It is doing so well, that everyone has health coverage. Oh, wait.
We have different measures of success then. To quote a famous Conservative talking point, when it comes to healthcare, it can be affordable, universal or quality. You get to pick two out of those three, but you can't have all three. Universality is not a priority to me, I focus on the other two.
This is going to be a long-winded post, but I like you, so I'll indulge you a bit and everyone will learn something new. The reason why you're so surprised about my views is that there is a fundamental misunderstanding between the left and the right-wing minded people that was never corrected and continues to errode relations between them. Liberals think that conservatives are heartless and conservatives think that liberals are amoral, or at the very least they're very generous with other people's money, especially when they can take it at the point of a gun. Those are both stereotypes, but people fall for them at all times. You have a certain preconceived notion about why I think what I think and you've never bothered to verify it.
The reason I say that ideally Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security should be dismantled is the fact that, ideally, we shouldn't need them. In an ideal society anyone who is capable should be able to find employment and should be able to not only support themselves and their family, but also manage to save up for retirement. Those who are not capable would be supported by the charity of those who are. It's not that we don't care about the poor, we just don't want to "help" them by cutting everyone down to size. I prefer pockets of prosperity to equality in squallor.
This difference in thinking is actually best described with the example of charity. Let's present the two polar opposites, we'll call them the Liberal and the Conservative approach.
The Liberal ideal is that everyone has at least the bare minimum of resources to operate and, if their own capacity to generate resources is insufficient, the state must necessarily step in. That would be considered a moral society where the focus is the outcome. As such, the approach they take is to seize resources from the haves, process them through the government machine and distribute them to the have nots. The means to achieve this are taxation and social programmes. Fair so far?
Conservatives have several problems with the ideal, the approach and the means to achieve the objective. For starters, your average Conservative believes that it is de facto amoral to penalise labour and the success it results in. Additionally, Conservatives believe that any outcome achieved through amoral means is amoral by default. Surprisingly, we have the same goal - prosperity. How do we achieve it then?
The Conservative approach is focused on the individual. Fiscal Conservatives believe that one's success or failure is a result of how they function in a market system. Ideally, individuals are incentivised to achieve success on their own merit and those unable to do so due to life circumstances that are beyond their control must be supported by charity, contributing to which is a duty of every successful individual. What are the means to achieve this without excessive taxation or market manipulation? Incentives, of course.
We circle back to the issue of poverty. The Liberal solution is to take government funding and create a program that supplements the resources available to those who are poor. The Conservative solution is to create an environment where the wealthy will do that naturally and without coercion, for instance via a tax deduction. A deductible is a relatively simple concept - if you donate $100 of your earnings, you don't have to pay additional tax on that part of your income. It's an unwritten understanding between the individual and the state that this money has already been spent towards a charitable cause and the government doesn't get to usurp a slice of it. The result is the same - $100 went to someone in need, but the means to achieve the goal are very different and the efficiency of the process is increased.
The same argument can be had about a number of issues - healthcare, the income tax, pensions, the list is almost endless. I will happily have that discussion with you if you wish. The critical mistake Liberals make when assessing Conservative solutions is the issue of assumed motives. We literally have the same goals, which is what we should focus on. I would like to think that the good solutions are somewhere in the middle, but the left has moved so far to the left in recent history that formerly moderate Democrats now find themselves branded Republicans, which is unfortunate. Ironically, Donald Trump is one such example - until 5 minutes ago in historical terms he would be considered a Liberal, or a Centrist at worst. Right now he's the leader of the Alt Right, or some such nonsense. The political compass is all out of whack in our current climate, so it's much better and more accurate to discuss individual policies and look past party affiliation.
