two comments on the debates

[lolaraincoat]

This won't be a popular opinion around here, but I was moved by John McCain's obvious love for his "friend," you know, the guy towards whom McCain is always "reaching across the aisle," Joe Lieberman. I know as soon as McCain loses this election that he will announce that he's retiring from politics so that he can live out his declining years in a peaceful Vermont cabin with his beloved Joe and their forty-seven cars. And for John, as for me, that day cannot come too soon.

Okay, seriously though, the point at which actual tears truly came to my honest-to-God eyes? When Obama said "health care is a right" as though that were obviously true, a perfectly normal and ordinary assertion to make. You know, twenty years ago, I used to run around lower Manhattan with NARAL and ACT-Up and WHAM, engaging in minor but large-scale acts of civil disobedience while chanting "Health! Care! Is-a-right! Heath-care-is-a-right ACT UP!" Because twenty years ago, that was a radical claim. And there on the TV was our next president, just ... saying it. As if it were true.

It's not like this means that activism should or can stop once Obama is president. But moments like that make me believe that the arc of history might sometimes bend toward justice, after all.



...

Comments

[arallara.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. After the debate my mom and I were talking about the health care issues, and I just kept getting kind of...boggled by the idea that we could actually possibly maybe conceivably get it together on a national health care plan sometime in the next four years. I mean. Really? That might actually happen? We're actually maybe there on this one? Wow. Obama's campaign gives me a lot of those moments.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Yes! I know! I mean, it may be that as much as most of us want it, and as close as we appear to have come to electing a government that could give it to us, we may lose this opportunity because the next administration will be entirely taken up with digging us out of the economic morass instead. So I don't want to be too optimistic. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe Keynesian economics will be fashionable enough again that nationalized health care will be the Works Project Administration of the Obama administration.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Joe Lieberman = Joe Sixpack? Discuss

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Surely you don't mean that John needs beer goggles to get down with his Senator Leiberman? Say it ain't so!

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Oh, you betcha!

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

I think that McCain's real boy-crush was always Joe Biden. That's why McCain wouldn't shake Obama's hand. Obama stole McCains One True Love and is making him say all sorts of nasty stuff about him.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I'd put my coffee down before reading that.

[pauraque]

I'm also impressed by Obama's stance on health care. I'm appalled at how backward health care is in the US. If I had to point to one reason I'm voting for him, it's that.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

what is there to be impressed by? I am not being snarky, I just don't understand. His plan wouldn't have everyone covered, nor would it get rid of that shameful sector of American governance--the privatized deregulated healthcare.

[pauraque]

He's better than the others.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Because Obama's plan doesn't insult the average American by offering yet another goddamn tax credit that the average family/person can't use because they don't have the cash up front to pay for health care they can't afford anyway because of the absurd cost, or that they might lose as soon as they actually get sick, or might not get in the first place because they have a pre-existing condition.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Well put.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with this. But nobody has the guts to take on the insurance companies.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

It would probably take more than 8 years of an Obama presidency to shift from private for-profit healthcare to a public plan. Also, the health insurance industry is way too profitable to be zeroed out without punching a whopping hole in the economy--not something any sane president would do overnight, given the number of other major industries that just tanked.

Incremental shifts can achieve the same goal of decent care and universal access without freaking out Americans, who remain obsessed with the idea that public programs = communism. (Not counting the public programs they like, such as SSI.)

Frex, Medicare is a govt program that everyone likes. It works fairly well, it isn't too horribly bureaucratic, and it meets the target need. It's a public insurance program but it includes coinsurance components (e.g., "medigap" insurance), controlling costs by setting fees paid to providers, etc.

So Obama is proposing to expand access to health insurance mainly in sectors of the population that don't already have employer-based insurance (e.g., the self-employed, people who work for small employers that can't afford a plan, etc.) Some of this is supposed to happen through a bigger pool, some through controlling costs by regulating insurers and the healthcare industry more. The govt underwrites some portion of this, aiming to push down expenses for employers and employees through controlling profits and so on.

Medicare was established by Johnson during the miracle 2 years when he had a huge Democratic majority in the Congress and before he got mired in Vietnam. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Title IX, the NEA, the NEH, PBS, NPR, OEO, VISTA, Headstart, and on and on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society

For Obama to do anything that expansive, he'll need a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (60 seats), and he'll need the Dem Senators and Reps to be largely on the liberal end of the party. The former is unlikely but possible (if Franken in MN wins, + one other); the other is not going to happen--too many Dems are conservative, actually probably farther to the right than many 1964 Republicans were. Also, Obama will not be taking the helm in an era of postwar prosperity, alas.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

It may be that I'm more cynical than you are, but I'm impressed simply by having the rhetoric move in the direction of ordinary common sense. I don't expect that an Obama administration will fix much of anything about health care on their own; I do expect that activists will find it easier to push for change with a fairly good Democratic administration in place.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Health care IS a right...but Obama is no radical (as I am sure you know--I understand what you mean about hearing that said thought)--what is this emotional/financial/psychological thrall that those for-profit HMOnsters have the US politicians and public under? I wish every single headquarter of those companies would get firebombed.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Amen and amen. The big health insurance companies should have been nationalized years ago IMNSHO and we should have gone to a single payer system. The current one is a crime.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I wondered if he would do the politic thing and dodge the question. Instead he grabbed it boldly. That's real political courage.

