Opposing Your Own Interests.

Why are so many people fighting and voting against their own interests? Why do so many of those people listen to the right wing shills of the special interests? Particularly when the most outspoken shills are so paranoid and unbalanced. Here you have Glen Beck. This man thinks the walls of public buildings offer clues of a conspiracy to ruin the country. Of course we all know that anyone participating in such a nefarious plot would want to put coded messages on the walls of public buildings so that someone like Glen Beck can uncover the plot and thwart it. Mr. Beck is obviously not playing with a full deck. But do not worry, loose knobs Dobbs will tell you why companies trying to sell soap should continue to sponsor Mr. Beck’s absurd and often racial rants. Although Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the other right wing extremists draw a large audience, that audience actually comprises a rather small percentage of the population. I am willing concede that most of the people working against their own economic interests probably do not listen to them. But the outrageous rants of extremists like Mr. Beck and Mr. Limbaugh are still instructive because those men clearly state what the, so called, conservatives are actually thinking. That is why the other special interest shills defend those extremists. It is also why the seemingly reasonable shills use less provocative language to echo the thoughts the extremists express so bluntly.

The first word out of the mouths of those who oppose any progressive change is always welfare. Welfare was a part of President Johnson’s great society, and conservatives see it as a product of the turbulent civil rights movement. In other words, they see it as a racial issue! Never mind the fact that a public option will provide the competition needed to keep down the cost of everyone’s health coverage regardless of whether they choose to keep their private health insurance or go with the public option; neoconservatives will still oppose the option. They think that getting gouged by private companies is just a part of the free market system. What bothers them is that the public option will insure people who do not presently have insurance. Neoconservatives do not think about the fact that most of the people who choose the public option will be paying premiums to support it. Nor do they think about the fact that the free emergency room visits by the uninsured probably cost more than the public option would. The primary fear of any neoconservative is that some of his or her hard earned dollars will be used to provide medical treatment to people of a different race! The insurance industry shills, such as Republicans and blue dog Democrats, are well aware of this attitude. That is why they call something like the public insurance option a government run “social program.” Neoconservatives think all “social programs” are designed to provide for the poor. The shills do not have to define the poor in racial terms because neoconservatives automatically think of welfare. In other words, one of the primary objections to the public option is racially motivated, and the insurance company shills are exploiting that racism. That is why they also insist that the public option will be available to illegal immigrants regardless of the fact that the proposed legislation specifically excludes illegal immigrants.

The other motive for opposing the public insurance option is blind ideology. Those ideologues say that it is capitalism and the free enterprise system that made us the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. I agree with them for the most part, but it was the trust busters and the reasonable regulations passed during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration that kept our free market system from degenerating into social Darwinism. The breaking up of the trusts and the New Deal regulations helped to stabilize the markets and provided a level playing field that allowed fair competition. The ideologues, however, refuse to acknowledge that fact. They continue to oppose any meaningful regulations even though it was the repeal of some of those regulations and the failure to enforce the ones still in place that permitted AIG to become too large to fail and permitted the risky behavior that resulted in the economic meltdown we experienced just last year. The reason why I am addressing this extreme free market view is because the opponents of the public insurance option say that it is more than just the health care proposals that have them so upset. They also object to the government’s regulation of businesses and the entire stimulus program. They erroneously insist that the bailouts and other measures are detrimental in spite of the fact that the vast majority of economists say that it was only the swift actions of the Bush administration and President Obama that kept the economy from totally collapsing. The economists obviously learned something from the Great Depression. I am afraid I cannot say the same thing about the free enterprise ideologues.

It is this stubborn refusal of the ideologues to acknowledge any facts that might contradict their assumptions that makes it so difficult for them to realize that they are now working against their own economic interests. You would have to be living on another planet in order to deny that the runaway cost of health insurance is a serious problem. It increased by 30% during the period of 2001 through 2005 while income only rose by a mere 3% during that time. The cost of health insurance rose by another 15.9% just last year. Furthermore, nearly 50% of the bankruptcies declared are now due to medical expenses. Yet the people opposing the stimulus package and the public insurance option still insist that there is nothing wrong with our health care system. I am assuming that most of them have health insurance that is provided by their employers. In which case, the people opposing health care reform are simply not bright enough to realize that they are only a layoff away from being uninsured and only one or two price increases away from their employer canceling the coverage they presently have. Even more perplexing is the fact that everyone knows the insurance companies use flimsy excuses like preexisting conditions in order to deny coverage for any costly or prolonged treatment regardless of whether those preexisting conditions have any relationship to the malady requiring treatment. The people opposing medical reform are aware of the many denials of claims and coverage; yet they are still naive enough to think it will not happen to them. The bottom line is that they refuse to look beyond what they are presently experiencing.

How do we get people to look beyond what they are presently experiencing? How do we tell them they are working against their own interests when they are so busy shouting “Socialism” that they cannot hear us? Forget about the racists and the ideologues whose views are so extreme that they would even dismantle Social Security and Medicare. Those racists and those extremists are beyond hope. Getting them to listen to facts or reason is impossible. You would stand a better chance of teaching your dog how to do calculus. Fortunately, a large number of the staunchest free enterprise proponents would still preserve Social Security and Medicare, and they are the ones we must reach. We must find a way to break through the emotional bearers they have erected long enough to get them to listen to reason. I think they will listen to arguments about the need for regulations forbidding insurance companies from using flimsy excuses such as preexisting conditions in order to deny coverage. I think they will also be open to the argument that the competition they so highly prize is the only thing that can stabilize or reduce the price of medical coverage. Clearly, the private insurance companies are not providing that competition. If they were, the price of medical coverage would have stabilized or decreased a long time ago. This means that we must introduce a new factor to provide the needed competition. The surest way to do that is with a public insurance option, which is no more socialistic than Social Security or Medicare.

The argument that a public option will drive the private carriers out of the health insurance market is inconsistent on its face. We are not talking about a single payer system that will eliminate the coverage offered by private companies. People who want to keep their present insurance rather than buying the public coverage will be perfectly free to do so. If the private insurance companies offer a better benefits package than the public insurance offers, I am sure many people will buy the policies offered by the private companies. They will do this even if the premiums are a bit higher than the ones charged by the government. Furthermore, the private carriers will probably find a market for coverage that supplements the public insurance. It is a win, win situation. The only reason why the insurance companies and their shills oppose the public option is because the insurance companies will have to do something they have not been doing. They will actually have to compete! I believe that competition is the American way regardless of what we have to do to bring it about.

To you super patriots out there I say: The true patriots are not the ones waving the flags and screaming America is great while ignoring the very real challenges we face. True patriots dedicate themselves to meeting and overcoming those challenges. It is not the public option and other stimulus programs that are un-American; rather it is the refusal to support or come up with any reasonable solutions. Make no mistake about it, the health care crises is threatening to overwhelm us. The soaring cost of medical insurance greatly decreases the goods and services the average American family can purchase. By reducing the cost of health care coverage the public insurance option will make American families healthier and more prosperous. This, in turn, will help to stimulate our sluggish economy. Doing nothing is not acceptable. The best medical care in the world does not do you any good if you cannot afford it. This is a problem we know how to solve, and we must solve it. We did not become a great nation by ignoring reality.