Until, I saw this article.
In the August 24th & 31st issue of Newsweek, Johnathan Alter wrote a column titled "Health Care as a Civil Right" about the political rhetoric of the health care debates. He noted the prominence of the so-called Screamers, who have paraded through media headlines and broadcasts for weeks as they attack their Senators and Representatives at town halls. Fueled by catchy slogans and false rumors about death squads and mandatory government-interference in their health decisions, these mobs have largely dominated the health care debate - in part because supporters of the health-care plan, whether elected or appointed or grassroots, have failed to provide an equal and opposite vocal response.
As Alter puts it: "[I]t's the Party of Sort-of-Maybe-Yes versus the Party of Hell No!" He speculates that health care supporters have "forgotten the stakes - they've forgotten that this is the most important civil-rights bill in a generation."*
Passage would end the shameful era in our nation's history when we discriminated against people for no other reason than that they were sick. A decade from now we will look back in wonder that we once lived in a country where half of all personal bankruptcies were caused by illness, where Americans lacked the basic security of knowing that if they lost their jobs they wouldn't have to sell the house to pay for the medical treatments to keep them alive...
Have we somehow forgotten how important this is - or have we just forgotten how to fight for it? Are we really going to sit on our hands and let an ill-informed, insistent mob of squeaky wheels prevent those who really need health care coverage from getting it?
Those of us who are Democrats were without recourse for eight years. Those of us who believe that forming our Constitution's "more perfect union" requires equality of opportunity have been without recourse for much longer. And for as long as we have been a nation, people have been dying because they can't afford to live, have been losing out because they can only afford to live - all because their fate is left in the hands of those who are just out to "get mine."
If you support health care, if you care whether the uninsured live or die, if you recognize that that could be you one day, then get loud.
Health care is a civil right.
Fight for it.
*Emphasis mine
Hi Weslie! ☺
ReplyDeleteI just discovered your blog after returning from a long hiatus from Facebook and blogs and other such things…and even though I’m usually shy about commenting, I want to tell you that I love reading your eloquently expressed ideas. I often find myself wanting, hesitating, not quite knowing how to nudge conversations away from small talk toward deeper issues, and I’m so glad that you are helping to encourage these kinds of conversations via your blog. I’ve actually been thinking for some time to start a blog myself…but maybe my hesitation comes from this feeling that I am something of a jack of all trades, master of none--interested in various things but without enough expertise to thoroughly discuss any one of them…hehe...
Which brings me to the health care debate. Can’t say I know a lot about this issue (unless you count that one course in Intro Health Care Policy that didn’t totally work out for me). Still, even though in the past I have tended to be rather bored and disillusioned with politics (resulting, unfortunately, in my relative ignorance of many important issues), I have found myself becoming more curious about topics like this since the presidential election. Unfortunately, it seems as though most of the debate--especially in the mainstream media--has been diluted to partisan bickering: Socialists! Death Panels! vs. Anti-Reform, Anti-Poor People Lobbyists! and so on.
I agree with you in the sense that I would like all people who need health care to have it. To me, however, this “comprehensive” health care reform bill just looks like more incremental-ism, a patch-up kind of thing. I don’t understand how it can address the underlying factors influencing rising costs and mismanagement, such as:
*lifestyle, personal fulfillment, and other quality of life issues that significantly affect health
*the appearance of bias in institutions like the FDA in favor of drugs and allopathic (conventional) medicine rather than effective alternative forms of health care and prevention
*the issue of using insurance (which is supposedly designed to measure risk) as prepaid comprehensive health coverage rather than protection against catastrophe (like auto or life insurance)
*the issue of using HMOs as an example of market failure despite government laws that solidified their role in health care (e.g. HMO Act of 1973).
*tax credits for employers who purchase health insurance for their employees, but none for individuals who want to purchase their own health insurance…
I could ramble even more, but instead I'll refer you to this critique of the bill (written by a Democrat, no less)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
and this alternative bill from a congressman who seems to be the most reasonable Republican I've ever seen.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul407.html
Just my two cents...I'd like to hear what you think.
Sorry this was so long! Hope your summer is going well...can't wait to see you in the fall.
<3 Berhanu