 made a donation to the Obama campaign.

No, the problem I have with Peter is that his letters to the editor follow a trajectory of influence. They parallel Obama's path from endorsing a public option as a great way to kick those insurance companies in the pants and force them to cut costs to talking about the public option with all the conviction of Ted Haggard endorsing straightness.
Rahm Emanuel Anonymous White House Staffers are already eagerly painting the public option, itself a compromise position from single-payer, as a hobby horse for hippie lunatics who want to screw up the great thing they've got going (and by "great thing" I mean insurance industry campaign cash and a policy difference with Pelosi that will combine to make Rahm the Speaker if the half-assed reforms he champions make Obama a one-termer. You gotta have the angles covered). Perhaps I'm jumping the gun on the death of the public option. But it doesn't ease my mind to see that well-intentioned people like my pal Peter Raudenbush are capable of making themselves believe totally improbable things about health insurance reform to avoid the conclusion that public funding of health care is not only nice but vital.

Sorry to be uncouth.

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