As the forces for and against healthcare come to a head Thursday I wanted to mention a few things that have haunted me the past few weeks.
I believe that the conversation has become a yelling match built on lies, mistruths, misinformation, and red herring. The centerpiece of the president’s agenda has been healthcare insurance reform. That much is clear. It was muffed from the start, and became a target for opponents of the president to attach all of the criticisms and frustration with government to a bill that shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone. The only things the president has said he would do and hasn’t are left-centered issues like Guantanamo, war-criminal trials, and the mass exodus of lobbyist from DC, etc. Health Insurance reform was not a flip-flop issue, and the president didn’t engage in smoke and mirrors to sneak it in.
In the coming years political science classes will study this time in history, and in particular how an administration who so masterfully executed a campaign strategy that resulted in the White House could stumble through something so important to the success of their boss. Granted, Barack Obama didn’t take office with any delusions of harmony in congress and serenity in the senate. He has had to traverse a mine field and has had to do this under unprecedented bickering and partisanship from almost everyone in Washington. He has handled this, for the most part, with grace under fire. Far from a flawless first year, he has been as- billed with his trademark composure.
The editorial portion of News’ Corp’s Fox News broadcasts (some would argue all of it), and the many conservative talk radio hosts have done what Rush Limbaugh has called for, as artfully as the Obama team was able to raise money leading into the election. They took all of the discontent with government and the economy and made it his doing. They have swayed public sentiment against one of the most popular incoming presidents ever, and tagged the Bush Administration’s TARP and bank bailout to the presidents resume’. Yes, he did vote for it as a senator—as did many of his republican peers and his presidential competitor John McCain did in 2008. Now it’s his, and they were against it. So any policy change dealing with economic reform other than tax cuts, amongst the bailouts of private-sector entities such as General Motors and Chrysler has become un-American and a political hand grenade. He has become the furor, naturally. They forget that they were for the bank bailouts (socialism). The depth of the recession now and what it could’ve been are unclear to most of us and too complex to wade through the muddy water of disparate opinions to provide us any real understanding now or maybe ever. What most knew at the time was action was needed, and inaction would have been unacceptable. Conservatives ac t as if the American economy and the sacred cow of capitalism would self-select the weak and we would’ve come out stronger if we just had given far-reaching tax cuts to save the big companies that exploited the American consumer for too long. Barack got what he wanted, and now it’s his in success or failure. I’m sure behind closed doors many conservatives are thanking their luck stars that John McCain didn’t win. To be president now seems like a fool’s errand and futile endeavor. I’m no genius or intellectual heavy weight. But I’ve always been pretty good at sniffing out bullshit. I don’t have a credo or rule-of-thumb like “follow-the-money” to rely on or employ in most cases, however, it is instinctual. It doesn’t take a psychologist to know that those in power want it, and will do what it takes to get it. Those in power will do the same to preserve it. If the Obama administration doesn’t get healthcare, they will fail at the very cornerstone of the president’s agenda. Potentially being as devastating as a loss in Iraq would’ve been for George W Bush. Or as South Carolina senator Jim Demint said, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”
One of the statistics most commonly quoted by left wing pundits such as Keith Olbermann, and Alan Colmes is that individually the components of the healthcare bill are overwhelmingly favorable to the American voters. So if you pay that any credence (which by default half of you won’t) it goes to show that it’s the ineptitude of the Democratic leadership, and that’s Obama because of his hands-off approach all last year other than being a outspoken proponent, has been remiss and incompetent in outlining it to the public. They have become huge targets for criticism on the size of the bill, and have fed into the anti-government sentiment by many Americans about elitist and self-centered representation in Washington. The rightwing echo chamber has been ruthless in creating disinformation and fear around aspects of the bill and what ifs. They have taken a president’s hope to bring healthcare to more Americans and reduce the deficit as a socialist ideologues conspiracy to take healthcare from old people and give it to the homeless and illegal immigrants. No matter how clearly stated, and underlined by the president there is nothing he can do to sway many Americans that he is not the ant-Christ and a communist Manchurian candidate. And Rush Limbaugh and his peers love it. Mission Accomplished.
If he fails in getting this passed-we all will lose. I’m not for a massive public option right now. I’m fearful not because I believe that it is the beginning of rationing and “socialized/third-world medicine”. I’m more concerned about the deficit and stabilizing of the economy both in markets such as real-estate, and lending and job creation. I hope that cooler heads can prevail, and the true ideologue’s voices will be drowned out by the rational thinkers in congress. We need policy to remove the clause that discriminates and exploits those that have pre-existing conditions or cataclysmic traumas that bankrupt Americans. American misfortunes and accidents shouldn’t become business opportunities. The real death-panels, the arm of the insurance companies that deny coverage and have quotas to make by looking for mistakes and red flags in the medical histories are un-American. The illegal immigrants that are exploited by businesses and corporate America draw them in, and deny them the rights given to their other employees because they are cheaper and compromised, and force them to go to the emergency rooms for primary care. The inflated expense of healthcare in America is the very origin of any trial or expensive lawsuit supposedly devastating healthcare costs for all of the rest of us, if healthcare was available to all of us wouldn’t that mitigate the problem to just wrongful/or negligence trials which we should have the option to do if the corporations don’t run their businesses safely for their workers or malpractice?
These egregious cracks in our system are what need to be addressed. It shouldn’t be a political issue like so many other more controversial topics. But it has become a huge, slobbery, gelatinous spitball so far from the gravity of reality it seems impossible to reel it back in and affect positive change for all Americans. Somehow healthcare for all Americans has become less noble of a cause as war for oil, or tax cuts. Then it becomes something else altogether, alter the conversation beyond recognition. To evade the question, is it patriotic to let an innocent American bleed? Or an innocent human being bleed for that matter? Should healthcare only be made available to those that work full-time, or have wealthy parents? This question gets answered everyday no matter how we answer it in hypothetical land. Hopefully, we never will have to answer it for ourselves.
“Well, I went to the doctor
I said, "i'm feeling kind of rough..."
"Let me break it to you son,
you're shit's fucked up!"
I said, "My shit's fucked up?!
Well, I don't see how!"
He said, "The shit that used to work,
won't work now!"
Warren Zevon
