As 22k Die Annually, Elites Ask "Why Rush on Health Care?"
I'm guessing the writers of the editorial all have great health care coverage. And I'm also guessing that dot-com millionaire Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), who the Post touts for opposing Obama's health care bill, also has pretty good health care coverage. So, I guess it's not that hard to understand how both the Post editorialists and Polis might wonder "what the rush" is. Shit, there's no rush for them at all! Out of their individual sight, out of their minds, right?
For the Rest of Us, though, there's clearly a rush. In fact, the reason for a rush is so obvious that anyone asking the question ends up making themselves look like Marie Antoinette happily saying, "Let Them Eat Cake."
But then, here's my question: Are we really "rushing?" It's a talking point we're hearing far and wide, from editorial boards to Republican senators like Olympia Snowe and Democratic senators like Ben Nelson. The forces of the status quo keep saying that President Obama is trying to "rush" health care reform.
And yet, health care has quite literally been debated and discussed as a matter of public policy since Harry Truman in 1945. You can look it up right here - again, it's a matter of verifiable public record. That's right, we've been debating this for 64 fucking years, and it's not like any of the proposals currently being considered are brand new - they've been thrown around Washington for decades.
So my question again: How is debating something for more than six decades a "rush?"
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Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Salon.com
Comments
Yes, people die because they do not get treated; they also die because they do.
Pills are poisons in small doses usually, so it seems to me that given the scale of the health care system, this actually provides an opportunity to think through the entire premise of how we conceive of health.
HOWEVER, I can see their point with regard to rushing. It's REALLY important that this get done right. There are a gazillion different ideas on this and I haven't heard very many concrete details about whatever plan will be voted on, AND YET what I do constantly hear is that it must be pushed through right away!
it seems to me though that lobbyists hold so much power in Washington that there is a good chance they will bastardize this legislation to such an extent that it turns into just another way to transfer wealth from taxpayers to corporations.
I want health care reform to pass, but I am going to be REALLY PISSED if they throw something together and it turns out to be just another giveaway to corporations! And so, I'd prefer they take their time, think it through and get it right.
Actually, with all due respect to you and old new lefty, reform movements to insure Americans for health care costs were occurring long before Truman, FDR, and Hoover. In fact, they have been occurring for nearly 100 years in the United States, since before World War I.
The earliest was in the 1910s, a concerted campaign for what was then called "compulsory health insurance" that took a state-by-state approach:
"In 1906, the American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) finally led the campaign for health insurance. They were a typical progressive group whose mandate was not to abolish capitalism but rather to reform it. In 1912, they created a committee on social welfare which held its first national conference in 1913. Despite its broad mandate, the committee decided to concentrate on health insurance, drafting a model bill in 1915. In a nutshell, the bill limited coverage to the working class and all others that earned less than $1200 a year, including dependents. The services of physicians, nurses, and hospitals were included, as was sick pay, maternity benefits, and a death benefit of fifty dollars to pay for funeral expenses. This death benefit becomes significant later on. Costs were to be shared between workers, employers, and the state." [Source 1]
Initially, moreover, the American Medical Association (AMA) actually supported the AALL initiative. As several states were about to adopt it, however, state medical societies began to oppose it, and the AMA later changed its position.
The outbreak of war between the U.S. and Germany in 1917 killed the U.S. health reform movement. Germany had pioneered European health insurance for workers in the 1870s, which now made the whole idea suspect in the eyes of Americans.
Social Security legislation under FDR during the Great Depression originally included provisions for health insurance, but Republican opposition resulted in the compromise measure we now know as Social Security. [Source 2]
See also Compulsory Health Insurance: the Continuing American Debate, edited by Ronald L. Numbers, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982.
And just as the first of these initiatives will soon be a centenarian, so have the private sector, organized medicine, and right-wing opponents been accruing experience and savvy in pushing Americans' Fear Buttons to further their own interests by defeating universal coverage.
Reform looked for a while like a done deal in 1994, too. We really should recognize from nearly 100 years of attempts that, as sure as actual reform may look now, it ain't in the bag till it's actually in the bag.
why not begin a citizen initiative for single payer health care? should win in a walk, right?
why not?