Stop Saying Its Cheap

We heard New Hampshire Representative Carol Shea-Porter speak on Monday about the health care legislation Congress is currently batting around. She said something that caught our attention: “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this plan will only cost a postage stamp per person per day.” We understand why she said this. A postage stamp is an appealing rhetorical device. It’s cheap and convinces listeners that the health care package will be inexpensive.

But that’s not true, and most people either know it or are thinking it already. The health care bill is estimated to cost around $1 trillion. (The US Postal Service would kill for that much mail to be sent!) Telling Americans that they can have an effective national health care system on the cheap undercuts the integrity of the speaker and the appreciation of the listener for such a system.

It’s a cliché that you can’t get something for nothing, but clichés exist for a reason. So when it comes to important national decisions – health care, the wars in the Middle East, the senior citizen prescription drug program, etc. – why do we allow ourselves to be talked into going along with programs that are described as costing “only a postage stamp a day?” Or as “paying for themselves?” We’re getting something for nothing, and then when that programs turns out to be less than we imagined we have the nerve to be surprised and even angry.

What we wish we had heard Rep. Shea-Porter, other representatives, and senators say was something like this: “The health care package is expensive. It should be. If we expect this to lower costs in the future, we have to pay upfront. That’s the way life works. If you want an annuity that pays $100,000 a year for 30 years, you can’t pay $100 up front. You have to pay a lot more. We’re going to reap the benefits of this for decades to come: better care for more people for less money. Ultimately. Right now we have to sacrifice.”

This country was founded and made great by willing sacrifices from our forerunners. We will do the same. But we need to be asked. We need to be organized to make that sacrifice.