Health Care

The Seminal Comprehensive Absolute Last Word on Health Care Reform

Some of you will note that I have not contributed to this blog for some time. I think this deserves some explanation. First, we had a spell of hot weather here that made sitting in this room so miserable that I just couldn’t do it. We had record temperatures for a record number of consecutive days throughout the Northwest. I spent a few days in Portland and ended up doing a job in the blazing sun because the technician to whom it was assigned couldn’t handle the heat beyond the first 5 minutes. I ruined a pair of khaki pants with grease and hydraulic oil, and ruined about a gallon of water and two quarts of Gator Aid. It was 106° F. Public buildings in the Northwest have air conditioning. Houses, for the most part, do not. We found ourselves hanging around the mall more than at Christmas time. We also spent extra time in the local brewpubs—only because they are air conditioned mind you.

At about the same time it was starting to cool off in the Northwest, I went to Northern California for week. It was really pleasant weather-wise in both Sacramento and Oakland which is in stark contrast to my visit there in June when that area was blazing hot. When I got back to Seattle, I had a day or so of work to do for the store in Kent and quickly reverted to my old routine of listening to Public Radio on the way to the shop in the morning. This began a string of non-events that have made my neglect of the blog longer than it should have been. The topic of the NPR discussion that morning was the health care reform measures currently before Congress. By the time I was finished hearing the opponents’ platitudinous sound bite arguments, and the proponents’ ineffectual attempts to counter them, I was so pissed I could have spit nails. I was too disturbed to even be driving, let alone driving in Puget Sound area morning traffic. I immediately thought I should write something about it—right after I shot the asshole who just passed me on the right and then cut left in front of me. But several attempts at composition yielded no fruit. Each time I started to formulate some coherent ideas, I had a recurrence of the flushed-face, vein-in-the-neck-popping, spittle-spewing, anger that overcame me that first morning. I simply couldn’t make a cogent argument. This went on for well over a week. I discussed this frustration during a family gathering the other night and someone astutely noted that this sounded like just the sort of thing one should blog about. It was in fact the essence of blogging. I thought, “Hmm”, and then, “Screw it, here goes.”

I’m still too pissed to make any attempt at rational argument. This puts me on equal footing with the planted shouters who have been showing up at the “town meetings”. These are not “town” at all, but rather nationally broadcast forums being used for organized dissent. I have no problem with organized dissent, but don’t try to call it something else. It’s like the old ploy of waging all out war while engaging in peace talks. This is one of the most effective tools of war; kick their asses before they know they are in a fight. Righties use the tactic with finesse. Any time there is a suggestion that working people might have a different agenda than the privileged; someone is accused of “trying to create class warfare.” News flash! It is a war, has been for decades, and working and middle class people are getting whooped while they are in denial. The opposition deftly uses emotionally driven arguments to counter reason. This is a remarkable skill. But why bother? Emotion wins out over reason every time, so I will try to keep reason to a minimum despite constant temptation from facts and logic.


Should the government even be involved in healthcare?

You bet. The government, often with the approval and encouragement of the right, is involved in protecting us from everything under the sun. The government has taken it upon itself to protect us from communists, Corvairs, mythical WMDs, pot smokers, prostitutes, profanity, monopolies, gay marriage, pesticides, misleading advertising, hydrogenated oil, sodomy, and the list goes on. Why should it not then protect us from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and malaria? Oops! It already does that by subsidizing spraying programs and draining swamps. If you think there is any aspect of your life that is not already regulated, subsidized, or otherwise affected by the government, you are living in a fantasy. You want to live in a society without government involvement? I’ll bet most likely you don’t, not really.

[The subject of subsidy is a topic in itself. If the government spends one penny to subsidize anything from agriculture to space exploration (it does), it should subsidize medical research (it does). If it spends one penny of taxpayer money to subsidize that research, the fruits of the research should be available to every person who ever paid a penny of tax. I say, “No taxation without free bowel resection!”]

Will the proposed reform somehow limit my freedom to choose healthcare options?

I don’t really know, but I doubt it, and if it does, I really don’t care. Money talks. If I can afford choice, I’m damned sure going to get some. Meanwhile, people who don’t have insurance can’t even get into a hospital unless they go to the emergency room. They have zero choice. Now this is the place where I should introduce statistics, expert testimony, etc. Sorry, heard ‘em all, don’t care, you ain’t changing my mind. Sound familiar?

