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The health care “debate” and our collective moral bankruptcy

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Two things up front: 1.) I believe quality health care is a fundamental right that should be afforded to all persons regardless of _________, 2.) I believe governments have a moral responsibility to ensure that said care is provided to its citizens.  For me, these are non-negotiable.  Period.

Our country is the closest it has ever been to ensuring the most of its citizens have access to quality health care.  I will be outraged, not to mention deeply disappointed, if we fail to push it through.  At this point we’re our own worst enemy.  As Jon Stewart pointed out in a recent episode of The Daily Show, it wouldn’t be all the surprising if President Obama’s approval rating of the American people has plummeted over the last month or so.  The lack of civility and reasonableness in our public discourse on this issue would be disappointing if it weren’t so pathetic.

I’m continually perplexed at the various ways in which people either hear or see what they want to or intentionally caricature what is said by resorting to scare tactics (I’m looking at you Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck).  Most people simply aren’t working with the facts and if they are the choose to sideline them in favor of something that sounds controversial and may gain some shock value or media attention.1

Health care is too important of an issue for us to play games.  I’m afraid if we keep screwing around we’re going to miss our chance.  Then we will be responsible for the lack of care and ensuring that the uninsured remain uninsured.  There won’t be any passing the buck.  The blame will rest squarely on our shoulders.

Yesterday President Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times that clearly and carefully articulates his position yet again.  You should stop right now and read the whole thing.  Here’s what I think is the nucleus.

This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.

But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

I read that and I simply don’t understand what the great end-of-the-world, apocalypse inaugurating problem is that I keep hearing about.  What is so wrong with providing a public option for those who can’t afford it?  Please tell me.  Or better yet, let’s tell those who currently can’t afford care why it is that they were just dealt the wrong hand and don’t have the right to the same quality care that the rest of us enjoy.

It is deeply disturbing, I think, when this idea is met with such anger and hate by people (mostly white people who can afford health care, by the way) at town hall meetings and not accepted with a sense of great urgency.  Perhaps the health care debate is what racism and classism looks like in the 21st century.  It looks more and more like Gordon Marino was right when he wrote that “the fact that a significant number of Americans do not feel any urgency to revamp a system that leaves millions of our sick without care is symptomatic of the fact that we must be suffering from a hardening of more than our arteries.”  Indeed, our irrational and childish behavior is demonstrative not only our compassion deficiency but our collective moral bankruptcy.

Perhaps the recent recession extends to more than our economy.

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  1. One of the best places to keep up with what is fact and what is fiction is http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ [↩]

Written by Blake Huggins

August 17th, 2009 at 8:00 am

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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  • Jjoe
    The issue with "why let government run it" goes away when you look around the world and see that it's really the only model that works.

    Unless your assumption is that the U.S. government is less efficient than other countries, so that they've got the gumption there to make it work and we just aren't capable.

    You don't have to be very efficient to be more efficient than what we've got now. The savings from paperwork alone that would be eliminated with single payer has got to be in the billions of dollars. In my household, nothing else is even remotely more bureaucratic than dealing with doctors and insurance companies, and we're relatively healthy. Hefty profit margins and obscene CEO and senior manager salaries are also inefficiencies in the process.

    But economic arguments don't matter to me. We find money to wage war, bail wall street millionaires out, subsidize oil and gas companies and so on, I reckon we can find money so a single mother working at minimum-wage can get a mammogram or have her kid's ear infection treated.

    It's a moral imperative. If "you'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love" then why do secular countries do a lot better job of helping the least of these?
  • Larry B
    "What is so wrong with providing a public option for those who can’t afford it? Please tell me."

    In theory if that's what the public option was, it isn't such a bad idea. The problem is that public option has been defined as something that would "provide more choice and more competition to drive down the cost and improve the quality of care". It's not being advertised as a plan to cover the needy.

    It's that tact that Obama has taken that leaves people with doubt and uncertainty. There is not a single government entity that has ever had success in producing competition, driving down cost and improving quality at the same time.

    They don't have to compete in a market economy because their revenue stream is backed up by the ability to raise taxes when deficits occur. They drive down cost not by investment and innovation, but by the machinations of bureaucracy that dictates policies and practices based on political wills. Quality is strangled because a bureaucracy measures itself and sets it's own guidelines. It is accountable to no one. That is what leaves most ordinary Americans wary of the public option as it has been presented.

    If you think that the screamings of people like Sarah Palin and Glen Beck are responsible for peoples angst, you need to step out of your echo chamber and look at the numbers. They don't have enough viewers/listeners to make even a small dent in any kind of election situation even if every one of them voted as they were told. The media loves to magnify and glorify itself and we seem to lap it all up and act like the media gets it right.

