5/26/2011

Some thoughts on the fallacy of representative government

So I am reading an article in the NYT about the recent Republican healthcare plan. Ignoring the plan itself and all surrounding issues I want to briefly touch on one aspect of the article that I found quite revealing. Now remember this is about a vote on a Medicare bill. Rightly or wrongly, I am sure everyone would agree that the issue of Medicare and healthcare in general is about taking care of elderly people, more specifically taking care of elderly people when they are ill. Now on to the quote from the article I want to discuss:

Others still, like George Allen, a Republican candidate for Senate in Virginia, appear to be trying to suss out where the political minefields are, and refuse to say if they support the plan or not.

This is such a non-controversial statement that the article rightly pays no more attention to it, other than mentioning why some congressman have yet to declare their stance on this bill. That is to say, it is a given that politicians make their decisions based on political incentives as opposed to the content of the bill itself.

So here is what I find fascinating. No one will find anything I have written so far even remotely interesting or original. Politicians don't vote on bills based on the merits of the bill itself, but instead based on political incentives. This is common knowledge and widely accepted to be true, even by ardent supporters of government.

So my question is, how does a system comprised of thousands of people making decisions based solely on political incentives spit out results that are supposedly in the best interest of the people? In this particular example those people whom government is supposedly taking care of is elderly people in need of medical attention.

Yet the merits of the bill that will totally overhaul and define the mandatory nationwide healthcare plan that will affect virtually every senior citizen has almost nothing to do with whether or not a particular politician votes for it. Do you see the problem here?

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