Transforming American Wealth-Care into Health Care
As the noise in the room gets louder and louder with nearly insane objections to health care reform, the roots of the ideological conflict often get lost in the mess.
The ethos of turbo-capitalism is totally at odds with the ‘caring’ part of health-care. The battle wages on, but in a nation known to celebrate turbo-capitalism to a ridiculous level, makes for an uneven playing field in which any attempt at pitting a philosophical abstraction like the humane right to basic care, against ethically dubious profiteering, is going to be an uphill challenge. It remains that only a mighty powerful political alchemy will succeed at transforming American “wealth-care” into health care.
All one need do to understand the confusing agendas and make any sense from the cacophony of the current health care debate, is look here: http://www.opensecrets.org/new…
BIG PHARMA
Lobbying 2008, 2009: $370,440,214
Political Contributions 2008, 2010 Elec. Cycles: $33,622,476
INSURANCE
Lobbying 2008, 2009: $144,738,590
Political Contributions 2008, 2010 Elec. Cycles: $22,870,936
HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
Lobbying 2008, 2009: $117,291,855
Political Contributions 2008, 2010 Elec. Cycles: $105,848,099
HOSPITALS/NURSING HOMES
Lobbying 2008, 2009: $151,880,681
Political Contributions 2008, 2010 Elec. Cycles: $26,600,830
TOTAL: $973,293,681
Over a handful of years, a billion bucks o’ leverage, bending the space time of DC to the will of those spending the dough; in this instance, money “makes the world stop goin’ ’round”.
With my fiance, Rebecca, denied health care from all the major carriers here in Missouri due to an anterior lumbar fusion operation she had a few years ago, we will surely be appreciative of a bill that prevents denial-of-service due to pre-existing conditions.
However, as health care costs rise contributing to destabilizing debt, failing to extricate the profiteering going on in American Health Care cannot be avoided. The dust may settle after a watered down version gets passed this time, but eventually, we will all be here again, on the frontlines of the debate on health care; the argument between ‘me’ and ‘we’.
In noted historian Joseph Ellis’ recent op-ed, “Them Versus Us”, he lays out the health care rancor as an age-old American dispute, but cautions against continuing to carry this fight forward when facing current and more threatening dilemmas.
All the major problems now befuddling us — the destructive excesses of finance capitalism, a profit-based healthcare system, an increasingly contaminated atmosphere — are only soluble if we regard government as the chosen representative of our collective interests as a people and a nation.
I’m often surprised at the extreme style and dramatic approach of protestation that the other team brings, and equally frustrated when our side, now in power in Congress and the White House, placates the irrational and unbelievably removes a valuable program like end of life consultations just to satisfy the crazed sensationalists who frame it as euthanasia.
Each side has its unique dysfunctional characteristics and strengths; this dynamic reminds me of an old Star Trek episode, where Kirk was split into two facets of his one being, “The Enemy Within”.
Ultimately, to survive, Kirk needed both sides of his personality, and America does as well. Obama galvanized on this message in 2004, but seemingly has meandered in leading on health care, letting the loud and obnoxious steal the day (at least so far).
Is it even possible for Democrats and Repubicans to ever be on the same page again, let alone read from different chapters of the same book? I hope so.
G. Washington warned a long time ago, constant factionaliztion may be a fatal state for our, then, nascent republic.
“We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation. … If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending it.”