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

Healthcare IS a right, but I don't really think Obama's plan goes far enough. If things don't change in this country I'm going to spend my declining years in a shelter eating cat food. Private insurance options and tax credits don't really help someone like me. If I don't work for an employer who provides me benefits as part of their risk pool, I'm screwed. I CAN'T buy an individual policy because of my condition, and I don't think Obama can force an insurance comapny to take me on and give me a reasonable rate. Without health insurance the cost of my bio-engineered, maintenance meds will break me.

If we can privatize the banks, why the hell can't we have state-run, free (or at least cheap) socialized medicine? Why can't we have EVERYONE pay for the sickest of us, insead of letting folks who are sick shoulder most of the burden? What happened to me can happen to anyone. I didn't do anything wrong. Why should I be punished with poverty because of a biological accident?

/rant off

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

If I don't work for an employer who provides me benefits as part of their risk pool, I'm screwed.

That's the current plan, and also McCain's.

I CAN'T buy an individual policy because of my condition, and I don't think Obama can force an insurance company to take me on and give me a reasonable rate.

Yes, he can, if Congress will support his proposal. Quoting from http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/:

~"Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums."

Also:

~"Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage."

This is the component of the Obama plan that is similar to a national health plan: for those who have no employer-based access, the federal benefits plan offered to civil servants is expanded. Self-employed people will have to pay premiums, so it's not free. But then, it's also a better plan than the Veterans Administration health care. The theory is that the premiums are kept low through expansion of the risk pool and some govt subsidy (as in Medicare, which is paid for through a mix of taxes, controlled costs, and supplemental private insurance).

Unlike the McCain plan, the tax credit idea is mainly directed to small businesses, which can be mandated to spend a tax credit in the way it's intended (rather than indviduals, who are likely to use the money to pay the rent or the phone bill).

Without health insurance the cost of my bio-engineered, maintenance meds will break me.

To be effective, the Obama plan should include not only catastrophic care, hospitalization, and surgical fees, but well-care, prescription drugs, mental health care, and longterm care. The most difficult and expensive of these is longterm care, which isn't being discussed much, so it's hard to say how well it would be covered by Obama's plan. Prescription drugs are covered under most private insurance and under the federal civil service plan, and would certainly be covered at least as much as they are under Medicare and Medicaid, which is substantial. Also there's this:

~"Lower drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs and taking on drug companies that block cheaper generic medicines from the market."

Obviously, Obama's plan has a lot of promises in it and not too many real costs assigned. His original plan was to pay for the increased federal expenditure through a) increased taxes on the wealthy, and b) controlling costs through federal price guidelines (as in Medicare). Of course the latter will be unpopular with the powerful AMA and healthcare lobbies, so it will take Congressional courage to get it done. And it can't just be paid for in the short term; it needs to be funded on an ongoing basis, which means restructuring taxes. And that's always unpopular.

Also, when Hillary tried a big comprehensive change, even with a Dem Congress she got slammed. So expect Obama to introduce incremental components of the above.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

"Reaching across the aisle" to Joe Lieberman is like "Committing to energy efficiency" by trading the Hummer in for a Chevy Suburban.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Well, only if you take that "reaching across the aisle" to be some kind of metaphor for political alliance, rather than straight-up dirty talk.

Heh. Heh. I said "straight-up." Heh.

/Beavis and Butthead

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

I was so happy when he said "a right." I'm just pissed that McCain didn't play straight and admit that he believes health care is a privilege only for those wealthy enough to purchase it.

Wow - good health care for everyone is one of those things I want so badly that it's scary to even think about.

[cryptoxin.livejournal.com]

You know, twenty years ago, I used to run around lower Manhattan with NARAL and ACT-Up and WHAM, engaging in minor but large-scale acts of civil disobedience while chanting "Health! Care! Is-a-right! Heath-care-is-a-right ACT UP!"

I remember those days. I actually hated that chant, because I'd decided in college that human rights discourse was bad (something about imperialism), and I'm still deeply skeptical of the prospects and salience of grounding U.S.-based advocacy and activism in the rhetoric of rights. Also the rhythm of the chant felt stilted.

Thanks for the reminder of how radical that concept is in our political culture.