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The Gorilla Dust of Health Care
When I was 15, my father was in a near-fatal car collision with a semi-trailer truck. At Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY, he lay in a coma for two months.
As the medical bills mounted and the insurance was running out, my mother had to make an agonizing decision. My father would have to be airlifted to the VA Medical Center in Kansas City, where his veteran's benefits would defray the costs. She would go there with him; arrangements would have to be made for someone to take care of her home and kids while she was away. For how long, no one was certain.
Miraculously -- almost as if he realized what was going on -- Dad suddenly emerged from his coma and was released from Strong a short time later. He never fully recovered from the accident, but for that moment, at least, further domestic upheaval and financial chaos were averted.
Flash forward nearly 30 years and it was my mother who was now in the hospital, diminished physically and spiritually by dementia. Her children made the choice together but it was my sister, who had become her chief caregiver, who bore much of the brunt of the decision not to resuscitate.
In the months and years prior to my mother's death, the kind of end-of-life counseling that health care reformers are talking about -- not the bizarre, phony "death panels" falsely conjured by Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Betsy McCaughey and others, now including Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley -- would have been welcome.
Everyone has personal stories like these, or certainly friends and colleagues who have had similar difficult experiences with our current health care system. We know it has to change, which makes it even more infuriating and frustrating that the national, you should excuse the expression, "dialogue" on the issue has deteriorated into so much gorilla dust, a hurling of invective, menace and disinformation meant to intimidate and force a retreat.
Those vein-popping, pistol toting, don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts, town hall meetings are more like hockey brawls than an open exchange of ideas. But this uncivil disobedience and bullying are just the tip of the spear, the front line of an all out offensive on the streets, in the media and on Capitol Hill aimed at turning the debate over health care reform on its head and possibly keeping any kind of change from happening at all.
On Friday, Bloomberg News reported that 3,300 Washington lobbyists are working on health care: "That's six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy."
According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, in the first half of the year, this adds up to $263.4 million worth of high-level kibitzing around the House and Senate office buildings and various other DC locales where ears and elbows are bent in advance of twisting arms. Bloomberg notes, "Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies."
The attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton's plan for health care reform back in the '90s were a tiptoe through the tulips compared to the current assault. That's because it's about a lot more than attempting to ease the financial pain of illness -- or a socialist government takeover of medicine, depending on your point of view. Organizers (such as former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks), special interests and people who are just plain mad as hell have turned it into a shrill national referendum, reigniting age-old prejudices and fears that bubbled at the surface during last year's presidential campaign.
What's interesting is that there appears to be an emerging backlash from some of the more reasoned thinkers of the conservative movement. It seems to have begun late last week with a blog entry by former Bush speechwriter David Frum on his website, NewMajority.com. He asked, what if the right wins the health care fight? What happens then?
"The problem," he wrote, "is that if we do that... we'll still have the present healthcare system... We'll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and underperforming system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican Party exists to champion."
Frum elaborated while in conversation with my colleague Bill Moyers on the current edition of public television's Bill Moyers Journal. "They're going to pass something," he said of the health care reform fight. "So the question for Republicans is what do you want that to be? You have an interest here, too. You would like to see the rise in healthcare costs slow. And you would like to see more room in the federal budget for tax cuts in the future... But if the Republicans win, this is not going to be a great victory for individual liberty. It's going to be a victory for the status quo."
Frum's sentiments have been echoed and amplified by conservative economist Bruce Bartlett. He's worth citing at length. Writing on the Daily Beast website on August 12, Bartlett noted that, "Because reforming Medicare is an important part of getting health costs under control generally, Bush could have used the opportunity to develop a comprehensive health-reform plan. By not doing so, he left his party with nothing to offer as an alternative to the Obama plan. Instead, Republicans have opposed Obama's initiative while proposing nothing themselves.
"In my opinion, conservative activists, who seem to believe that the louder they shout the more correct their beliefs must be, are less angry about Obama's policies than they are about having lost the White House in 2008. They are primarily Republican Party hacks trying to overturn the election results, not representatives of a true grassroots revolt against liberal policies...
"Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats, they will have no credibility and deserve no respect."
One way to reestablish some shred of that credibility would be any kind of viable health care reform alternative from the GOP. Another would be to engage in a more reasoned debate. Neither has happened so far, and in the heat of the current ugly fray, neither seems likely.
Too much of the gorilla dust they're throwing has blown back into their own eyes.
30 Comments so far
Show All"Republicans have opposed Obama's initiative while proposing nothing themselves."
Of course they're not proposing anything themselves. Good grief! In a situation where polls show 85% of Americans in favor of "fundamental change" and 72% in favor of a government-administered insurance plan, the Republicans aren't going to put their own heads on the chopping block. It's difficult enough for them to round up a sufficent number of ignorant and ill-informed protesters to make their corporate-sponsored opposition seem as if it has real public support.
