There are no easy answers but there are simple answers.
We must have the courage to do what is morally right.-Ronald Reagan
I have been watching the house argue health care reform all day online and although the incredible amounts of alcohol I’ve had to shove down my pie-whole to tolerate some of these fear-mongering assholes is at a breaking point I am at least satisfied that there is a healthy debate going on… even if it is more about class war and ignorance than saving lives and healing the sick. I’d much rather see these men fight it out on CSPAN than sucking each others dicks behind closed doors.
After decades of resistance and 40 years of a lull in progressive health care reform, HR Res 1203 will hopefully be passed through the United States House of Representatives today. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were the last significant reforms we’ve accomplished and I find that inexcusable. I blame a lot of different people and things for this. (blaming seems to be what I’m good at these days) Mostly incompetence and an egregious lack of some form of altruistic influence. (but that’s to be expected when your capitalist society only has the means to export military power) The required 216 represents a milestone in social reform for the United States.
Though I fear this will most likely end up as tax cuts and handouts to insurance companies at first, I feel like it’s a step in the right direction. Social security started the same way. Social Security wasn’t always the safety net it is today, in fact, when it was first introduced it was relatively weak compared to what we’ve grown into in 2010. It’s my personal opinion that people are often times thwarted from this alley of reform by 1 or more of the following misconceptions.
The Tyrannical and Evil Anti-American Socialist Agenda
The residual backlash from our most frictional days with Soviet Russia and our issues with fighting communism/socialism/nationalism. The problem with this argument is that this is not socialized medicine. The Socialist Party would spit on this bill, it’s utter shit compared to more socialist-democratic approaches in say France or Canada. This is practically just handouts to insurance companies so they don’t lose money while slowly transitioning them into requiring people by law to give them business. And they fucking bitch about that? The fear and misconception of this bill as a “complete government takeover” or a “socialized medicine” is usually more prevalent among the older folks and completely motivated by fear or a lack of basic economic understandings that are widely accepted in western and eastern cultures today.
Of course entire systems of governments like Communism don’t “work,” but Capitalism is inherently flawed as well. We must recognize that we aren’t a perfect country and privatizing important social structures like health care is a sick and dangerous path to walk. It’s borderline corporate murder. Americans die because of insurance companies. We never will be perfect but we must always strive to better ourselves. Capitalism is a sound basis but it needs adjustments to evolve over time.
While I can appreciate the instinctual knee-jerk reaction towards any reform involving this much tax payer money I find it abhorrent that we live in a country where 60% of bankruptcies are attributed to medical bills. To progress as a nation we need to constantly re-evaluate our system to keep up with the constant change in the global community and the needs of our own domestic population. The system is now broken. We are taking a large leap forward in following our European counter-parts with certain borrowed aspects from other health care systems… Socialists or not. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that happen.
The Red Herring
The second reason is the fear mongering going on with both sides of the aisle, especially in light of recent economic issues. Everything is everyone else’s fault and because of that fuck up your daughter will be raped, your wife brutalized, and your country tarnished. (at least that’s what they want you to picture) The amount of misinformation in more than abundant though anyone who follows politics regularly knows this is standard operating procedure. No one party is entirely to blame, they’re gangs fighting over turf. In the interest of time I won’t address specific issues but I think a lot of our problems would be solved if we all took the individual burden upon ourselves to read and review the bills in full text. Bills are a matter of public scrutiny and available online for a reason and it’s not only our right, but responsibility to be well-informed citizens. If you aren’t informed you’re part of the problem. I can understand opposing my views based on a well-informed opinion, I respect this view entirely. Those opinions formed on the words of politicians or under the darkened paranoid shadow of an American flag are failing to live up to the responsibility our forefathers envisioned. I see them as unpatriotic by virtue of ignorance, sometimes even willingly.
The point is that they can’t scare or distract you if you pay more god damn attention to what the fuck is going on in the world, instead most of us are apathetic alligators waiting for predators to make their skin into boots for one of these aristocrats to trample more hard working Americans with.
To further cement my point, check out a recent supreme court ruling that virtually blurs the lines between corporate and individual contributions in political campaigns. Lobbyists represent industries, who represent people, and in that sense are legitimate. The problem is we are letting insurance companies and private corporations to vicariously control our government. In a purely Capitalist society money is alpha male and we’re all going to get eaten alive.
As Spock often reminded Captain Kirk,
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”
