Way Over Yonder
It seems to me that part of what makes health care issues so inflammatory is that they shine an intense light on the difference between those with an embed of care for others (sometimes "empathy") and those with "the rules don't apply to me" and "I've got mine, Jack" as their credo. (Interestingly, the latter can remarkably often be rorshached'd quite reliably based on their apparent graduate certification in both entitlement and victimhood.)
It's probably hard to get up much enthusiasm for the dishonest and distorted fear-inducing mock image of health care reform being touted by the bobbleheads who dominate the airwaves for the latter group. Conversely, it's hard to imagine a person with genuine care for actual people outside their immediate sphere (or, say, someone truly "different" from their circle) being less than enthusiastic about the idea of expanded health insurance coverage and an aggressive program of reform to hopefully allow the US to begin to move in the direction of an enlightened first-world country.
We have ever so far to go.
This Digby post touches on a critical aspect of this:
I heard Ashton Kutcher on Bill Maher launch into a diatribe that I've been hearing a lot recently. Here's David Horowitz describing it:
Here's how the freepers put it, as only they can:
Evidently, these people all believe that if you get sick you either did something to deserve it, in which case you also deserve to go bankrupt even if you have insurance -- or, if you are a "good" person, perhaps you can be taken care of by charities, at least until they "push" you out. On their planet, there are no insurance companies denying care to people, no decent hard working Americans losing everything they have to a health crisis, nobody tied to a job they hate because they won't be able to get insurance if they leave, no CEOs making sickening profits while people suffer, no health care inflation making it impossible for businesses to compete. On their planet it cannot happen to them.
-clip-
I am not the type of person to wish that someone would get sick and lose everything they have, but if I were, these are people I would wish it on. It's a hateful thing to say, but these are hateful people and I'm not going to pretend they aren't just to be politically correct. Watch the fevered looks on their faces, high fiving and stimulated to near hysteria at the notion that they are completely self-sufficient and need not care for their fellow man. It's quite clear that they have no empathy at all and therefore must personally experience things in order to understand them. I certainly can't see much hope of rationally explaining why they themselves are likely to suffer under their own philosophy and I wouldn't even bother trying to appeal to them on grounds of being a decent human being.
I guess they think they are immortal. Clearly they believe they are superior. But contrary to this self-destructive, unenlightened worldview, many of them are going to be disabled or stricken with illness and if they are lucky they will get old and infirm. And I hate to break it to them, but every last one of these people, good or bad, fat or thin, rich or poor, is going to die someday. Being a selfish jackass won't save any of them from that fate.
And Robert Reich makes cautionary noises about taking the self-annointed insiders sounding the knell for a "public option" too seriously (I agree with Lefkoff that "American option" has a much clearer ring):
Washington, D.C. is an echo chamber in which anyone who sounds authoritative repeats the conventional authoritative wisdom about the "consensus" of inside opinion, which they've heard from someone else who sounds equally authoritative, who of course has heard it from another authoritative source. Follow the trail to its start and you often find an obscure congressional or White House staffer who has seen some half-assed poll number or briefing memo, but seeking to feel important hypes it a media personality or lobbyist who, desperate to sound authoritative, pronounces it as truth. In any other place on the planet it would be called rumor, gossip, or drivel. In our nation's capital it's called "inside information." The process would be harmless except that it creates self-fulfilling prophesies. Since most of our elected representatives would rather not stick their necks out lest they lose their heads, they tend to rush toward whatever consensus seems to be emerging -- which, of course, is based on authoritative reports about the emerging consensus.
In the last few days authoritative sources have repeatedly told me that the public option is dead, that the President won't be able to get a comprehensive health care bill, and that the White House and congressional leadership already know the best they'll be able to do now is move incrementally -- starting with insurance reforms such as barring insurers from using someone's preexisting health conditions to deny coverage -- with the hope of more reforms in the years ahead. The rightwing media fearmongers and demagogues have won. Don't believe it. The other thing about Washington is how quickly conventional authoritative wisdom changes, especially when the public is still in flux over some large matter. Rightwing fearmongers and demagogues thrive only to the extent the mainstream media believes they're thriving. Although polls continue to show that while most Americans like the health care they're getting, they also dislike their insurance companies, worry that they or their families will be denied coverage, and are anxious about the increasing co-payments, deductibles, and premiums they're facing. Most are still eager for reform.