Both parties are here to preserve the status quo. It's the good-cop/bad-cop pattern that never ends. As for the stores, it's not just insurance. The problem is lack of quality care doctors and drug companies engaging in holding doctors and patients financially hostage where they think they can squeeze out the most bucks for profit. As far as town hall meetings are concerned, why aren't there any when it comes to things like war spending, tax cuts for the wealthy/corporate elites, trade, jobs, etc ... ? Somehow, I find town halls staged.
Agreed.
The crucial fact is that Chuck Grassley, the Blue Dog Democrats, and all the others in congress who oppose single payer, have the use of single payer themselves, but refuse it to their constituents, showing what absolute hypocrites these politicians are. This is much more important than anything else in winning this debate. These people are damn phonies, and they damn well know it. We have to expose them as such!
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Rudy Guliani, ex-New York City mayor, probably went farther than anyone. He spoke in an add that he had cancer and luckily survived, and that if he had been under Obama's plan he would have died having been denied care. He had the cancer when he was a state employee and was under the single payer NY-ship, the state employees health coverage plan. He made no payment for his care.
Like you said hypocrites, but this guy is the king of all hypocrites.
No, the ones like Guliani aren't hypocrites. They're psychopaths. They believe that they truly deserve all the finer things, and that we do not.
If it weren't for their wealth and power, they would be diagnosable. But wealth and power shield their possessors from diagnosis, too, except for the ones so arrogant that they act out in ways that can't be explained away or paid off.
We recognise that there's something deeply wrong inside anyone who would hire out as a contract killer.
And we recognise that there's also something wrong with anyone who would pay to have someone killed.
But we seem unable to connect the dots and understand that the same wrongness is present --just better-hidden-- in those who are willing to have others suffer and die as long as they can make money from it.
Intelligent psychopaths are like the vampires of folklore - they cast a glamour over us so that we admire them instead of seeing them for what they are. We elect them to public office and let them feed on us again and again when what we should be doing is locking them up. In folklore, the villagers around the castle hated and feared the vampires, but served them anyway, unable to break loose of their control. We do the same thing. Why?
Logic, present and accounted for. Great points. As a student of psychology, I have to say that about half of our research papers in class analyzed famous people who could very well be diagnosed as mentally ill, while the other half was about politicians who could very well be diagnosed the same way. Money and power would be the only reason they are not seen as such.
The Republicans might be cynical enough to propose a tax cut on income, arguing that people would then use the money to purchase private health insurance. They're cagey enough to pull this kind of crap.
Although I prefer "single payer health care" I am not adamantly opposed to a true and thoroughly controlled system of co-operative health insurance.
The disasters of bogus schools for "voucher children" tells me that there must be a very powerful national (please, no state!) and independent board which prevents bogus co-operatives and keeps the number of licenses for co-operative health insurance groups small. If I had my druthers there would be only one.
Secondly, insurance rates, remunerations of the directors of co-ops, and "what is insured" must always have prior approval of the board.
The co-ops must be absolutely independent of any private insurance company, hospital, pharmaceutical company, etc. They may not receive any funds from these organizations other than for services rendered.
The co-ops must be non-profit.
The co-ops must be utterly transparent. They must provide public quarterly reports on all of their activities.
All co-ops must be guaranteed by a special federal fund, similar to the protection of my bank account. If a co-op threatens to go bankrupt the federal government is empowered to take over immediately, fire the directors, and run the co-op as a "single payer health insurance" until a solution is found, no matter how long that takes.
I suppose something like that might work, but I don't see the adavantage of making something that is basically so simple any more complicated than it needs to be. What's the "value added" benefit of multiple payers requiring a bunch of rules and regulatory oversight that, very often, just seems to invite loopholes, legal wrangles and needless complexity?
I understand the corporate fears and resistance to any infringement on their capitalist "rights" to profit from every human need, but are ordinary Americans really that fearful of simple, straighforward, "socialized" health care for all. Is it some kind of "slippery slope" concern, or what?
RV: I tend to agree with your concerns. As I stated, I prefer the much simpler "single payer" for all but that will not pass this time. I have no idea yet what Obama's "public option" is. If that is an undiluted "single payer" I will be for it.
It is obvious to me that it is the private insurance companies who fear that "public option" may overwhelm them because people already instinctively understand that "non-profit single payer" is superior to "private".
Epicycles upon epicycles before the Copernican revolution.
Keep your eyes on the distraction folks!
Pay no attention to the Man Behind the Curtain!
