Healthcare reform: The choice

Following up on Kathleen's post about the language of health care reform, and how Democrats have failed to effectively communicate during the debate, it's time to redouble our efforts as progressives to provide all Americans with affordable, quality health care, and not just the privileged few.

Unlike when he was on the campaign trail, President Obama has been largely absent from the health care debate, sidelining his gift for bringing people together in common cause. "Yes we can" seems to have become "we don't have the votes". As Paul Krugman noted yesterday:

Partly it’s a matter of style — as many people have noted, he has been weirdly reluctant to make the moral case for universal care, weirdly unable to show passion on the issue, weirdly diffident even about the blatant lies from the right.

This is not the Barack Obama that we voted for.

Conservatives, on the other hand, have been following the Karl Rove playbook: fearmongering at every turn.

Between talk of "death panels" and "pulling the plug on Grandma", they've played on every human's worst fear of the health care system.

The problem is, the bogeyman of which Republicans speak already exists, though in a different form than they will admit. As our Executive Director eloquently reminded the Northwest Progressive Institute team in a message last week:

Insurance companies are private governments that have an incentive to deny people coverage or benefits because it increases their profits.

Public governments, like ours, serve the common good, so there is no profit motive. Instead of focusing on costs, a public healthcare plan can focus on delivering care to the people who need it.

Who do you want assisting you with making critical decisions in your life, an interest that focuses on delivering the care you need, or a monied interest concerned only with maximizing profit for shareholders? If you'd prefer the conservative vision for health care, here is what you're looking at:

Long before anyone started talking about government "death panels" or warning that Obama would have the government ration care, 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, a leukemia patient from Glendale, Calif., died in December 2007, after her parents battled their insurance company, Cigna, over the surgery. Cigna initially refused to pay for it because the company's analysis showed Sarkisyan was already too sick from her leukemia; the liver transplant wouldn't have saved her life.

Emphasis mine.

The "company's analysis"? Excuse me, but I'd prefer my doctor to diagnose my condition. And if the company analysis doesn't kill you, how about revocation of your health insurance? Wellpoint has rewarded employees for cancelling insurance policies of patients who were sick.

The evidence released by the House subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations shows that WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurer, rewarded employees for canceling coverage of sick patients. Employees earned high points on "performance reviews" for retroactively canceling policies - a practice known as "rescission."

According to documents obtained by the subcommittee, one employee of Blue Cross, a subsidiary of Wellpoint, received a perfect score of "5" in a company performance review after saving the company nearly $10 million through policy rescissions. Three insurance companies - WellPoint, Golden Rule (owned by United Health) and Assurant - rescinded more than 20,000 policies over five years and refused to pay for more than $300 million in medical expenses, according to documents uncovered by the committee.

That corporate health care system advocated by conservatives sure sounds a lot like Sarah Palin's "death panels". I can see the boards of directors for the insurance companies now: "Item three on our agenda is whether or not Mary Jane Smith should be allowed Vicodin after her major surgery.

You know, we can save money and increase the patient's pain tolerance by not giving her the medication. All in favor, say aye."

Republicans don't want a public option because it provides a credible alternative to rampant corporatism and the profit over people mentality.

Their system rewards the select few who get rich off of the pain, misery and suffering of the masses. A public option promotes the general welfare (as stated in the preamble to our Consitution) utilizing our common wealth. And as the late Senator Paul Wellstone used to say "We all do better when we all do better."

Kathleen noted that George Lakoff has suggested that the "public option" framing Democrats are using should be dropped in favor of an "American option", something with which I agree. After all, in the United States of America all men are created equal (women and children too), that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Affordable quality health care for all is not a privilege, it is an American right. It's time we demand what's ours.