Sometimes, you wonder: is there no limit to a corporation's willingness to obfuscate? I opened up The New York Times today and on the op-ed page there is an ad from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (this is the place on the op-ed page where advocacy groups run issue ads). The ad features a bookmark with a tassel. The main headline says: "We Could Save Billions In Healthcare Costs If We Could Just Get Kids To Read."
So, naturally, I read on. See, it turns out that the problem that has lead to 48 million Americans not having health care coverage, according to the ad, is that "consumers aren't able to read basic health information. This compromises the quality of healthcare and adds billions to America's annual healthcare costs." The solution, I now know, is that "By educating tomorrow's consumer today, we can make it easier for them to navigate the increasing complexity of healthcare and play a more active role in their own health."
Stupid me and stupid us. Here I was thinking that the problem is that profit and greed dominate our system, that the industry spends billions of dollars for the express purpose of denying people health care, that the Republicans wrote a Medicare bill that expressly prohibited the government from negotiating lower drug prices and that the only solution to our health care crisis is a single-payer system, which the industry and business in general oppose, for both profit and ideological reasons.
The ad, obscene as it may be, has a certain ideological consistency that permeates our political discourse, unfortunately, on a bi-partisan basis. Bill Clinton blamed poor people for an economic system that impoverishes millions--which, ultimately, lead to "welfare reform." Both Democrats and Republicans tell us that we are too stupid to compete in today's global economy--which, leads to foolish rhetoric that if we were just more educated our economic futures would be secure (as opposed to confronting abusive corporate power that searches the globe for the lowest wages possible regardless of skills). And, now, we are told that the right of our families to be healthy is simply a question of whether we can read and are "informed consumers."
I suppose the answer to the question whether these high-paid leeches have any shame is obvious.