The subject of health care for some reason excites the emotions of wild-eyed reactionaries more than most subjects; it also drives the less emotional but more calculating beady-eyed beancounters (we'll call them the CBBs) who run our major health care, insurance, and pharmaceutical companies into paroxysms of irrationality.
As a result, once again concerned that reforms now being discussed would eat into their profits, the CBBs are resorting to scare tactics, and the effort seems officially "on" to peddle the big lie. I refer, of course, to the television ads that have started to appear this week, sponsored by the "PatientsUnitedNow.com" (we'll call them PUNc). These "patients," like the "people" of the "People of America's Oil and Gas Industry" whom I've talked about before, are curiously wealthy, as they can afford to buy three 30-second spots in the single 30-minute evening news show I just watched, and presumably on many other shows too. You might almost suppose they're not patients at all, because they sure sound like the CBBs! Well, actually, the PUNc site is sponsored by one of those right-wing lobbying groups called the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. That way you won't think (if you're an idiot) that the CBBs are involved here.
Anyway...the Orwellian PUNc ad begins with an indictment of the Canadian health system (it's distorted but I'll ignore it because it's also completely irrelevant), and it moves on to the utterly false claim that "Washington" wants to impose a Canadian style system on the U.S.
Actually, as I'm sure PUNc knows, no one is actually proposing a Canadian-style government-run health care system. We all know, of course, that there are some radical Democrats who do favor a so-called "single-payer" option. The PUNc offers a video clip of one, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, as their proof that "Washington" is planning to take over health care. But these people are few, and there are equally extreme views on the reactionary right of the spectrum, and in both cases, nobody is listening to them.
ALL the plans currently under consideration in Congress provide for building on the private-insurer based system that we already have. Some of those plans include the "government option" that would be only one choice in a veritable ocean of hundreds, if not thousands, of privately-run plans. The CBBs are scared to death of this public option, and they want you to be scared too. So they just lie. "Washington" is not planning to governmentalize our entire health care system.
We might ask why the CBBs are SO frightened. Since they and their paid sponsors in Congress profess to believe in the power of the private sector to do anything better and cheaper than government, what could possibly be the danger in one puny government-devised plan? Surely it would be inefficient, costly, and would carry draconian rules forcing you to use a team of government-hired quacks for your health care. So you'd choose one of the hundreds of private plans instead, right? Maybe you're concerned that you don't choose your own health care plan, your employer does. But since the private plans, all goosed up with the juice of free enterprise, would be able to offer care cheaper and more efficiently, believe me, no employer is going to pick the more expensive government plan.
Does PUNc really think that the scary Congresswoman Schakowsky's prediction (everybody will race to get into the government option, leaving the poor CBBs bereft) can possibly materialize? Hardly. The American people would have to elect about 300 more Schakowskys (and if they did, wouldn't that be an expression of the will of the American people?)
The answer, as I've said before, is that maybe the private sector can indeed fashion a cheaper, better plan than the government. But they don't want to because there isn't enough profit in providing fair coverage at a fair price. Remember, these folks are not so different from the credit card companies (which have recently suffered a minor wrist-slap from Congress for their rapacious treatment of consumers). And if the continue to resist competition instead of adapting to it, they'll be headed down the path of GM and Chrysler. Corporations seek profits, the more profit the better. That's what they do. But without checks and controls from government, they easily get out of hand.
I diverge...the main point is that I resent PUNc's lying to me, and I dislike its scare tactics, straight out of the Rovian Swift-Boat-Veterans playbook. This form of public "dialogue" is no different from the terrorist who sets off a bomb in a public place. The objective is to frighten people into doing things without considering all the facts.
The PUNc TV blurb also says that "no government should come between you and your family" -- damned right, it's the CBBs who do that now, and they want to keep on doing it. In one sense, perhaps we really should be scared...scared that if we swallow these companies' ..(er, "patients' ") tripe, they'll still be in unregulated, noncompetitive control of our health care, and just imagine what lies they'll tell us then.
My sense of the free exchange of ideas compels me normally to provide links to websites, even those with which I don't agree. I feel less compelled when the site propagates pure lies and clearly does not share my sense of editorial responsibility. However, if you have read this far and haven't seen the TV ad, here's where you can see what they call "Shona's ad."
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