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A New Year's Dream for the Health Reform Effort
With all this talk of healthcare reform, we all might be forgiven for imagining that our experiences as patients might be looking up as 2010 dawns. Our reality is that we'll still be in the most weakened position of any of the parties involved in the U.S. healthcare system. We are fodder.
One-sixth of this nation's economy is devoted to the healthcare industry in one way or another. And with lots of hurting to go around in many sectors, the patients who provide the fuel to keep one-sixth of the nation's economic engine operating might deserve some special care and handling. Not so. It's a numbers thing. We're human. We get sick. After we die or get well, others get sick. The reality is that so long as the population continues to grow, the patient-fodder necessary to keep profits flowing in the health industry keeps growing too.
Treating patients well or acknowledging the human rights aspects of healthcare delivery are simply not necessary to increasing profits and keeping the economic engines humming. This is not a news flash for most of us as we have seen the standards of care dropping for some time. More and more widgets.
Stress builds and stress makes us sicker. There is little disagreement about the negative health impact of excessive stress on the human body. (Check out the studies on leading medical websites or the National Institute of Health or the American Heart Association if you need more affirmation of the stress-illness linkage.) And we live in stressful times. Our hearts, our minds and our spirits suffer when we worry about money and jobs and insurance and taxation and all the issues of modern American life.
But that's not to say we haven't advanced the cause of healthcare for all -- a progressively financed, single standard of high quality care for every person in this nation -- in 2009. We've had huge wins in the movement from our calling out of Congress and the President as they carefully tried to keep those who support a Medicare for all, single-payer system completely out of the discussion. In fact, it was in part their determination not to hear of single-payer that lifted the energy even higher.
I know for myself, when I heard the momentary rumblings during this Congressional health reform debate that Medicare might be opened up to those 55 and over, I rejoiced. I just turned 55 this fall. For only the second time in my life, I knew what it felt like to imagine a life without worry about getting healthcare when I get sick. Even if I would have had to pay a premium in addition to the Medicare tax I already pay, I knew that having Medicare would be such a blessing. Freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry about that aspect of my life. And someone was actually talking about it.
The only other time I felt that sort of relief for even a bit was when I was with Michael Moore in Cuba for the filming of portions of SiCKO, and I was able to get care without cash, a credit card or signing a promise to pay. Dignity heals. I know that to be true.
But then as quickly as those 55 and over buying into Medicare was a possibility, it was gutted from the discussion. It wouldn't have mattered if it was selfish Joe Lieberman or someone else, it would have been killed. Few in the Congress have stood their ground as advocates of a Medicare for all, single payer plan. Sometimes during the debates we all heard the Republicans defending Medicare more than the Democrats. But make no mistake, neither party was about to allow any diminishment of the power of the profit-makers.
So, where will we go with health reform in 2010? Oh, the Congress will pass something. The President will sign it. The Rose Garden will be jammed with glowing smiles. The Republicans will complain loudly and begin their work to win seats in the 2010 elections. And those who advocate for a more reasoned and responsible way to reform the system will not stop holding them all to account.
And what will they all -- Republicans and Democrats and even those pesky Independents -- stand to account for in 2010? 45,000 dead. Hundreds of thousands bankrupt. Millions more with problematic access to care and medical debt they cannot pay. Veterans' families. Kids. Hard-working, single parents. All left to fend for themselves while champagne (or a beer or two) flows in the make-believe world of this nation's well-heeled, elected class. That's a lot to own. Because they will not fix these issues as quickly as they all know they could, they all stand to account. Talk about everybody in, nobody out -- they all share this burden.
I watched a Robin Williams special the other day and one of his suggestions was that every member of Congress (and I'd include the President too) should have to wear a sponsorship jacket as they work on healthcare reform like NASCAR drivers do when they are racing. How true. And how amazing would that be?
Maybe that should be our work in the coming months. Perhaps we should sew sponsorship patches on red, white and blue jackets and present them to our Congressional members and our President. Then we could ask them to wear them to the Rose Garden signing ceremony for healthcare reform (oops, I forgot we're supposed to call it health insurance reform now). What a picture that would make. No doctors staged in white coats. No sincere but smug insurance industry hacks like Karen Ignagni in tasteful blue suits. No adoring patient families tearfully thanking them all for the joy of buying the insurance/financial product that has let so many down and cost so much. Just our elected officials in their lobby-label adorned frocks.
We can dream, can't we? And then we need to get back to work. Our fellow citizens are suffering and dying. Healthcare justice is yet to be won. Happy New Year.
10 Comments so far
Show AllI like the idea of the jackets. I don't think jackets sent to members of Congress, though, we have nearly the impact of one sent to Obama. A group could make it and post a video on YouTube on the wrapping of it, addressing, bringing it to the PO and sending it directly to Obama. That is something that might actually make the evening news. Or better yet, send a matched pair, one to Barack and one to Rahm.
Obama's huge fleet of jets, helicopters, SUVs and limos need to be painted with logos of corporate "sponsors" the way they paint them on racing cars.
I love that idea -- and it would help with the national debt too. Why not? We could get rid of the middle men and women, the lobbyists, and just go directly to outright sponsorship. Far more honest.
Maybe we should all be pushing for more truth in advertising.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Making the jackets could be a great campaign for the signing of this bailout bill. BTW, as far as I know it was the loved-hated Ralph Nader who came up with the idea for the corporate logo jackets for "our" elected representatives.
As one of the 30 million the speeches will laud as being "covered" by this bill, I am not grateful. I am angry. My problem was that I could not get afford healthcare insurance that would gain me access to care and free me from the now-inevitable bankruptcy. All you did was mandate insurance. You have added the insult to my dignity of being enslaved by the insurance industry. This is an industry that already has so much to answer for and yet congress asked for nothing from them.
Happy New Year to Donna and everyone who worked to bring this to public awareness. I'll be back and ready to sew patches in 2010. I won't forget and I won't quit.
That's health insurance DEFORM! And, Barry Crusades to ALL and DEMcrappy health "care"!! Fight back: cancel all elective insurance, if the DEFORMED law passes!!!
Tomorrow I am going to sign the form the SSA sends out to people who will soon become eligible for Medicare. I'm going to say that I do not want Medical Care. It breaks my heart to tell this lie, I've waited so anxiously to get to this point, but I have to. I've been laid off, the unemployment money will be ending at some point and I'm stressed about hanging on. I can't afford the premium, although as Donna points out, small business owners pay a FICA tax of 15.3%, double the average worker, and my late husband and I did that for 13 years.
It's just heart breaking. One thing's for sure: the problems caused by money in American politics has become crystal clear, and so has the solution. We can't kid ourselves any longer; the health care episode has hammered the truth home: Nothing less than a coalition of progressive activists committed to a strategic agenda for systemic change will answer. And clearly such an agenda must begin with eliminating personhood for corporations and campaign finance reform, or perhaps enforcing exisiting laws against receiving and giving money as a bribe would do the trick. Nah... I don't think so.
The need for a progressive movement focused on reforming the system first, so that progressive reform is possible, should be enough for the cats to allow themselves to be heared. I hear more and more people talking about this need for a movement. I heard Jessie Jackson talking about this need on NPR very recently. I'm sure Rev. Jackson has the image of the powerful civil right's movement clearly in his mind's eye. Indeed, why not stoke the old fires and passions for justice and equality? It would really be a contuation of that same battle, wouldn't it? It's never been more true: we're all in the same boat. Indeed, it's a leaky old boat, which is threatening to sink under us, and it's really the only boat we have.
Think about the power of bringing Jackson's coalition together with other powerful progressive coalitions, national leaders like Nader, Sanders, Dean, etc., working together, using the progressive media, like Common Dreams, Democracy Now, etc.; it's just not that difficult to imagine; maybe Nader could get some rich guys to throw in with the movement: the Civil Rights Movement of 2010. How does that sound? How do you think the President would think about that? "Hold me accountable for the promises I made and my performance--make me do the right thing," he said. Okay. Now what?
from a radical progressive armchair activists looking for a good reason to get off his ass and go do something other than writing another letter or making a call on a phone that might as well not even have a dial tone
Thank you DonnaSicko for EVERYTHING. I regret to say that the daily anxiety, the living "under the gun" everyday - is the outcome the monster animals desire for all of us. The "Mandates" will be used as a 'tapeworm' in Medicare in order to destroy it - and these little Overseers will rub their tummies in glee, "RUN the animals! Stress them! Stress them. Break their minds and hearts so they will live as our Master's slaves!"
Short-lived. Illiterate. Ill-health. Homeless elderly. Unemployment. Hunger. Guns. Alcohol and Drugs. Just like Larry Summers did in Russia except now he's going to do it here in the 4th Reich.
They can Mandate my corpse. I do not and will not submit to animals. These animals are a "Clear and Present Danger" to your life and mind, to your "Freedom" (as was) and mine, to your future and mine.
If you regard these creatures as humans you will imbue them with qualities you possess yourself - they don't, they're animals - they live to enslave you and feed off the marrow of your bones. They are not human and should be treated as you would any feral mad dog. You don't put down a rabid dog because it's guilty.
Happy New Year, prepare for further insults and assaults upon your person. It's their job.
Happy New Year, Donna, and here's to those jackets!
I feel you sister Smith! The raw, ugly reality is that our elected officials are like a bunch of street hookers, eager to please in return for money!
I like Dr. Bob's suggestion in building a movement. However this movement would have to go beyond reforming healthcare. This movement would have to include organizing a viable, third party alternative to the corruption we are stuck with. This third party would be free of corporate influence and control. It would include labor activists, civil rights activists, feminists, gay and lesbian activists, greens, reds, socialists, populists, and other progressives sick and tired of the farce that passes itself off as our electoral system! It will not be easy, but it can be done! The apologists for the Democratic Party will say it can't be done and that we would "siphon" away votes for their darlings, but who cares most of their darling are sold out anyway! The biggest fear that the Democrats have is that we will organize, rebel and build a new party of the people! Are you listening Mckinney, Sanders, Kucinich, Hightower, Nader, etc?