Do you really think that anything that goes through will be worth spit? The same "entrenched system" will be there and taxpayers will be writing blank checks for endless need to the very leeches who have destroyed the system. They don't cure disease, they "manage chronic disease".
We could be forced to buy health insurance to keep the insurance industry happy.
We've already decided to continue to allow Big Pharma to live bloated lives of true welfare recipients.
The FDA has banned many "unapproved" treatments that work and cost pennies. They will try to finish the job to the benefit of Big Pharma and a black market would be created.
Support the Access to Medical Treatment Act (HR2792, I think)which would break the monopoly, then start thinking how to get to universal coverage
Tim Minchin has a wonderful youtube video about alternative medicine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_htqDCP-s
Thank you again cassandra. I shall keep this bill number in mind.
I think it's the right number. The actual link was
www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-2792.
From my perspective, they have blocked the pass and are well armed. We need to take the long way around and catch them off guard. Meeting them head on would conjure images of "The Charge of the Light Brigade". I don't think they're too worried about health freedom because so few seem to understand or care so its a chance to get the word out before they can attack. I hope.
The Gopers sense that they have the BIG CORP power in their sails and are basically saying WE not the Dems. really represent the powers that actually own and run America. Those powers want no change because they're making billions with the present system.
I want my US Congressman from southeast-central Indiana, Mike Pence, a glistening example of a scripted mouthpiece of the neocon right, to introduce my "Don't Get Sick, Don't Grow Old(er)" Act (HR 66666). (If I can leapfrog the numericals of the checks in my checking account, what the hell, The Most Honorable sleazebag who pretends to be my Representative in The Congress can do the same with the numericals of my proposed legislation.)
It would probably be the first national piece of legislation containing a parenthetical in its title, but most people would not guess that. Just a frought thought.
***
Generally I am with Cassandra just above. Esp. her opening line:
"Do you really think that anything that goes through [the goddam Congress---my epiteht, not hers] will be worth spit?"
NO!
That is why I am proposing that Congressman Pence---MY right-wing Congressman who probably hails from Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign against LBJ and his Medicare..., admittedly a tautology.... In my youth I hated LBJohnson while in my dotage I FIND him nearly predictive... oh, lost my train of thought. Choo choo. Reagan, 1980, trickle-down economics will make us all rich in that Great City on Hill, oh boy.
Oh Dear, I have introduced a term that ought to be used much more than it has been, if for no other reason than to test the brains of the locals.
I may put together a package for my sleaze Congressman, but it will make no difference. He is clearly no longer MERELY bought off---and here is where the social issues get in with the Right Wing-Nut People---Sucked Off. They might as well be in Prison getting their assholes reamed by someone with a long tongue. Dare I say that a certain Class of GOP must be sucked off to, er, "make the grade." ?
This is All about the Power of Life & Death, and if you really start to research who is doing what to whom, the interlocking Directorates of Pharma, et al, will take you to The Man Behind the Curtain. The more that Investigative Reporters research Dubya Times, the more they discover that this man was, What? Insane? Yes, and he was President for 8 years. What will History make of that?
I just got into Medicare having turned age 65 last year. Anyone who thinks this system (Medicare) is ideal has no idea how former Senator Bill Frist ought to burn in Hell. I purposefully capitalize Hell. Just look at Part Duh and the pharmaceutical donut hole. And so, if you are among those Liberal Framers who allege that most people on Medicare are happy with it, count me OUT given that Medicare Part B---the doctor part--- just reduced my Social Security payment by more than 10 percent for the PREMIUM, to say nothing of the 20 per cent co-pay. Meanwhile, AARP urges me to buy their Medicare Supplemental from my less than $800 per month remainder???
Urge your Congresscritter to support my Don't Get Sick Don't Grow Old(er) Act. And, take two aspirin and call me next month. If you remain able...
And rage, rage against the dying of the Light. I'm not sick (yet). But the nation is now a cancerous tumor of debt. Time to watch old Star Trek episodes after lousy Saturday Night Live episodes. Pretend you are sitting in a chair in an old people's home. Everything is new. Eternally new. How wonderful... How complete. How just.
You said my name is what? Dr Spock? And I can do a mind-meld with my Congressman Mike Pence? Does his brain taste like Lemon-merangue? Yum.
-30-
Nanoo
A whole of truth in what you wrote about people being far less than happy about their Medicare coverage and costs. Fuck ARRP, they are more than happy to be in the insurance industry so obviously that organization wouldn't support single payer.
Damn right it seems Obama is hell bent to pass "something", "anything" that will have those words Health and Reform in the title. It may come out as a product that makes it worse for people than if he and Congress did "Nothing".
