Nothing says sincerity like numbers, especially massive numbers, and I'm frankly surprised not to have seen calls for that most impressive, most public offering of support for real healthcare reform.
When I say that I mean:
- Showing it, not like a busload of right wing assholes destined to lower the public discourse with screeching hatred at local events, but showing it like the National Mall full of people in peaceful commitment to doing the right thing. We did it on election day and at the inauguration, and if not again on healthcare reform, for what did we elect Obama and that raft of Democratic Congresspersons?
- Up front support by attendees for a public option. The public option is important for all the reasons outlined in the many diaries here and at other points of public discourse, but let me clarify via distillation. The least among us deserve for the richest country on earth to provide basic care outside desperate measures, and most of the rest of us deserve that the insurance industry "blood funnel" be withdrawn so that insurance means actual coverage without caveats.
Let's face it. The greed that got us in the economic crisis is not dissimilar to the greed that has gotten us the healthcare debacle and is not dissimilar to the greed that has rendered the traditional fourth estate almost entirely impotent (Hence, ironically enough, us). I digress but not far, for we should finally and solidly show our president and the progressive caucus the support they deserve, because the healthcare cause needs it soon. Certainly many people outside of our direct sphere feel likewise, and even our direct sphere is no longer a marginal constituency. For waverers, cannot we move them by shame of greed?
Only by virtue of a public option can we assure that healthcare reform will not devolve into minor, insurance regulatory adjustment in the near term. When market conditions reflect unsustainable cost increases respective to the larger economy, only those invested in the most profitable aspects of the industry would suggest that injection of competition through the public option is unhealthy. That's why many large businesses and even players close to the situation, such as the AMA, Big Pharma, and the AARP generally side with us.
And you tax nuts, please spare me the trillion-over-ten-years crap. That's less than what we're spending on Iraq alone, and we had nothing like meaningful debate on that debacle.
The healthcare insurance industry, some hospital owners, and other less-publicized elements of healthcare allied with them doublebarrel us in almost the literal sense. They find willing collaborators by ingeniously tapping hatred of a liberal black president. I'm upended on which adjective should come first to describe the root of their dismay. The scenes would be scoffable, if the participants weren't obviously unhinged and apparently dangerous.
I want to tap the other. That unquenchable spirit of our better selves that have until now been silent must awake as the progressive majority and claim a victory by mass effort. No better place exists than Netroots Nation this week as an incubator of that effort.
Now if you will, imagine the Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity/Rove/O'Reilly quadrant of America futilely attempting to minimize the public spectacle of millions when this debate unfurls in the fall. Even better, imagine the Blue Dogs under enormous public pressure forsaking their corporate masters.