Without a doubt, American political culture, values and exceptionalism has hurt the quality of care that is available to most Americans. While such a statement might not seem intuitive when one considered the more popular known principles of American political culture such as the rule of law, and equality; it does make more sense when one considers the political values that are most involved in the healthcare system and its administration. Those values include federalism, liberty, capitalism, and democracy.
Federalism refer to the constitutional principle that the federal government is a government of limited power; and those powers it enjoys are limited to what is provided for in the Constitution (Bianco & Canon, 2012). Outside of those constitutionally enumerated powers, all other powers belong to the states, and most basically, the people. The negative effects of federalism on the provision of healthcare to the American people is illustrated in states resistance to the Affordable Care Act (ACT), more commonly known as Obamacare. Indeed, rather than being able to implement a nationwide program of basic healthcare coverage, the Obama administration can only introduce a suggested plan that states are allowed to accept if they want but can oppose by alternatively implementing their own healthcare program. While this absolutely satisfies the word and spirit of federalism, the fact of the matter is that not every state’s alternative is the same. While some state may provide services well beyond what is suggested in the ACA, other states are free to provide the most rudimentary basics of coverage. In addition, it has been well documented the number of states that have legal challenged the requirements of the ACA (Altman, 2015). While up until now their challenges have been thwarted, they most likely will continuing challenging the ACA for a greater ability to devise their own programs that more than likely will lead to continued disparities in healthcare coverage of average Americans.
Two other separate but connected political values in terms of healthcare coverage are liberty and capitalism. Under the American understanding, liberty refers to the idea that a person is free to do as s/he wishes so long as their action do not harm or adversely affect the rights of others. Capitalism, on the other hand, refers to the belief in the right to compete freely in business and private industry as well as enjoy the fruits of one’s labor, with as little government intervention or regulation as possible. The belief in these values are diametrically opposed to many of the goals of an effective healthcare system. For instance, one of the key aspects of the ACA is that it will be paid for through taxes as well as by private industry. Taxes are, in essence, government withdrawals from people’s earnings. The same is true for government requirements for private industry to pay for employee health coverage. On the one hand, many people oppose using taxes to pay for the ACA because it interferes with their liberty. To be sure, many feel why should my right to enjoy my wages be decreased to help someone I do not know. On the other hand, many companies oppose having to pay for the health coverage of their employees because it adversely affects capitalism (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc., 2014).
Lastly, the idea of democracy is part of the nation’s political DNA. One of the clearest illustrations of this is the widespread fear of socialism. Consequently, many fear that the ACA is socialism by another word. Accordingly, rather than calmly considering the pros and cons of the ACA, many simply dismiss it as a socialist attempt to overthrow American democracy and opposed it.
While American political culture has become more flexible over the last few decades, it remains amazingly brittle on some issues. One of those issues is healthcare. The resulting situation is that many American are not able to receive the healthcare coverage that they need.
References
Altman, D. (2015, Nov. 26). After King v. Burwell Ruling, Health Law Issues Involve Implementation. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/06/25/after-king-v-burwell-ruling-health-law-issues-involve-implementation/
Bianco, W. T. & Canon, D.T. (2012). American Politics Today, 3rd ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company.
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Store, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2751, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinionms/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf
