Harry and Louise's Deadly Embrace

Flying home from the Democratic convention last August, I sat next
to a Sarah Palin-loving, Obama-bashing dittohead who gave me an earful
on the various issues of the day. Chief among them: the superiority of
the U.S. health care system.

My fellow passenger had travelled to Canada for work, he said, and
had the misfortune to encounter the Canadian health care system when he
came down with strep. He visited a Canadian doctor, who diagnosed his
problem, but who, my fellow passenger complained, spent only a few
minutes with him. Later, when he went to a pharmacy to fill his
prescription for antibiotics, he found that he didn't have as many
pills as he thought he needed. The reason, he explained, was that
Canadian doctors try to game the system by getting patients to come
back for extra office visits to refill their prescriptions.

This nonsensical tirade against a country that offered a noncitizen
free health care only makes sense in the context of the rightwing
rhetorical battle against the commies who want to destroy America by
providing more citizens with health care.

The anti-universal-healthcare lobby is still out there. And much of the debate is unchanged since 1993.

Conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are railing
about "socialized medicine." Republicans are crowing that President
Obama's efforts at reform could be his "Waterloo."

But with 10 million more uninsured, fewer Americans are buying the
conspiracy theories. People know there is a health care crisis. Few
would object to getting free medical care in Canada. In fact, so many
U.S. citizens are sneaking across the border to get cheap drugs,
stories about the problem have become a local news staple.

So maybe the worst sign for the future of health care is the "conversion" of Harry & Louise to heath care reform advocates.

"A little more cooperation, a little less politics, and we can get
the job done this time," says Louise of the infamous PHARMA-funded
Harry & Louise ads, in the latest industry-financed national health care ad campaign.

After helping to torpedo the Clinton health care plan and launching
a new era in issue advertising, Harry & Louise made a comeback just
in time for the 2008 Democratic and Republican national conventions.
The writing was already on the wall. So, instead of railing about
choice and government-run health care, as they did in 1993, they
decried the plight of the uninsured and asked that the next President,
whoever he may be, put health care at the top of his agenda.

That was the first red flag.

But now, as the sausage machine in Washington cranks out a
lobbyist-pleasing health care bill that, as it works its way through
the Senate Finance Committee, no longer includes low-cost drugs or,
possibly, even a public option, it looks like reform is turning into
something Harry and Louise will love--no politics, no conflict, and
largely written by the business and pharmaceutical lobbies behind the
popular ads.

Actual U.S. citizens who are not paid by big Pharma still want an end to the health care crisis. That's why nine people were arrested
in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday for protesting in the lobby of Wellmark
Blue Cross Blue Shield, demanding an end to the insurance company's
profit-maximizing, health-care-denying practices and calling for a
single-payer, national health care system.

And it is why people are pouring into Washington, DC, on Thursday,
July 30, for a massive rally and lobbying day in celebration of Medicare's 44th birthday.

A New York Times/CBS News poll shows that a majority of Americans support a government-run, universal health care system. A survey of U.S. doctors reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that 59 percent favor a Medicare for All system of national health insurance.

Grassroots efforts to get this majority view across to the Obama
Administration and members of Congress are the best answer to the
wingnuts on rightwing radio and, more insidiously, the
populist-sounding proponents of faux health care reform, Harry &
Louise.