    Most ordinary people pay no attention to that and instead focus on what matters to them. And when it comes to this, they don't trust the government and they aren't about to hand them the ability to radically reshape our health care system. Whether that's wrong or not - that's where they stand.
  • There are definite problems with the way the plan has been publicized thus far. Obama himself, based on his comments at some of the town hall meetings, hasn't exactly remediated the bad press or made things clearer for people to understand.

    I don't know that the plan hasn't been described has one to help those that are uninsured. That was at least part of the initial incentive. That being said I don't disagree with your description, but I also don't buy the argument that things like this haven't worked before so it's not worth trying.

    I never said that Beck, Palin and others were responsible people's angst (and I stepped outside my echo chamber a long time ago thank you very much). I hope that my fellow citizens are more independent than that, but the ideologues sure haven't helped. Anyone who thinks they and the rest of mainstream media lack influence is kidding themselves. Sure people may not buy it hook, line and sinker (though I know some who do!) but they listen. I also suspect that people's collective anxiety about the economy has more than contributed as well, which is unfortunate but I wish we could at least approach this with some civility.

    When it comes to trust I find it very interesting that most people have no trouble trusting the government when we comes to issues of foreign policy or defense (an area where we spend far more tax dollars) but curiously change their tune when it comes to domestic reform. Just an observation.
  • Larry B
    Your last paragraph makes a key point. I don't trust the government that much when it comes to defense or foreign policy, but we have a constitution that allocates that power to the government. It's nearly impossible to change that as you have pointed out in one of your comments regarding your frustration with Bush's foreign policy.

    I guess I could ask the reverse of you and wonder why you would want to give the government the keys to healthcare now. It's bad enough they have the foreign policy and defense responsibilities, why add more?
  • Well, it depends on how you read the preamble. I'm no Constitutional scholar, but I interpret "to promote the general welfare" to mean that the gov't has the responsibility to provide care for its citizens.

    It's interesting though, because while the Const. states that the gov't should "provide for the common defense," I don't think the majority of our foreign policy ventures in the last, say, 50 years (probably longer) have strictly been to provide for the common defense. More often than not they've been to secure or maintain our "interests" abroad.

    So there's been some freedom in that interpretation.
  • I find it eerily ironic (and terribly pathetic) that the strongest advocates against health care reform--indeed, against possibly any social welfare program--are those who most fervently defend the Bible as the inerrant word of God. So many of Christ's teachings available to adhere to, yet fundamentalists (both political and religious) have repeatedly demonstrated their unwillingness to put them into action. Perhaps the distinction between fundamentalism and irrational behavior is becoming less and less blurred to me.
  • Mike Lindstrom
    I agree with your sentiments. However, we found ourselves in an uncomfortable place regarding the war in Iraq when we listened to an administration who said, "trust us" this will work. Some balked at the idea. Now the administration is operating from the other side of the political aisle and those who used to balk declare we must just trust our president, and those who were willing to trust now balk.

    You quote President Obama as saying, "let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another..." Unfortunately I do not see a willingness to engage in other solutions. It is the Democrats way or no way. Obama has the biggest microphone and other possibilities are not able to get heard - so it's easy to say "they" have no solutions. What you characterize as hatred and scare tactics are extreme possibilities, but possible nonetheless.

    There is no discourse in the political arena from either side. We will not talk to each other because it means we have to work toward compromise. To compromise with the other side is to open yourself up to losing your election and power. And therein lies the real motivations.

    May God forgive us for playing political football and for the lack of willingness we have as individuals to meet the needs of others. It could be done without the government as the provider. The resources are there if we are willing to give.
  • I agree with what you're saying about confidence in the gov't. I think it is very unfortunate that all of the public's trust capital in the federal government was wasted on a silly, unjust, imperial war. Now when we really need to push something through people are wary. And rightly so given the last eight years.

    Now, I haveno ties to either party. I'm a progressive independent who sees both parties as two sides of the same coin and more a part of the problem than the solution. But to be honest, it is very hard for me to have any sympathy for the Republicans here. They have peddled misinformation about the proposed reform and have, as usual, resorted to rhetorical scare tactics in order garner support. I just don't see that from the other side right now.

    You mention that Obama and the Democrats aren't willing to compromise but over that last several days Obama, Sec. Sebelius and other Democratic leaders have indicated they are willing to do so by suggesting that the public option that Republicans have derided is not vital to reform. Personally, I disagree. I think that order for there to be true reform there must be a public option or most of those that are currently uninsured will remain uninsured. All that will change is that those who can afford health care will simply pay less. That in itself is not a bad thing but it certainly isn't enough. A public option in competition with the private insurance companies -- who are unfortunately interested in profit and not the welfare of people -- coupled with a healthy dose of regulation is, I think, the best solution to the status quo. But regardless of all that the fact that Obama and company are willing to negotiate on the public option tells me they are willing to compromise. I anything like that coming from the Republicans. Nothing. They just continue incite anger and fear.

