Memo to Congress: My America (Which Has a Lot More People Than Their America) Wants the U.S. Health Care System Fixed----and We Will Be Very Angry If It Isn't. (Joe Rothstein's Commentary)

August 17, 2009

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, EINNEWS.COM

Her vocal chords strained, her body wracked by emotion, the words were fired toward Maryland Senator Ben Cardin like angry missiles launched to stave off Armageddon.

“This is not the America I grew up with, she pleaded. “I want my America back.”

The topic being discussed was health care. But you wouldn't know that from the woman's comments, or from the shouts, hoots, and boos of so many others at Senator Cardin's public forum.

These people seemed little interested in talking about what to do about the million or so families who go bankrupt each year because of illness or injury. Nor did they want to discuss the huge increases in health insurance premiums levied year after year. (I'm in Detroit as I write this, looking at a newspaper headline announcing a 22% increase in Blue Cross premiums for individual, non-group health policies). Nor did the screamers address the decline in U.S. health quality that now has people in Canada, Japan and most European countries living longer than Americans,

There's a health care crisis in the U.S. Our costs are soaring, quality is declining, fewer people have access. Tens of millions of Americans live in mortal fear that an injury, or illness, or a lost job will financially ruin them. U.S. business is less competitive in world markets because of the heavy anchor of employee health costs.

What's to be done about all of that? Those packing the meetings of members of Congress this August apparently believe there is no problem and nothing needs to be done. In one particularly memorable video clip a man, shaking with anger, promises Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter that God will send him to Hell for even trying.

I'm not sure what kind of America these people, contorted with rage as they are, want for themselves or their children. Or what kind of America they remember growing up in. But from the sound of things, their vision of America, past and present, resembles some kind of fantasyland, not current reality.

The other night I watched Glen Beck proclaim about the Obama administration, “this isn't the change we voted for.”

Well, Glen Beck didn't vote for Obama. And I'd lay a substantial wager that hardly anyone waving angry fists at those health forums voted for him either.

The fact is, President Obama campaigned for nearly two years promising he would work to improve our health care system substantially along the lines of the bills shaping up now in Congress. It was a fair election fight. Obama won. But those who opposed him don't seem to want to concede the result.

Neither do they want to accept some important truths.

The truth is that in recent polls conducted in Canada, Great Britain and France, three countries reviled by the angry shouters, have shown that people living in those countries are quite happy with their systems.

The truth is that whenever anyone seriously suggests changing Medicare or the VA health system----two U.S. government-run systems serving about 50 million Americans, those suggestions provoke an immediate uproar. In fact, much of the noise we're now hearing is from seniors nervous that their government-run, single-payer Medicare system may be affected.

The truth is that extending government run systems to most Americans isn't in any part of the health care bills moving through the U.S. House and Senate. The aim is to improve the private system---reducing costs, extending coverage, adding protections against a private health care bureaucracy that's all too quick to deny claims, limit coverage to only the healthy, and steer policy-holders down financial dead-ends with fine print legalese.

The truth is that except during media blitzes, when those financially interested in keeping things the way they are don their fright wigs and Friday the 13th masks to terrify everyone, most Americans know that we're living with a lousy system. In poll after poll, year after year, making changes in health care (the very changes now before Congress) is at the top of most peoples' agendas.

All those angry people shouting down members of Congress on YouTube and TV may rave on about “what's happening to my America,” but I've got news for them. It's my America, too.

And in my America there's such a thing as a community of interests. Health care is most certainly one of them. I want guaranteed access to good and available medical care at reasonable cost. I don't want to be held hostage to giant health companies' quarterly profit and loss numbers on the stock exchange. I don't want to pay a private company 30 cents on every dollar to decide who shouldn't be covered or paid. I don't want to see others, young or old, rich or poor, sick or healthy, go without health care.

The politicians fanning the flames of misinformation and hate should be 1) ashamed of themselves, and 2) driven from public office.

The insurance industry leaders behind the current scare campaign should not be trusted to be honest and fair with whatever private system may emerge.

And the politicians who know better had better not go wimpy on us now. Anger is not the exclusive property of the right wing. To lose the chance to fix health care because of timidity in the face of a noisy minority will inflame and enrage a pro-health care community in ways seldom seen.

(Joe Rothstein can be contacted at joe@einnews.com)