Health care and health care reform comes up against the right wing's social agenda:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Doctors who pushed the group to oppose "don't ask, don't tell" say the policy forcing gay service members to keep their sexual orientation secret has "a chilling effect" on open communication between gays and their doctors.
Makes sense to me: as an NPR article this morning said, a doctor's note revealing homosexuality would prove a violation of DADT. I think we should wonder about a policy that has our servicemen and women guessing whether they should edit their statemetns to their own doctors.
The articles have another statement, this time about health care insurance reform:
The health disparities policy is based on evidence showing that married couples are more likely to have health insurance, and that the uninsured have a high risk for "living sicker and dying younger," said Dr. Peter Carmel, an AMA board member.
Same-sex families lack other benefits afforded married couples, including tax breaks, spouse benefits under retirement plans and Social Security survivor benefits — all of which can put their health at risk, according to an AMA council report presented at the meeting.
But Jenny Tyree, a marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, a conservative advocacy group, called it a health insurance problem, not a marriage problem. "We all know there are problems with health care so let's solve the problem of the uninsured, rather than messing with marriage," she said.
I agree with the right wing tool in this sense: health care reform isn't a forum to fight the same old culture wars of abortion and gay rights, and making it that is going to give the right wing an excuse to kill it. Remember, what's wrong with Kansas was that culture wars got people to support pro business agendas.
Let's keep the HCR focus on the NEW culture wars of whether it's communist/fascist death panels and old white people on medicare, and the essential issue of making health care more affordable.