When I read the argument that we should let states opt-out of the responsibility to protect their citizens with affordable health care, especially posed as revenge of the blue states against their backwards red state neighbors, I thought of Obama's break out speech in 2004. Much as I am disgruntled with Obama the President, go back to that speech by Senator Obama.
E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us . . . I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.
Jon Walker at Firedoglake estimates that 51% of the population live in states that have GOP governors, GOP legislatures or both. Do we really want to bring about weak policy compromise that saves face for Blue Dog Democrats and/or run a policy head-to-head cage match on the backs of our friends and neighbors, whose health and security is on the line?
I also think of Martin Luther King, Jr in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"
I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Somehow this loses its moral force when you imagine something along the lines of: "I am concerned with what happens in Birmingham, but let us leave that to the residents there to see how civil rights works out in other states. Allow injustice to continue there and let it play out for 5 to 10 more years. If these residents see their friends and family enjoying the benefits of civil rights elsewhere (if it does indeed work), these states may begin to collect evidence a few years down the road allowing for more government debate, at which time perhaps there will be a referendum or grassroots movement that will bring justice there as well."
Then there's Howard Dean and Nate Silver being cited for giving the thumbs up to opting-out. I feel somewhat abashed disagreeing with Howard Dean or Nate Silver. I'm frankly mystified by Dean, but Nate Silver I think I get. Being a numbers guy, he thinks that red states and their residents will rationally weigh the facts and stats and consider their self-interest and decide the public option is better. Even putting aside millions of dollars of insurance industry lobbying and organized conservative opposition, people don't make decisions that way. People make decisions on emotions, on values, beliefs that are not necessarily even conscious. If we just had to hold up a better model to win the day, all you would have to do is describe the Canadian system and then the argument would be over. Michael Moore would have single-handedly won the health care debate with Sicko. Instead we debate death panels and sex clinics.
George Lakoff explains this at length
Look at this way if nothing else: ask yourself (as some people
similarly have in other posts) what if your next-door neighbors who liked to smoke in bed opted-out of services from the fire department? Would you feel secure? What if the federal highway system just stopped at some state borders? How would that affect travel and shipping? What if some states opted out of the judicial system? Why didn't Abraham Lincoln just let the South take one giant opt-out on the question of slavery?
Our health care system is just that, a system, interconnected across the nation and linked to other systems. And this is about more than policy, it's about a moral vision, a progressive vision, for shared prosperity and the common good. We should not abandon our progressive moral values for the sake of saving face for Blue Dogs.