Will the proposed reform create a huge expensive bureaucracy?

Probably. So what? A bloated bureaucracy is what the government already is. There is no bigger bureaucracy in the world than the U.S. military and we’re all in favor of that. They are protecting us from a whole bunch of stuff. This bill may cost (How do the right-wing radio dipshits put it?), a thousand-billion dollars over ten years. (Only a liberal would mask the dire reality and trivialize the figure to a mere one trillion.) That’s only 200 billion more than we just gave to the bloated bureaucratic banking industry over what—a millisecond? Actually, we would just be replacing a private bureaucracy we already fund through subsidy but without oversight. Maybe if there are enough government jobs out there, we all might get one. I hear they come with insurance.

What about the fact that xyz% of Americans are happy with their current coverage?

Hooray! This presupposes that they have coverage to begin with, and I congratulate them. Aren’t they the lucky ducks? “I have mine and I could give a rat’s ass about yours.” Now that’s the kind of thinking a strong society is built on. At the internet urging of a sibling, I was recently directed to a website: Defend Your Health Care.croc. Well, I guess if I had some that was worth a shit and that I could afford, I’d defend the hell out of it. The site has some great examples of fear mongering and carefully crafted rhetoric. To counter the argument that covering preventative care will help contain increasing health care costs, the website has this to say. “…., virtually all studies show that prevention saves lives but not money.” Well hell, that’s disappointing—wouldn’t want to save many of those.

It goes on to say, “Most people who take cholesterol lowering drugs or get mammograms wouldn’t get sick anyway.” Isn’t that kind of the point? Just saying.

For a few more laughs, check out the website poll:
Who do you think will be hurt most by the Obama health care plan?
1. Small business.
2. Families.
3. The elderly.
4. Veterans.
5. Children.
6. Terminally disabled.

This is so obviously shaded; we don’t even need to change the question, just the answers:
Who do you think will be hurt most by the Obama health care plan?
1. Drug companies.
2. Drug company lobbyists.
3. Insurance companies.
4. Insurance company lobbyists.
5. Right wing commentators.
6. Fat assed Republican Senators.


Will there be some sort of panel or process for evaluating expenditures in end-of-life circumstances?

Absolutely not; but would it be so horrible if there was? Hey! We’re all laissez-faire survival of the fittest types, and let’s face it, skeleton Granny ain’t never gittin’ up, and if she does, she ain’t goin’ far and likely won’t know where she is when she gets there. And we are told every day that it’s all about the $$$$, and “hard choices,” and that kind of crap. If a grieving family needs some help while facing this extremely difficult situation, I would hope that counseling would be available. In fact, that’s all the bill does. It simply proposes to add counseling to the list of covered services. It doesn’t create any death squads or panels of liberal intelligencia to decide who lives and who dies. The notion of the “death panels” is a prime example of the opposition’s use of fear as a weapon. Plenty of fear can be generated around this topic because we well know that as our society ages; we will have to deal with this dilemma increasingly often. Right now it’s more comfortable to just ignore it and hope it goes away. Using it to make political capital is despicable. How about mandated living wills? At least then we would only be prolonging the existence of people who actually want it. I'll bet there wouldn't be very many. Is that intrusive enough for you?

Should universal coverage even be a matter of debate in this country? In this century?

Hell no! That’s what got me so riled in the first place. It wasn’t the inane arguments or the imbeciles who were delivering them; they are old and tired. It was the very idea that we are still spending time and intellectual effort in arguing something that almost every other civilized country put to bed shortly after World War II. OOH! We don’t want any European style system in this country. Fine, have another style, but for the love of Pete, have something. If the legislation that comes out has flaws, fix them later. The problem now is that we don’t even have a base from which to begin repairs. The status quo is unacceptable, and in your heart you know it.

Hold on! I feel some facts coming on. I have to go now. These are my opinions, my thoughts. I would love to hear some of yours, but please don’t send me any FWs or cut and pastes of politicians’, experts’, or columnists’ statistics, polls, opinions, or other tired drivel. I don’t care.