Feel-Good Activism: The Healthcare Debate

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeWith the GOP now holding a Majority in the House, you can rest assured that there are going to be countless attacks against any and all Obama legislation, and just as many (if not more) campaigns against so-called Republican reforms.

The first out of the gate, of course, is the drive to repeal "Obamacare" and it's anti Free Market approach to Health Care at the expense of profits. I'm not going to weigh in on which side is right. That invariably results in arguing the facts with someone of the opposite viewpoint, and with the political discourse in this country becoming more rabidly heated by the moment, I'd rather have a naked bowie knife duel to the death with Christopher Walken in a dumpster full of medical waste.

I would, however, like to give some humble advice: Think your arguments through. Example? There's a very well-intentioned movement right now called Repeal health care? Give up your own first! The goal is to get a petition signed urging GOP leaders to give up their own government-sponsored healthcare if they are so against socialized medicine of any kind. It's a cute little bumper-sticker wisdom campaign that, unfortunately, has no real teeth with which to bite.

First of all, petitions don't work, folks. Petitions are a great show of strength and solidarity, and that's about it. The only real upshot to a petition is that it allows a politician to ignore your cause in one big group, which is much easier than ignoring you individually. The assumption is also that anyone signing the petition wouldn't have voted for them anyway, so what do they care? Petitions are fun and feel good, but unless you're trying to get your favorite TV show back on the air (because advertisers pay more attention to what you want than politicians do), that's about all they accomplish.

But more importantly, make sure your argument makes some kind of sense, at least as far as the end result. The whole drive of this campaign is to ask Republicans in favor of repealing healthcare for those who can't afford it to give up their own free government-issued healthcare. Sounds good on the surface, no? Here's the problem with this little jab of logic: they can afford to. John Boehner alone (insert tanning joke here) is worth somewhere between three and seven million dollars, and he's at the low end of the average Capitol Hill employee spectrum. The people pushing to repeal affordable healthcare could not only afford to purchase the most expensive healthcare package available, they could easily do it without having to skimp on the grocery shopping or canceling their golf club membership. Threatening millionaires with economic hardship doesn't work. Think about it.

The funny thing about this movement is that the Republicans it is targeted at could actually call the bluff. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell could drop their government-sponsored healthcare and pay for their own medical insurance without batting an eye, claim to be willing to lead by example, and therefore imply that all of those hard-working families living paycheck to paycheck should do the same. This would quickly abolish this form of attack against them, and be seen by those in their camp as a sign of strength and principle.

But that's not the real funny part. The real funny part is that as easy and effective as it would be, they won't do it. The political climate has reached such a surreal level of obtuse bias that they don't even feel the need to pretend anymore. They don't feel the need to lead by example, uphold the principles they espouse, or even keep their promises. People have become so enamored with their political ideals that they have become completely blind to anything beyond sound bites and posturing. So they just do what they want. There's no motivation for them to do otherwise.

But by all means, enjoy collecting signatures for your petition. Odds are you'll be the only ones who read it.

Related articles

• Boehner Vows to Make 'Tough Decisions' (online.wsj.com)
• House Republicans aim to repeal Obama healthcare law (thehimalayantimes.com)
• Health-care law's repeal would hurt millions, advocates say (dispatch.com)
• GOP won't count cost of repeal (politico.com)

GOP Releases Unrealistic, Unpassable Health Care Bill

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The New York Times (or, as witty wordsmith Mark Levine would call them, The New York Slimes) has an article out regarding the alternative Health Care bill the Republicans have finally released after almost a year of claiming that they could do better.

Short story: they really can't.

Heralding the slim volume's 230 page count as a testament to the Bill's simplicity, one could be forgiven for assuming that the pages contained nothing more than the phrase "Same Shit, Different Day" typed over and over again. While it isn't quite that bad, the result is almost the same.

The first thing that really jumps out is how the GOP rarely manages not to contradict themselves these days. For instance, Republicans have been stomping around claiming that the Democrats obsessing on 36 Million uninsured people was a waste of time considering what a small percentage of the population. Not content on merely contradicting themselves when they claimed that insuring this inconsequential percentage would in turn bankrupt the country, they have turned around and proposed a bill that would only insure 2 Million Americans, which apparently isn't too small for them to worry about.

Smugly waving around their response to the resounding criticism that the GOP was criticizing something without offering their own suggestions, John Boehner (pronounced Boner) and others proudly declared that the Republican plan increases incentives for people to use health savings accounts, caps non-economic jury awards in medical malpractice cases at $250,000, provides various incentives to states with the aim of driving down premium costs and allows health insurance to be sold across state lines.

Let me break that down for you:

1. Increase incentives for Health Savings Accounts: Give the banks more money to play with, and still be unprepared for a major health emergency, but at CD rates.

2. Cap non-economic jury awards in medical malpractice cases: You can sue the doctor that maliciously botched your son's operation for the cost of the hospital stay, but your pain and suffering from his death is only worth a quarter million, tops. This is a good thing, however, as it makes providing inferior and potential lethal medical care less of a burden on the hospital's shareholders.

3. Provide incentives to drive down premium costs: Make medical insurance mandatory, then fine poor people for not buying into it.

4. Allow health insurance to be sold across state lines: Deregulation. Works every time. Right?

My favorite part of the article, however, is this insanely humorous little nugget:

House Republicans, including their leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, have said that they did not intend for their legislation to expand insurance coverage, because they viewed that goal as unaffordable. Instead, they said the bill was tailored narrowly to reduce costs. According to the report by nonpartisan budget office, the Republican bill would reduce future federal deficits by $68 billion over 10 years, compared to a reduction of $104 billion by the House Democrats’ legislation.

So, expanding health care (the whole idea of creating a new Health Care Bill, by the way) was deemed to expensive, so the concentrated on cutting costs, the end result being that they still somehow managed to reduce the deficit 36 Billion less than the "unaffordable" Democratic bill.

Honestly, who could possibly argue with logic like that?

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