    So I agree with your call to stop the playing around and to roll our sleeves up and get things done. But when I see Obama and Sebelius willing to compromise on the one hand and Sarah Palin and other ideologues spreading lies about "death panels" on the other, I have to place the blame on the latter.
  • Mike Lindstrom
    Why is it that it took all the rhetoric and uprising to get to this point? I do not see true willingness to work together and compromise. I see people looking at approval ratings and the possibility of losing the next election - or losing seats. You give them more credit than I do. They have said it enough times - "We won. end of story".

    So those who speak loudly about the extreme possibilities may have been the only way to get reasonable, but differing voices heard. The same was true when people wanted to declare George Bush an Imperialist or one who wanted to take up for his father or wanted to fight just for oil.

    I think there are Republicans worth listening to even though there are others who are not. While Obama may be as altruistic as you seem to think, the reality is there are 47% who did not vote for him and he only listens when the rhetoric gets high enough.
  • I guess I didn't make myself clear the first time around: I have no interest in partisanship (I get the sense that you do but I may be wrong). While I agree with Obama and the Democrats here I couldn't care less who gets the credit. Just as long as it gets done. I voted for Obama, I'm glad he was elected, and I'm well aware that a little less than half of the country voted for him. But for me this isn't about him or his altruism or who wins or who gets the credit. It's about the some 45.8 million people who do not have access to quality health care.

    As for the issue of compromise. I don't think your working with all the facts, especially what has happened over the past several days as I highlighted in my previous comment. Again, the Republicans haven't shown any effort to do likewise. I'm not saying this as Democrat interested it winning or scoring rhetorical points. I'm saying it because it is the reality of the so-called debate thus far.

    Of course there are Republicans worth listening to, I'm not saying there aren't. The problem is that they either aren't talking or they're being drowned out by the media crawlers and others that insist on shouting and resorting to scare tactics.

    That being said, I still don't see what the problem is with the reform plan as it currently stands. And unfortunately, when it comes to compromise and constructive debate I haven't heard anything substantive from those that reject it.
  • Mike Lindstrom
    My interest is not just in seeing people cared for but also for seeing our country come to a place of more reasonable discourse. I am not interested in partisanship. I do hope we find a way to lower costs and get more access to basic care for those who currently have none (I wince at that even as I type it because it lends itself to only the wealthy getting "advanced" care).

    I long to read a story where reasonable people on both sides worked through issues like "public options" and "tort reforms" and came to some understanding. I want the possibility of reasonable discourse because otherwise we will go on being a country divided along idealogical lines.

    Thanks for engaging in this conversation. I appreciate being able to wrestle through the issue without personal attack. I'll join you in hoping something good and substantial comes out of this and people who need the care will get what they need to keep themselves and their families whole and healthy.
  • I appreciate your engaging in the conversation as well. Even more, I appreciate the pushbacks. Comments like those are always more useful and constructive than the others. Here's to hoping the best comes of this very soon. Best wishes.
  • Weird. Just last night I asked on facebook if it's moral and/or ethical for an insurance company to profit from a person's illness. Great minds, I guess. I'm not even solidly in the camp of health-care-as-human-right, but it seems to me that benefiting from such a thing is ideologically questionable at best.

    This should be a no-brainer, which is exactly why those politicians opposed to it (who with rare exception get some form of funding by the health insurance industry) have chosen outright lies and scare tactics to chase off reasoned debate. There's no good argument not to at least make major reforms, if not completely overhaul the system.

    Sadly, those who are showing up angry at these meetings, if they aren't paid for by lobbyists, are older Americans who are victims of the scare tactics. After all, they've been told that they will soon be murdered if reform goes through.

    (They also receive Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security and don't see the cognitive dissonance, which baffles me.)
  • The issue does come down to morality. Yet different groups ascribe to vastly different moral standards. I see the protection of "the least of these" to be exceedingly important, as well as an element of fairness. Others, while considering those two aspects, are also concerned about their family might get less care, their countries economic future may be compromised, and find nearly any form of taxation or government involvement repugnant.

    While I too share those latter 3 values, I look at a young family with an ill or adopted child, who cannot get insurance at any cost, as more important. Same deal with an elderly person, who can't afford a cadillac policy being excluded from vast number of life saving treatments, should they so desire.
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