Why liberals own the public narrative. Exceptions for me, but not for thee.

Now that ObamaCare is here to stay for the foreseeable future it is worth some time to explore why the country remains so divided on a piece of legislation that seems so obviously inferior.   Public opinion on ObamaCare as of a recent RCP average shows a +10.8 on the opposition, but the individual polls vary wildly.  After John Roberts issued the final ruling polling shows an America quite split on accepting the largest health care overhaul in fifty years. The issue is that the manner in which the public engages on these topics lends itself nicely to the liberal narrative and the use of exceptions.   Liberals utilize their inevitable egalitarian positioning to control the dialog merely through exceptions, yet curiously the reverse is not allowed or often just dismissed.  The exception rule extends well beyond health care and is utilized to sway public opinion on issues like food stamps, FDA, gun control and many others.  Allow me to provide some examples.

Lets look at the first and most pertinent example, health care.  The crux of the argument is that those without insurance in America suffer poor health care.  Without delving into the debate of whether insurance actually equates to better health care, recall the tool used to build the case for "universal coverage".  This tool was utilized by the President in speeches and is exactly the exception to the rule that is so persuasive in shaping opinion.  Obama invoked the example of Natoma Canfield a cancer patient whose medical bills were threatening the loss of her home (never mind that her home was never in danger).  More such examples were followed and all were met with shock and awe as to deplorable state of health care in America.  Granted those are tragic situations and in the case of Natoma, an income of $6,000 would never be sufficient regardless of how free the health care market is.  Still, these examples are viewed as the heartless consequence of a health care system where profit is placed before life.   This is what captures the narrative and many on the Left were pushing for not only a public option, but universal coverage similar to UK's NHS.   However what if were to bring the exact same counter-exception to light.  NHS functions through rationing, there is a specific board designed to ensure that costs are kept under control called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).  NICE calculates how much money is worth spending to extend a life.  As of 2009 the average maximum cost to extend life was $45,000 (regardless of age).  However pointing out this obvious flaw of socialized medicine is often disregarded.  When Sarah Palin mentioned the term "death panel" she was laughed and mocked at, these exceptions were considered irrelevant.  Indeed according to the Time.com piece on the NHS most people are willing to accept this sacrifice: "most Britons accept NICE's rare rejections as a necessary compromise to keep universal coverage affordable in the face of rising health-care costs.".   It is quite interesting that in pseudo-free-market system where some falling through the cracks is used a rallying cry for socialized medicine, but socialized medicine killing people because it is too expensive to treat them is seen as a compromise.   Exceptions for me, but not for thee.


Take another example, the FDA.  The FDA's sole function is to "protect" the citizens from harmful drugs.  This has been accepted as an undeniable truth.  The notion that the FDA is counter-productive to American health is immediately swatted down with exceptions of dangerous drugs like VIOXX getting on the market and killing people.  This exception is especially amusing because VIOXX was FDA approved, but proponents underscore their point by suggesting that many more VIOXX incidents would occur without the magnanimous administration.  However the FDA's harm far outweighs any harm that dangerous drugs can cause.  Namely the FDA's fundamental reluctance to release medicine to the market and the untold damage this wreaks.  Examples of people dying from cancer because a drug was delayed by a year or two can fit pages.  FDA Review goes through painstaking detail to illustrate how FDA's expansion has hurt drug-to-market time and estimates that death from FDA's actions result in hundreds of thousands of death a year!  Indeed, FDA's reluctance on one drug alone,Provenge, is estimated to kill 82,000 people annually.  Yet which exception works to sway the public?  The occasional visible and unfortunate incidents of drugs getting to the market or the invisible damage caused by a large ineffective bureaucracy?   For the purpose of public debate the former always wins and just like the hidden abuses socialized medicine is considered reactionary or irrelevant under the scheme of compromise.  

Take for example food stamps (SNAP), a program that continues to grow and ensnare more Americans into the perpetual loop of dependency.  Proponents of the program will defend the need for such a vast and expansive distribution of funds in order for people to avoid "hunger" and will point out that many Americans go hungry every day.  FRAC published a press release calling for expansion and strengthening of SNAP in order to stamp out childhood hunger.  A mere mention that the number of people utilizing SNAP is growing at an alarming rate puts you in a very untenable situation of being against childhood hunger.  So instead of pointing at growing costs and the number of Americans becoming dependent we turn to exceptions, which are quickly becoming the norm, abuses.  Food stamp abuses are not only rotting a core American value, independence, but it is nothing short of theft.  A local Florida reporter went undercover to report SNAP abuses in the form of recipients buying tobacco, alcohol and even lottery tickets.   These abuses happen across the country on a regular basis and none of the agencies that are involved in distribution of funds care.  More importantly when examples of abuse are presented to the proponents of expanding SNAP it is dismissed an exception, an aberration and simply an unfortunate byproduct of the program.  However the exception of the occasional individual not having enough to eat serves as a perfectly suitable justification.  Exceptions for me, but not for thee.

In conclusion it becomes rather obvious as to what is happening here.  The reason examples that bolster and prove the effectiveness of the market fail is because they are either not obvious or perceived to be non-egalitarian.  For criticism of ObamaCare, food stamps and the FDA is often as interpreted as being against provided health care, against stopping hunger and against safety of medicine.   In order to appreciate the damage caused by programs that make health care so expensive and prohibitive, programs that make drugs inaccessible and programs that promote theft from the public one has to look past the immediate benefits the program purports to solve and look at the entire picture.  Unfortunately the public is generally not interested in devoting much time and thought to the sometimes dangerous consequences of stamping out the free market and instead prefers to be enamored with emotionally satisfying exceptions to the rule.