PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” should have been the widespread notion that Obamacare is a test of progressive, active government. I am now successfully enrolled in health insurance for the first time in about ten years. Whoopee. I’m pleased that my 400-dollar-plus policy will give me some peace of mind, but I am not pleased to be one of the few defenders of a system designed to support the lifestyle of insurance executives who profit from fear and suffering.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand that this incremental step toward U.S. membership in the civilized world was necessary and better than nothing, but what increasingly galls me is that this unwieldy, inefficient, conservative, profit-based solution has been branded as liberal. Meanwhile, right-wingers are given free range to cynically sabotage it every chance they get, and media narratives (including PolitiFact) encourage mockery of it as an example of big, bad government.
Repeated polling shows how much conservatives hate compromise, so I suppose it’s hard for the poor bastards to admit they influenced Obamacare. To my mind, despite its subsidies provision, the Affordable Care Act can hardly even be thought of as a compromise solution (unless the compromise is with those forces who simply don’t believe in the goal of universal coverage at all). It is simply conservative. Fine, at least it’s something. But can we at least talk about it honestly? I realize the media are, generally, hopelessly attracted to shiny objects such as “government failure,” but my hope is that when they grow bored of right-wing talking points, they will, perhaps, start discussing healthcare reform in a more full, realistic context.
I’ve seen this pitiful pattern again and again. More than a decade ago, here in my home town of Austin, we voted down a comprehensive light rail system. Despite traffic that was beginning to rival L.A.’s, the anti-tax crowd won out. So, a few years later, diligent liberals succeeded in pushing through a hugely scaled-back alternative. So, whoopee, we now have a single line for the entire metro area, connecting downtown to the north side (borrowing existing commercial tracks). It was better than nothing – a “foot in the door” toward a transportation system that might be expanded upon later. The outcome was predictable. The media latched onto the shiny object of “failure”: low ridership and low revenues helped turn our little system into a laughing stock – yet another example of how “big government” can’t do anything right. As usual, liberals were left defending a totally watered-down compromise against the smug conservatives and libertarians who blocked real progress.
As you know, Texas has the worst health coverage in the country (with 25% uninsured), so I’ve been dutifully doing my little part to point people – particularly young adults I meet – toward healthcare.gov, countering their scoffing responses with meek claims that “the website is working surprisingly well now,” before having to admit that premiums, well, “they aren’t exactly cheap, unless you don’t mind high deductibles…” (“Socialized medicine,” my ass.)
It’s hard to get passionate about the mind-boggling details of Humana’s or BCBS’s bronze, silver, or gold plans, especially when you know that it ought to be Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn doing the cheerleading. I find myself despising these right-wingers for their persistent and cynical lies, as I spend hours and hours weeding through the fine print of policies, trying to figure out which tests are included, which specialists are excluded, which wrong turns could still lead me toward bankruptcy, etc. (You want it easy, safe, smooth and simple? How about Medicare for all?)
It is progress, of course. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing my new doctor in January, and I get some pleasure knowing my country now has a “foot in the door” toward universal coverage. I just wish the media mythmakers could somehow resist chasing every shiny object the right-wing throws at them. I have to remind myself that, with a little luck, the long view offers hope. Here in Austin there are some budding proposals for a larger light-rail system. Across the country, more and more governors are expanding Medicaid. Meanwhile the job of defending wasteful, complicated, conservative solutions is left to progressives. That’s fucked up.
The “big lie” is hardly that Obama said you could keep your plan if you liked it; insurance companies have always altered and dropped plans whenever doing so led to bigger profits. This has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act. The big lie is that this market-based solution is a test of strong-government liberalism.