courtesy of www.twistedsnifer.com

  Here I am again, spending more ink, paper and time on a subject I consider troublesome and best ignored, Karl Rove.  The problem is, someone like Karl Rove can’t be ignored.

  What caught my eye this time was a reference on the website of my daughter’s liberal arts college referring to an opinion piece (http://online.wsj.com dated 9/17/09, Obama Care and the Red State Democrats) by Rove with regard to last weekend’s debate with Howard Dean, at the aforementioned college, an event I attended.  I don’t usually read the Wall Street Journal, or the works of Karl Rove, but I was eager to see if he and I had actually been in the same room and experienced the same debate, so I clicked on the link.

 

  Mr. Rove’s opinion piece really wasn’t about the debate, though it was referenced.  The piece was about the loss of public support for what he termed “Obamacare”.  Mr. Rove cites numerous polls showing a lack of support for healthcare reform and takes the President to task for labeling what Mr. Rove considers legitimate concerns of Americans as “false, demagoguery, distortion or tall tales”  (Really, Mr. Rove?  Not that I could ever imagine you doing the any thing like that, but I digress.)  Just how would one describe the specter of death panels? A fact?

 

  The problem with public opinion polls is twofold.  First: They are a numeric sampling of a position.  For every batch of numbers you show me that supports one position, I can show you a bunch of numbers that says something different.  These pesky numbers can be so unreliable.  It all depends on how you ask the question.  Secondly: Is the government of the United States of America in the position of policy making based on opinion polls, particularly if the results of the polls are based on lies and innuendo?  (That Iraq War thing worked out so well, didn’t it?) If that is how we now formulate policy we will have become the most random and unpredictable nation on earth.  The rest of the folks with whom we share the planet are going to love that. Randomness armed with nukes, awesome!)

 

  Sometimes policy makers have to bite the big one and do what is right, even if it doesn’t seem popular with the home crowd at the moment. (That is if we want to move into the future as a country and improve the lives of our citizens and our standing in the community of nations. If we don’t, well, that is a whole different thing, and it is time to move on to another topic.)  Our elected officials need to get one basic truth; most people fear change and equate it with something bad.  It is also true that change can equal something good.

 

 Case in point:  My line of work is that of a mortgage loan originator.  I help people finance the purchase of homes.  Most of my clients are regular working people buying starter homes or trading up to the four bedroom because their young family outgrew the two bedroom tract house.  These are not people expending their whole income on McMansions.  These are folks with factory jobs, teachers, waitresses, and truck drivers.  Their needs are modest and reasonable; a place to call their own, the first step in attaining the American Dream.  Is it so wrong to want to buy a house?   (It is a privilege to work with these folks; having the ability to play a small part in providing a stepping stone to a dream is gratifying.)  So there are happy and rewarding days associated with my job, but there are disappointing days as well, such as this Wednesday past.

 

  A woman in her early twenties contacted me about applying for a mortgage loan to purchase her first home.  The first step in the process is to obtain a preliminary credit report.  The credit report for this woman showed over $60,000 in unpaid medical collections and judgments.  When I called her to decline her application, I tried to gently tell her that perhaps she might want to consider consulting a bankruptcy attorney.  She angrily told me that her young son had required emergency surgery to save his life. Her job provided no health insurance and she couldn’t afford the premiums to buy it. What was she supposed to do?  Let him die? 

 

 And how will she ever get out from under this mountain of debt if she doesn’t file bankruptcy?  Her feelings were that she is not the kind person who files for bankruptcy and she was hostile to the idea.  Maybe not, but the medical collections and judgments on her credit report will not disappear.  They will impact every financial task she undertakes in the future from applying for an auto loan to possibly whether or not she is hired for a job for years to come. (Yes, many employers now look at a candidate’s credit report when making hiring decisions.)

 

 The cold hard fact is that 62% of the bankruptcies filed last year were for medical reasons.  Sixty two percent.  That is a number you can’t argue with.  So beyond the shadow of a doubt those of us who do have health insurance are not only paying higher premiums in order to cover the cost of the uninsured, but we also are paying more for the costs of goods and services that are written off through the bankruptcy courts.  You can’t get blood from a turnip. So do you think that if that young woman had access to affordable health care that would have been bad?

 

  The “common sense right” as Mr. Rove terms folks, who think like him, want you to believe that people who file bankruptcy are deadbeats, irresponsible or high livers who are responsible for their own fate.  No, they are not.  People who file bankruptcy are you, they are me.  I see very few people who have filed bankruptcy in the past who were simply irresponsible spenders.  Irresponsible spenders do exist, but not in the high numbers of right wing myth and legend.

 

 So returning to the fear of change; yes, many people are afraid of change, are afraid that what they know and are used to will somehow be different and they won’t like it.  However, the health care they know and depend on will change one way or another with or without “Obamacare”.  Consider the instance of a friend of mine:  Greg has a good job that requires a specific skill set with a company that works with government defense contracts.  He was scheduled for open heart surgery this past summer.  Three weeks before his surgery his company was purchased by another firm.  He lost the company paid health care that had approved his heart surgery.  The health care firm that replaced it made the decision that his heart trouble was a pre-existing condition and they wouldn’t cover his open heart surgery.  So what is my friend to do? Sell his house, not send his four children to college? Die? Pick one, he has to.

 

  Job loss, corporate consolidation, buy outs, reduction in benefits, or being dumped from coverage because you neglected to mention that wart you had removed when you were nine years old, are all ways in which employer related heath care can change without any change in the current health care system. This is something that those who are opposed to heath care reform, such as Mr. Rove kind of forget to mention when they are stoking up fear.

 

  What would Karl Rove know about every day Americans (other than how to manipulate us)?  What empathy or sensitivity could he possibly have to our hopes, dreams and the struggles of our daily lives?  What he does know only too well is how to make us afraid.  He and his right wing cohorts are experts at that, cynically using fear (of terrorists, of Obama the other, of weapons of mass destruction, and fear of each other) so they can retain their cushy prosperous position in the scheme of things.

  Our legislators need to begin showing some backbone and move ahead with a healthcare plan that works for We The People.  Where are the leaders?  Who has the heart and the nerve to step up and do what is right instead of what is popular at the moment?  Which of you did we elect for the sole purpose of re-electing anyway?  Who has the strength of character to get the job done?  Is there anyone left in Congress who is willing to fight the good fight?  The line forms on my left.  I am afraid it is not going to be a very long one.