A rightwing hero was born this past Sunday during the combination bikini contest and civics test that is the Miss USA pageant. In an effort to investigate how she would solve our nation’s problems, host Julianne Hough asked Miss Washington DC (aka Kara McCullough) if she believed “affordable healthcare for all US citizens” was “a right or a privilege”, and why. McCullough answered by saying:

“I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege. As a government employee, I’m granted healthcare and I see firsthand that for one to have healthcare, you need to have jobs. So therefore, we need to continue to cultivate this environment that we’re given the opportunity to have healthcare as well as jobs to all American citizens worldwide.”

Currently unemployed people, as well as those with bad jobs that don’t provide healthcare, are presumably out of luck. That McCullough wants to help women find work in Stem jobs is admirable, but does nothing to help the vast majority of people.

Of course, her statement is technically true. As things currently stand in the US, healthcare is a privilege, and one you likely need a job to access. (And not just any job … a salaried and/or union one, a holy grail that’s fast disappearing.) As a person with both a job and healthcare, she’s observed this firsthand. But as McCullough is a nuclear scientist, I will assume she understood the question was about how she believes things should be, not how they are. In which case, she’s as wrong and out of touch as any DC royalty currently making policy on this issue.

Now, I’ll admit it’s tough to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that people deserve basic levels of physical safety simply by virtue of being human. To do so would require a philosophical deep dive above my level of expertise. But our founding documents – which I’d hope someone with the surname “USA” respects – have already sided with the “yeas” on the existence of certain inalienable rights, chief among them “life”. And an estimated 45,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance. This is not just another commodity, but a necessity on the level with food and shelter. Which, to be fair, Republicans also want to take away from the poor.

Beyond that, it comes down to a simple matter of preference: do you want to live in a society that codifies some level of responsibility to our fellow citizens, or would you rather roll the dice on a Randian dystopia where the lazy, unlucky or otherwise uncompetitive are liquefied into paleo shakes for rich people? Maybe I can’t objectively prove which is “better”, but I know which I’d prefer. Contrary to what social Darwinists would tell you, one cool thing about being human is we (theoretically) get to decide which ideals we want to pursue.

When healthcare is a for-profit enterprise, costs skyrocket and access plummets. While the Affordable Care Act reined in some of the industry’s worst abuses, an estimated 27 million are left uninsured under it, a number that’s slowly climbing as companies raise premiums and pull out of exchanges.

Even those who are insured report problems paying for care due to high deductibles, and, more generally, to being insured by companies whose business model is to dole out as little coverage as they can legally get away with. The Republican party is currently in the process of turning 27 million into 52 million with their ironically named American Healthcare Act. Soon, 45,000 deaths a year will seem like the good old days.

As every other country in the developed world knows, the only way to increase coverage to 100% – as well rein in absurdly high per capita spending on a bloated private industry – is with a system of state-funded healthcare. It works everywhere else, and many experts say it would work here.

The American people are on board. A 2017 Economist/YouGov poll found about 80% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans – yes, Republicans! – favor a federally funded health insurance system that covers all Americans. All race, age, income, and gender demographics favor it by simple majorities, and many – particularly the most marginalized – by strong ones. Even Republicans and conservatives approach 50%. Those who voted for Hillary Clinton favor it at a rate of some 85%.

Unfortunately, this is one of many areas where the country’s political class refuses to even remotely entertain the will of the people. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to do the empathetic, fiscally responsible thing.

We all know Republicans will happily let people die to pay for oligarchs’ tax breaks. But even most elected Democrats remain irrationally committed to compromising with an industry that wants you dead. This becomes more comprehensible when you look at the amount of money the insurance lobby gives to both parties. Despite its immense popularity with voters, single-payer will be on neither party’s agenda in 2018.

In stating that affordable healthcare is a privilege that should be reserved for gainfully employed people, McCullough showed she’ll fit in just fine with the other undemocratically elected rulers in DC. Trump might not own the Miss USA pageant any more, but his cutthroat spirit lives on.