You are so right about Medicare. I've been on it for three years and hardly ever go to the doctor because I ended up paying thousands in co-pays my first year when trying to deal with COPD. At least now I'm on a medical regimen that takes care of most of my COPD problems. But I still have to put up with outrageous pharmisutical co-pays. The answer seems to be to join a supplemental program put out by a health care company such as Humana or AARP.
If we ever go to single pay I hope it's not based on the kind of Medicare we have now. We have to get insurance companies out of the health 'business' entirely. They have no business in this business. It should be illegal, as in most of Europe. I believe most people in this country understand that companies who's bottom line is profit should not be allowed to offer health care. But that's not what we are hearing on the news, with the Town Hall 'debates' between Republicans trying to get back their power, and an administration that has sold out to the Health Care Industry.
"there appears to be an emerging backlash from some of the more reasoned thinkers of the conservative movement. It seems to have begun late last week with a blog entry by former Bush speechwriter David Frum"
Reasoned thinker? Opportuistic devil. Frum says crap he thinks will rebuild support for his personal self and his neocon group. He cares nothing for the public.
How can we lend our support to the the truly authentic groups defending the truth in pursuit of a universal equity/justice agenda, when we don't bother to discover the authentic source but instead readily accept the truth from false sources such as neocon devil David Frum?
The author might have said something like: "The neocons show their desperation today by falsely/opportunistically spouting the truth, something that we could only hear from the likes of Raplh Nader during the neocons' giilded rampage."
I have had to deal with these right wing , self righteous lunatics for 2.7 years.
Thy are a private army of gang stalking criminals, and are nation wide.
They are paid to slander and destroy dissidents and organizations that would hurt the bottom line of their employers, and now, they have their own private war with an administration that wants to pass national health care.
The new health care option needs to cover and pay for a 12 step recovery program for gang stalkers and right wing town hall loud mouths who are addicted to creating and spreading chaos at all costs.They are sick people and know not what they do.
And of course, the biggest disappointment in the country is the fact that the Evangelical leadership of this country is not expressing a simple christian belief that it is moral to have a National health care option for those that need it, and that all wars are evil.
Their silence is deafening.
These folks are not patriots, they are paid mercenary's working to hurt Americans.
"Evangelical leadership of this country is not expressing a simple christian belief"
If there really is a "simple christian belief", all the innumerable denominations and churches of christianity have been arguing about which of them actually does express it since their inception. It's what keeps them in business, and organized religion IS a business. Some of its CEOs are just more blatant about it than others.
The Jewish originator, it may be recalled, had quite a few arguments himself with the various sects and high priests of his day -- so many, in fact, that they reported him to the contemporary imperial authorities. I strongly suspect that he'd suffer the same fate, if not worse, today. Back then, he at least got a trial.
He could be undergoing rendition right now.
Americans are a pack of hypocrites. They will accept medicare, stimulus money, cash for clunkers, a huge military budget, gifts to the banking and insurance industry, etc., but won't accept socialized medicine. Aren't the above social gifts via taxes? Here's an idea, cut the military budget in half and drop medicare and you have a gigantic amount of money to play with. Numbers specialists can refine my idea. close to a trillion, i think.
Only in the United States would the battle be between a compromised health bill and advocates for no change at all. It's like a prize fight between two clones, with the proceeds going to the the original donor. The opponent of health insurance should be single payer, but that fight will never happen. Not in the United States. If anyone doubts that we are a fascist country, just look at the whole health care circus that is going down right now.
I am a proud citizen of the European Union, (for those Fox News viewers out there- it's the political-economic alliance now rated as the largest economic entity on Earth.) The EU has built itself up beneath the radar of the US population, and I hope you will continue to ignore it with the same studiousness that you have exhibited heretofore. After all, if we are to continue in our project to create something which will prevent our being bullied by the US in the future, we really should keep this secret. (I would make a poor spy.)
As I see it, the Healthcare "debate" (and I use the word in its loosest possible sense) is being won by those who would prefer a civil war to bringing about a system which would increase the life expectancy of tens of millions of US citizens. Whilst I know that Napoleon wisely said "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" I would encourage you to keep this "debate" going for as long as possible, and whatever you do do NOT institute a system like Britain's NHS, EVERYONE in the UK despises it and can't wait until it is dismantled. Everything is fine in the US: DO NOT repeat the mistakes of others.
Europa_Endlos
(The cheese-eating Polack with bad teeth and no breast implants)
PS I hope I have clarified things for you, and I look forward to the laughing at the replies of the right-wing trolls you have, the plethora of poor spelling and non-sequiturs is no end of fun for myself and for my friends.
Endlos (German for "without end") tells me that you may be a so-called Kraut.
"Everyone in the UK despises NHS". Right, and everyone knows that the Moon is made of blue cheese.
Leave the gorillas out of this. They did nothing to screw up healthcare.