In addition, we've come to the point where health-care incrementalism won't work. To be sure, the health-insurance industry is powerful and will fight reforms that threaten their profits. But they won't fight if they know their profits will be restored when everyone is required to have health insurance. (This isn't just conventional authoritative wisdom; it's political fact.) Obviously, in order to require everyone to have health insurance, tens of millions of Americans will need help affording it. The only way the government can possibly pay that tab is to raise taxes on the rich while also getting long-term health-insurance costs under control. And one of the surest ways to get long-term costs under control is to force private insurers -- which in most states and under most employer-provided plans face very little competition -- to compete with a public insurance option that can use its bargaining clout with drug companies and medical providers to negotiate lower prices.
When you go through the logic, it starts to look a lot like comprehensive reform.
Years ago, as the story goes, Britain's Parliament faced a difficult choice. On the European continent drivers use the right lanes, while the English remained on the left. But tunnels and fast ferries were bringing cars and drivers back and forth ever more frequently. Liberals in Parliament thought it time to change lanes. Conservatives resisted; after all, Brits had been driving on the left since William the Conquerer's charriot. Parliament's compromise was to move from the left to right lanes -- but incrementally, on a voluntary basis. Truckers first.
Lest anyone in Washington repeat this story authoritatively, it's a joke -- but with a kernel of truth. Sometimes reform has to occur in a big way, everything or nothing, if it's to happen at all. That's the way it is with health care reform at this stage. Every moving piece is related to every other one. That's also why a public option is necessary.
So forget the authoritative sources. Mobilize and organize. We can get comprehensive, meaningful health care reform if we push hard enough. And we must.
It's probably hard to get up much enthusiasm for the dishonest and distorted fear-inducing mock image of health care reform being touted by the bobbleheads who dominate the airwaves for the latter group. Conversely, it's hard to imagine a person with genuine care for actual people outside their immediate sphere (or, say, someone truly "different" from their circle) being less than enthusiastic about the idea of expanded health insurance coverage and an aggressive program of reform to hopefully allow the US to begin to move in the direction of an enlightened first-world country.
We have ever so far to go.
This Digby post touches on a critical aspect of this:
I heard Ashton Kutcher on Bill Maher launch into a diatribe that I've been hearing a lot recently. Here's David Horowitz describing it:
Kutcher put forth sensible views and engaging, informed opinions on the issue of health care which brought some consensus to the table.This isn't confined to to the far right and arrogantly fatuous celebrities. I was asked the same thing at Drinking Liberally by someone who felt the same way.
Discussing the issue of a greater need for an emphasis on promoting wellness instead of just treating sickness, Kutcher expressed a view on socialized medicine that hasn’t been discussed as much as it should:
“Frankly, I don’t want to pay for the guy who’s getting a triple-bypass because he’s eating fast food all day and deep-fried snickers bars. I don’t want to pay for him! Whether he’s wealthy or he’s not!”
He’s right. Should the taxpayer have to pay for other people’s unhealthiness? Should the taxpayer pay for the guy who smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and then gets emphysema?
Here's how the freepers put it, as only they can:
It’s not just fat people and smokers - promiscuous gays with AIDS, promiscuous heterosexuals with STDs, drunks injured in car crashes,...the list goes on & on.-clip-
We all know that our grandparents visited a doctor only a few times in their whole lives. Allowing the government to take control will send us all down a path where a medtech behind a bullet-proof glass with dictate who is or is not served by the last living doctor in each socialist locality.-clip-
Evidently, these people all believe that if you get sick you either did something to deserve it, in which case you also deserve to go bankrupt even if you have insurance -- or, if you are a "good" person, perhaps you can be taken care of by charities, at least until they "push" you out. On their planet, there are no insurance companies denying care to people, no decent hard working Americans losing everything they have to a health crisis, nobody tied to a job they hate because they won't be able to get insurance if they leave, no CEOs making sickening profits while people suffer, no health care inflation making it impossible for businesses to compete. On their planet it cannot happen to them.
