Hypocrisy and Arrogance-A Lesson From the Car Industry on Why Health Care Reform Must Not Fail

While listening to the CEOs of the Big Three automakers plead before Congress last week to fill their company's "tin cup," it occurred to me (as no doubt to most Americans) that it must have cost their companies probably $30,000 to take the corporate jet to fly each to DC from Detroit. But only yesterday, I saw where the CEO of Japan Airlines cut his salary to $90,000 US, earning less than some of his company's pilots; he also eliminated all of his perequisites and eats in the employee cafeteria - - - all because JAL is facing tough times.

Hypocrisy is defined by Webster as pretending to be what one is not, or feel what one does not feel. These American auto CEOs came hat-in-hand to Washington, DC to bail out their companies, yet they came without a plan, and certainly without telling us that they individually would share the burden equally with those who are losing their jobs building cars, or even those who must take a pay cut to keep their jobs. Instead, they wanted $25 billion, so they could keep the corporate jets, the seven figure salaries, and so forth; how disingenuous and hypocritical. What they did was to come to the Nation's Capital dripping with arrogance -- how dare anyone suggest cutting their personal salaries and benefits. If they were sincere about wanting to help their business and thus the nation's economy, they would have proposed, like the JAL chief executive has done, that they would cut their salaries, perqs, and benefits for months (as well as come up with a business plan with oversight to downsize cars and make them run on alternative energy sources). Let's be fair guys.

What does this have to do with health care? Part of the problem is that employees are losing jobs; with job loses come elimination of health care benefits; and when health care coverage is eliminated, the ranks of the uninsured swell even more than the 45 million+ said to lack coverage now. Hospitals and health care providers just can't afford to backstop so many more Americans without health care, and the auto industry with its vendors and suppliers is leading the way. While a crisis is upon the health care industry, what is happening in the auto industry due to the hypocrisy and arrogance of its leaders, is but in microcosm of the job losses, nee, then lack of health care coverage, leading to a Titanic-size proportion failure and inability to care and treat every American.

President-Elect Obama said to us all that health care is a "right" when he debated McCain in October in Nashville. With various plans coming into play, i.e., Ron Wyden's Healthy Americans Act, Max Baucus' recent "White Paper", Kennedy working on his plan to be introduced in January (with Sen. Clinton headed for Sec. of State and Kennedy the "dean" of health care reform on the Hill, expect any bill headed for the White House to have the name Kennedy in it), what Obama has proposed, and not to mention anything coming from House members yet, there will now be considerable effort and enthusiasm to see a new era in the delivery and accessibility of health care for all Americans ("Kennedy set for major health care push", USA Today, p. 15A, 11-21-08). Also, the headline to Jim Carney's piece, writing for Time Magazine.com, is, "Reform's Moment May Be Now."

If genuineness is substituted for hypocrisy in the executive suite, and arrogance is replaced by a real, honest-to-goodness effort to rebuild industries and restore jobs for all Americans with sacrifices across all levels of employment, then the crisis that now exists within our present health care system should be quite "treatable" under Obama's mantra that health care is a right for all citizens. Let's roll up our sleeves now and get to work on this!

Read More:

Should the Government Bail Out the Big Three U.S. Automakers? HuffPost Bloggers Weigh In

Comments

[golfingaryfromPA]

Health care is a right ? ... geez, I've never read that anywhere in the provisions of our great Constitution ... can you please tell me where that might be located ? And speaking our great Constitution that liberals proclaim Bush to have eviscerated, there is that provision for impeachment for "high crimes & misdemeanors" that could be used ... IF .. so, why no action and follow through by the Democratic controlled congress for the last two years !! It's because there is no such evidence to go on, just more left-wing sorrow that a majority of people in this country elected this patriot for two terms just like Billy boy who let terrorists attack our military various times and no equitable response was to be had by the USA ...have you seen any more attacks on US soil since 9/11 ?

[milesz]

golfingaryfromPa:

You are absolutely correct; health care is not an articulated right under any constitution or bill of rights. But have you ever heard of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happieness? Perhaps President-Elect Obama had this concept in mind when he declared health care to be a right of all Americans.

[feo]

Unlike Republicans, Democrats think that impeachment is very serious. Republicans were willing to risk bringing down the government over trivialities. BTW, every day I praise Frankling Roosevelt: the Japanese haven't attacked us since 1941. Praise FDR! BTW2, health care may not be a Constitutional right, but it just might be a darned good idea.

[LeftRight]

I hadn't caught that you brought up the time since the attacks on 9/11..... You DO realize that CLINTON had MUCH longer without an attack, right?? We were attacked by al qeada in FEBRUARY of 1993, less than a full month after Bill took office, and then we went almost 8 full years without an attack! Under Bush we waited almost nine months before we were attacked, so we will have just a little bit over *7* years under Bush being attack free!!

[AZWolfster]

"...have you seen any more attacks on US soil since 9/11 ?"

Gosh, now that you mention it, I haven't. By the way, I keep marshmallows under my bed to scare away elephants. I haven't seen any elephants under my bed since I started doing it, so it must be working.

[LeftRight]

Yeah, you know what ELSE isn't a right according to the Constitution? Your right to privacy. And yet we ALL (including the Supreme Court of the United States) seem to agree that there is a right to privacy in America. Do you know WHY these things are considered rights even though they are not spelled out explicitly? Because the Constitution states that just because a right is not spelled out that doesn't mean that it's forbidden!