Right wing formula for productivity: I wish I could take this job and shove it -- but I can't

The right-wing foaming mouth brigade – people who launched the attacks on the Frost family like “Stalkin’ Malkin” (blogger Michelle Malkin) and, of course, Rush Limbaugh -- has turned its attention to another family that has agreed to give a human face to the S-CHIP debate. So here’s what one Mark Hemingway said at The Corner in the National Review Online. See if you can spot the absurdity for a so-called “conservative” to say (other than the unseemly sarcasm for an article about a baby with a heart defect and her family).

On the conference call, Dara admitted to me that she and Brian had been talking about having children since before they were married. She further admitted that after they were married she voluntarily left a job at a country club that had good health insurance, because the situation was “unmanageable.” From there she took a job at a restaurant with no health insurance, and the couple went on to have a baby anyway, presuming that others would pay for it and certainly long before they knew their daughter would have a heart defect that probably cost the gross national product of Burkina Faso to fix. But not knowing about future health problems is the reason we have insurance in the first place.

Now, pause for a second. Are you reading this at your computer at work, in a job that you don’t particularly care for or even downright detest because you have a spouse and child that depend on you? You wouldn’t be the first or last person to make that choice.

Think about that: “. . . in a job that you don’t particularly care for or even downright detest because you have a spouse and child that depend on you? You wouldn’t be the first or last person to make that choice.” Now that is unfortunately all too true a statement, but Mr. Hemingway’s point is that it is what the baby’s family should have done. So this alleged conservative, who would no doubt be the first to claim he is ardently pro-business, sees no problem for American businesses if some or many of their employees despise the work they do but stay in the job they hate for the health benefits. Now there’s a recipe for national competitiveness and a thriving economy. In fact, freeing up employees to seek jobs they do like without being bound down by the fear of losing health insurance has been one of the critical arguments in favor of taking that burden off the backs of American companies.

It's a variant on the old formula, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." Happy employees means they aren't being worked hard enough. Bet the Japanese and the Europeans agree with Mr. Hemingway, though. Or maybe not.