Want the Public Option as Much as I Do? Then Get Mad
I've been following the debate about health care reform with bated breath, just like the rest of you. This is perhaps the most important issue being negotiated in our country right now, both in the Congress and the media.
Like most of you, I'm frustrated that the reform being debated isn't a single payer health care program, which is exactly what we need to take the best care of the most Americans. Instead, we're left debating a host of much more limp, industry-friendly options, but one in particular needs our support.
Right now, the GOP is working tirelessly to kill what Democrats have coined "The Public Option". The Public Option is, for better or worse, the closest thing we're going to get to the health care system we need to heal the bloated, petty excuse for health "care" in this country. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has quite publicly proclaimed that even the idea of a government alternative to the price-gouging insurance corporations needs to go away. More surprising is that even Senator and former Presidential Candidate John Kerry (D-MA) has been ready to fold on the issue, recently offering to hold off on a public option for a decade.
The Public Option is important for a few reasons. Chief among them being the fact that I don't trust private industry with my health. The profit motives of a private industry don't exactly inspire the confidence or level of altruism I'd like when dealing with the health and wellness of my loved ones.
The next reason is that it's already well-documented that so much of the money that goes into private insurance is fed into overhead, I just don't see how private industry seems like a viable option next to the relatively low overhead Medicaid and Medicare boasts. If private industry had to compete with an option that truly was altruistic and run by people whose goal was to offer you affordable health care and ensure the treatment you need, we'd see them shift more towards that model.
The last reason we need it, desperately, is to prove to people how non-threatening government run insurance is, how cheap it can be, and how efficiently it can work. If we can point to this system as something that has been a benefit to enough people then we can actually work towards eliminating the greed and excess of a privatized insurance system.
Seeing the GOP minority work so hard to prevent this from happening is pretty frustrating, though it is expected, even taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans (Republicans included!) favor The Public Option. What is too much for me to bear, however, are the Moderates and and Leftys who seem to so easily be caving to the GOP on this. John Kerry I mentioned above, but the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius told NPR (listen to that here) that single-payer isn't even in the cards. And we're seeing far more conservative Democrats compromising their way out of a public option than we are progressives convincing them to stay.
My point is that more than anything in American politics that will shape the course of how we take care of ourselves and each other, this public option is what I see as the most important.
Seeing it flounder is frustrating me. Seeing it being sold down the river by "progressives" and "Democrats" is downright pissing me off.
All I can think of is Howard Beale's words in the film Network, chiding me over and over to get mad. Telling me that I'm a human being, God damn it. That my life has value. But first we have to get mad.
But unlike Howard Beale, who didn't want us to write to our Congressmen because he didn't know what to tell us to write, I've been calling and writing mine. Frequently.
We all need to.
We need to flood the calls of our elected officials and tell them that we demand a public option. If they're too spineless and in the pockets of big business to give us the single payer system we need, then we need to demand they pave the way with the public option. We simply can't allow for-profit companies to hold our health in their hands. It's insanity to go down that road.
Though it may not feel like you're doing much, call your Senators and Representatives and tell them that they need to stop focusing on partisan, party politics and actually act out the will of the people and ensure that we get, at the very least some sort of public insurance alternative to the shifty fat cats running things now.
Sure, maybe I'm not doing any good by myself (Hell, one of my Senators, Orrin Hatch, has been one of the single largest recipients of lobbyist money from the health care and pharmaceutical industry for years), but if enough people flood them with calls, they might realize that the will of the people isn't on their side this time.
Bryan Young is the producer of Killer at Large.
Follow Bryan Young on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BigShinyRobot
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"I've been following the debate about health care reform with baited breath, just like the rest of you." Well, unless the rest of us and you have worms in our mouths, that statement is incorrect. The word to use here is 'bated'.
I like worms.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but, if the Corporate Tools in Congress really gave a damn about "the will of the people", we would have had a national health care system decades ago.
When Max Baucus and others such as he get millions in campaign bribes from the for-profit medical-industrial complex, what does "the will of the people" mean to them? Bubkes.
Unless we can somehow, by some miracle, get corporate and lobbying money out of our corrupt political system, we the people can only write, email, call, and protest till we turn blue, and little will change.
