Volume 16 - Number 3 - December 2009
Pages: 220 - 331
Barry, H. III. (2009). Overcoming defenses against death and taxes. Clio’s Psyche, 16(3), 256-258.
Overcoming Defenses against Death and Taxes
Abstract
In this article, the author takes Benjamin Franklin’s 1789 remark that death and taxes are certain as the starting point for a discussion of U.S. health care and tax reform. He contends that illness, death, and taxes are emotionally unacceptable, and that people defend against them through denial, dissociation, and despair, which he places in the id as Freud described it. He attributes opposition to publicly funded health insurance, avoidance of the subject, and passive resistance to change to these defenses, together with vested interests. He argues that governments are preferable to private insurers, whose primary purpose he characterizes as maximizing profit, and that universal insurance emphasizing prevention is an ethical requirement. He proposes shifting taxes from income, production, and sales to owners of land and natural resources. He concludes that this shift, together with the health insurance reforms urged by President Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, would help the ego and superego overcome the three defenses.
American health care, Benjamin Franklin, death, denial, despair, dissociation, psychic defenses, psychohistory, reform, Sigmund Freud, taxes
In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Both inevitable realities are emotionally unacceptable. People therefore erect defenses against them in the vast, irrational component of the mind that Freud labeled the id.
Three such defenses are: denial, dissociation, and despair. Denial includes repression from conscious awareness and a fantasy of personal invulnerability. People therefore oppose government expenditures, which necessitate collecting taxes from individuals and businesses, for health insurance. Some people refuse to buy the insurance. Dissociation blocks conscious consideration of the unacceptable reality. People avoid the topics of illness, death, and taxes. Despair induces passive refusal to support changes in health insurance or in taxes.
These psychic defenses, combined with the power of vested interests, have prevented reform of the U.S. health care and tax systems. Changes cannot remove the inevitability of illness, death, and taxes, but reforms can ameliorate their unattractive effects. Health insurance companies have the primary purpose of maximizing their own profits, there-
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fore increasing user costs (their revenue) and avoiding payments for expenses. Governments are preferable to insurance companies as providers or regulators of health insurance because medical costs can be minimized by universal health insurance, with an emphasis on preventing illness and improving quality of living. Universal health insurance is an ethical requirement, rather than a profit opportunity, with the catastrophic medical costs for a minority of individuals shared by the rest of the population.
Taxes can be reduced for most individuals and corporations by shifting the burden of them to wealthy owners of natural resources. Currently, most taxes are on income, production, and sales. Taxing these productive activities inhibits desirable behavior by individuals and corporations.
Perceiving and accepting objective reality can help the ego and superego to overpower the id. Rational remedies for emotionally unacceptable realities can replace the defense mechanisms of denial, dissociation, and despair. Beneficial health insurance reforms, being urged by President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, can abolish maladaptive policies. The shift of taxes to owners of valuable land and other natural from contributors of productive activities would generate more wealth for the national economy and more government revenues. The resulting lighter tax burden on most Americans would help to overcome the three defenses of denial, dissociation, and despair against reform of health insurance and against improvement of health care.
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How to cite this article
Barry, H. III. (2009). Overcoming defenses against death and taxes. Clio’s Psyche, 16(3), 256-258.
