How to ‘really’ address health care
By Manny Casillas | Editorial Assistant
Summer was filled with death panels, shouting and accusations of lying, from regular American citizens and even members of Congress feigning a case of Tourette’s.
The debate over health care reform proposed by President Barack Obama never exactly came to pass.
Instead there were pointless negotiations six senators on Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-Mont.) Senate Finance Committee, and raucous town halls in which people with actual questions were drowned out by shouting. There was no debate happening, only bickering. Worse are the many distortions and outright lies about the Democrats’ health reform bill, which put a dent in any real debate over how much it will cost and how to pay for it.
It’s clear the only thing the American people are interested in is a series of bumper sticker rhetoric, not actual facts about health care reform. There’s only one thing for Obama to do.
He must start telling the American people that the insurance companies are linked to the swine flu epidemic. This can cause a preliminary bill called the Healthy Patriot Act to be pushed through Congress, effectively allowing the government to gather any and all information on Americans seriously in need of coverage, and to find ways to get such people covered.
From there, he can say that insurance companies are stockpiling diseases of mass destruction. He can even say that insurance companies such as Aetna and Cigna attempted to procure deadly diseases from Africa.
As he’s making the case to “invade” the health insurance companies, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius can state that such an invasion would be a “slam dunk”.
Next Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can be sent to the United Nations with a vial, to further make the case that insurance companies are in possession of diseases of mass destruction. This will all culminate with Vice President Joe Biden appearing on “Meet The Press”and declaring “there is no doubt that the insurance companies now have diseases of mass destruction.”
And so it will begin. The government will embark on a massive invasion of the insurance companies, doing away with egregious policies such as recision and turning people away for so-called ‘pre-existing conditions’. A government-run insurance program, similar to Medicare will be able to compete with the private insurers, coaxing the companies to lower costs and premiums.
America was once talked into something it later regretted terribly and is still mired in. With the events of this past August, the fear is that America may be talked out of something it will also regret for years to come. Obama has tried civility, even tried sounding much more forceful, but for a chunk of America the message is in one ear and out the other, because death panels sound more comprehensible than anything else. Belligerence and hostility are the tactics of the intellectually bankrupt.
Health care reform is an issue that has been brought up time and again throughout the twentieth century and into the new millennium. From Theodore Roosevelt on through Bill Clinton, the only major victory has been Lyndon Johnson’s New Society, which ushered in the creation of Medicare. And while presidents Nixon and Reagan also believed in reforming health care, even the resistance of some Democrats led to nothing being done, notably the uneasy relationship between the late Senator Ted Kennedy and Presidents Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Since then the number of those living uninsured has increased to nearly 50 million. This issue cannot wait. It must challenged with the same urgency and persistence as the economy and national security.
President Obama, 70 percent of this country voted you into office. Cease the pandering to , and coddling of, the minority who will not support you no matter what you do and give your supporters what they have asked of you. Don’t make us wait any longer.
