I just saw Markos on the Ed Show. He took off the gloves and declared that he was going to hold Dennis Kucinich personally responsible for the 40,000 people that will die every year from lack of health care if this reform bill isn’t passed. He says Kucinich is taking the Ralph Nader approach – the Ralph Nader, Kos reminded us, who brought us eight years of George Bush and two wars and the disappearance of our civil liberties. Kos says the reform isn’t everything we wanted, but IT’S A GOOD FIRST STEP.
Now I’ve been noticing the past few days a sharp hyperpolarization in these blog pages over precisely this issue. Yesterday there was a diary that trashed the motives of Democratic opponents of health care reform. Kos’ assault on Kucinich tonight seems to represent the point of the spear. HEALTH CARE REFORM IS A GOOD FIRST STEP – 40,000 DIE EVERY YEAR – BETTER GET OUT OF THE WAY BECAUSE THE LEXICAL BRASS KNUCKLES ARE COMING OUT.
But I think you boys are getting a little ex cathedra on us here. You say this is a good first step. Let me challenge that conclusion. This bill forces tens of millions of Americans to buy health insurance. At present health insurance is possibly the single most loathed product widely sold in America. And yet you say it’s a good first step to force everybody to buy such a product? Let’s see why you might say that.
You might say that because you believe that forcing tens of millions of Americans to buy health insurance will ensure that they will be able to obtain adequate medical care when they get sick. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of an average middle class person whose insurance has recently gone up to $10,000 a year out of pocket, and a $1,000 copay, as a Blue Cross customer in California recently posted in these pages. This person has health insurance – but is he going to go to the doctor for procedures when he has to pay the first $10,000?
So there’s a little problem I have with the current health care reform. It seems likely given the predatory nature of the insurance industry that the products that Americans will be forced to acquire will in fact not be worth the paper they are written on, and that illness will still force millions into bankruptcy or into avoiding needed medical care altogether – even though they have insurance.
I have followed all the vague talk about regulating insurance companies through the exchange. Will this be anything like regulating banks through the Federal Reserve? The idea that “regulations” are going to force insurance companies to provide adequate health coverage at affordable costs is to me inconsistent with the known modus operandi of the insurance companies and indeed of capitalist corporations in general.
So there’s my little problem with the questioning of motives and the ex cathedra damning of opponents of health care reform. My problem is that you believe it is a good first step in health care reform to require tens of millions of Americans to buy health insurance without controlling costs. You talk about cost controls through some type of regulations, but regulations in Washington are routinely gamed by corporate lobbyists.
I am against this health care reform bill because I believe it represents a repulsive kind of pragmatism, almost as if in the 1960s in the Civil Rights debates Democrats had decided to eliminate white-only water fountains and separate restrooms but allow school segregation to continue. This proposed health care reform is repulsive to progressive values because it does not address the central moral issue, an issue long since settled in every other advanced country in the world, and that is, the right of a citizen to obtain needed health care regardless of ability to pay.
If you trust future government regulation to maintain health insurance costs, copays and deductibles in an affordable range for all Americans then I can see why you might passionately support this bill. But to believe that the American consumer can be adequately protected against rapacious corporations by regulation seems to be a bit of a stretch after the recent meltdown of our largest financial institutions. It certainly does not justify the nasty contumely being heaped on opponents of the health care reform on this site. If corporations continue to behave as usual, if their lobbies continue to dominate regulatory bodies in Washington, then this health care reform will NOT be such a good step forward. To me it looks like THIS REFORM WOULD TURN OVER AMERICAN HEALTH CARE TO A FAILED SYSTEM.
Where do you stand?