-clip-
I am not the type of person to wish that someone would get sick and lose everything they have, but if I were, these are people I would wish it on. It's a hateful thing to say, but these are hateful people and I'm not going to pretend they aren't just to be politically correct. Watch the fevered looks on their faces, high fiving and stimulated to near hysteria at the notion that they are completely self-sufficient and need not care for their fellow man. It's quite clear that they have no empathy at all and therefore must personally experience things in order to understand them. I certainly can't see much hope of rationally explaining why they themselves are likely to suffer under their own philosophy and I wouldn't even bother trying to appeal to them on grounds of being a decent human being.
I guess they think they are immortal. Clearly they believe they are superior. But contrary to this self-destructive, unenlightened worldview, many of them are going to be disabled or stricken with illness and if they are lucky they will get old and infirm. And I hate to break it to them, but every last one of these people, good or bad, fat or thin, rich or poor, is going to die someday. Being a selfish jackass won't save any of them from that fate.
And Robert Reich makes cautionary noises about taking the self-annointed insiders sounding the knell for a "public option" too seriously (I agree with Lefkoff that "American option" has a much clearer ring):
Washington, D.C. is an echo chamber in which anyone who sounds authoritative repeats the conventional authoritative wisdom about the "consensus" of inside opinion, which they've heard from someone else who sounds equally authoritative, who of course has heard it from another authoritative source. Follow the trail to its start and you often find an obscure congressional or White House staffer who has seen some half-assed poll number or briefing memo, but seeking to feel important hypes it a media personality or lobbyist who, desperate to sound authoritative, pronounces it as truth. In any other place on the planet it would be called rumor, gossip, or drivel. In our nation's capital it's called "inside information." The process would be harmless except that it creates self-fulfilling prophesies. Since most of our elected representatives would rather not stick their necks out lest they lose their heads, they tend to rush toward whatever consensus seems to be emerging -- which, of course, is based on authoritative reports about the emerging consensus.
In the last few days authoritative sources have repeatedly told me that the public option is dead, that the President won't be able to get a comprehensive health care bill, and that the White House and congressional leadership already know the best they'll be able to do now is move incrementally -- starting with insurance reforms such as barring insurers from using someone's preexisting health conditions to deny coverage -- with the hope of more reforms in the years ahead. The rightwing media fearmongers and demagogues have won. Don't believe it. The other thing about Washington is how quickly conventional authoritative wisdom changes, especially when the public is still in flux over some large matter. Rightwing fearmongers and demagogues thrive only to the extent the mainstream media believes they're thriving. Although polls continue to show that while most Americans like the health care they're getting, they also dislike their insurance companies, worry that they or their families will be denied coverage, and are anxious about the increasing co-payments, deductibles, and premiums they're facing. Most are still eager for reform.
In addition, we've come to the point where health-care incrementalism won't work. To be sure, the health-insurance industry is powerful and will fight reforms that threaten their profits. But they won't fight if they know their profits will be restored when everyone is required to have health insurance. (This isn't just conventional authoritative wisdom; it's political fact.) Obviously, in order to require everyone to have health insurance, tens of millions of Americans will need help affording it. The only way the government can possibly pay that tab is to raise taxes on the rich while also getting long-term health-insurance costs under control. And one of the surest ways to get long-term costs under control is to force private insurers -- which in most states and under most employer-provided plans face very little competition -- to compete with a public insurance option that can use its bargaining clout with drug companies and medical providers to negotiate lower prices.
When you go through the logic, it starts to look a lot like comprehensive reform.
Years ago, as the story goes, Britain's Parliament faced a difficult choice. On the European continent drivers use the right lanes, while the English remained on the left. But tunnels and fast ferries were bringing cars and drivers back and forth ever more frequently. Liberals in Parliament thought it time to change lanes. Conservatives resisted; after all, Brits had been driving on the left since William the Conquerer's charriot. Parliament's compromise was to move from the left to right lanes -- but incrementally, on a voluntary basis. Truckers first.
Lest anyone in Washington repeat this story authoritatively, it's a joke -- but with a kernel of truth. Sometimes reform has to occur in a big way, everything or nothing, if it's to happen at all. That's the way it is with health care reform at this stage. Every moving piece is related to every other one. That's also why a public option is necessary.
So forget the authoritative sources. Mobilize and organize. We can get comprehensive, meaningful health care reform if we push hard enough. And we must.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:41 PM
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