What gets me is that Repubs act as if they've never heard of "govt.run "health care. Medicare, the V.A. and the govt. plan that Congressmen & Senators receive doesn't count? The people in these polls (of questionable sample size) who say they like their current plan just fine, thank you, don't see the inexorable increases in their premiums, less care provided and the possibility that their employer will just drop coverage because it's too d a m n expensive! To me, the Public Plan option is necessary for any kind of cost controls to take place.
The corner stone of competent healthcare is good diagnostics. To help pay for his plan Obama has recommended a 95% utilization rate for Medicare reimbursement of Diagnostic Imaging. This would make it all but impossible for outpatient Diagnostic Imaging centers to remain open, and result in thousands of lost jobs. It would force hospitals to try to pick up the slack. This is one of the major ways that healthcare will be rationed and the quality of healthcare seriously downgraded.
that's all you got?
you mean it is not "rationed" now?
my health insurer tells me what I can and can't have, who I can see, what drugs I can and can;t have...etc not to mention the insurer telling my doctor what he mus do procedure-wise BEFORE or INSTEAD of what he (and other doctors) says NEEDS to be done
and those who cannot afford it do not get it
sounds like rationing to me as well as "downgrading"
This guy has it right:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/are-we-totally-blowing-ou_b_221804.html
Our politician system is broken. Let send politicans who vote against the American people home. Does anyone know which states recall senators? It does us no good to elect politicans only to have lobbyist buy them plus some of them have been in Washington so long, they believe we work for them.
Here is a link to the page where you can input your zip code and it will give you all the info on your representative. Handwritten letters work best.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt
The craziest argument to me is that people will lose their choice of providers. I would like a provider, period. I don't want to cost my fellow taxpayers if my current plan fails. I like to call our plan the Stay Healthy and Knock-on-Wood Plan. On the plus side, our plan is affordable. I can afford to eat right, exercise and (knock-on-wood) I won't get sick.
Also, the argument that people's provider will be changed if their boss signs on to the new plan is BS too. That employer could do that right now anyway and if we don't get health care reform, that boss will certainly have to strip benefits or fire people to keep above water.
American companies were paying people good money in Ireland, because they didn't have to worry about outrages health care costs. Think of the new businesses and the expansion of small business around the country if we reformed a system that denies coverage anyway when people are sick.
I forgot to add that you can contact Congress members from other districts and let them know that you will support their next reelection bid if they do what's right. We have to use our many small donations to get their attention.
Too many American's are being ripped off by the politicians and the profit machines. The health care system spends $ 1.4 Million per day lobbying Congress, that sure could go a long way to help so many folks who need health care. I know exactly what the outcome is of the status quo. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62 It's called quality health care in Tennessee and Virginia.
www.c-span.org is offering a Congressional Directory for $16.95
We are often too silent on issues that matter most. I hope 1000's of readers head your call and contact their representatives asap.
I have and I will continue to do so EVERY DAY unitl we get the much neede health option.
Bryan,
Good article, keep spreading the word. I've been emailing all my friends and telling them to call, email their Representatives and Senators. EVERYONE PLEASE Sign Bernie Sanders (Senator from Vermont) online petition, go to his Senate website.
And if you aren't that knowledgeable about Single Payer, do some homework everyone. It's working in other countries, certainly 10x better than our current mess.
Too many people are uninformed or misinformed or we wouldn't be having this uphill battle for a Single Payer Plan. The Republicans are using the usual scare tactics and lies but the Dems in the Senate are too weak as it is.
We need a Million Person March on Washington, anything less will not get enough attention in the right places.
Good luck to us all. EVERYONE who cares please keep emailing your elected officials at the very least.
GOP opposition to a public option for healthcare is puzzling.
Republicans like to claim they are the party of Christian Family Values.
Nothing could be more of a Christian or Family Value than health for each member of the family.
Nothing could be more of a Christian value than charity for the poor.
Yet, the Republican Party is stubbornly opposed to public healthcare - the most fundamental of family values.
Why is it that the Democratic Party does not reframe the discussion around the need for healthcare as the most fundamental family value?
That's a question I ask myself a lot, iridium.
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