A reality check on healthcare, rationing, COVID and vaccinations

 How far back does your political memory extend?  Does it extend back to the days of yore, and the Great Obamacare Freakouts of 2009 and 2010?  There were, and are many practical and principled objections one could offer to the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act.  And then... there's the crazy shit.  The crazy shit can be placed on a spectrum, from "death panels" on one end, to the primarily disingenuous on the other.  Let's take a moment to examine one of the objections offered to the ACA that was somewhere towards the disingenuous end of the bullshit freakouts.  Dishonest, but not full-blown, Palin lunacy.

Remember the furor over "rationing?"  We shouldn't "ration" healthcare?  Um... we have always rationed healthcare.  Every system does.  Mostly, we have done it based on money.  Prior to the ACA, if you didn't get insurance from your job, being a veteran, or just bein' old, you were rationed out of gettin' healthcare.  States had varying eligibility requirements for Medicaid, but basically, that was it, and that is... "rationing."  The fear-mongering at the heart of the objection was that if the ACA passed, rationing would happen as follows.  Through some unspecified means, the government would arbitrarily decide whether or not you got treatment.  Bullshit, but the trick was that if the claim was sufficiently non-specific, the speaker could try to be slippery.  Don't go full Palin (never go full Palin), and you can't be accused of spewing the same "death panel" lie.  Just... you know... "rationing."

So how closely are you following the news about what is happening in hospitals?  In areas hit hard by the delta variant, here is what is happening.  Resources are allocated to COVID treatment.  Even those going to the emergency room for serious emergencies are having to wait, and "elective" surgery (which does not just mean cosmetic silliness for narcissists) is being canceled.  Why?  Because conspiracist fools and other assorted irresponsible people won't get a shot or wear a mask.

You know what it's called when Person A gets treatment and Person B doesn't?  That's right.  "Rationing."  Moreover, the people getting their treatment, having refused vaccinations or masks... are the ones on the political right.  The ones who claimed to object to.... "rationing."

Can anyone defend, on the basis of first principles, treatment of anti-vaxxers who got themselves sick, rather than those who acted in a way that is individually and socially responsible, in a situation of constrained resources?  No?  Didn't think so.