TPH: Getting Fixed

Cross-posted at The Exchange & The Political Hoedown


Much is being made of Health Care/Insurance reform of late. Look on any major news site, op-ed page or political blog and you’ll run into several pieces posted just this week covering the breaking news! over Blue Dog Dems dealing or Obama pushing or Republicans pushing back, not to mention the pontificating on both sides of the aisle over what “reform” really means for health care in America, co-op vs. public option…and the shouting at Town Halls! It’s more than part of the news cycle – it’s a key argument about our future.

It’s the first major legislative battle Obama has had to fight, and for the Democratic Party, it’s a chance to reverse a fifteen-year-old loss. More than these, it is a new theatre of war in the battle for our civil liberties.

The Bush Administration is still fresh in our minds. How many readers have lamented that since 9/11 (or afterwards, when the Patriot Act was passed), our civil liberties have been trampled on/infringed upon/lost? It’s a common topic that talks of the individual freedoms we hold valuable in our country.

(Less directly, those voicing dissent were also realizing a harsh reality: that these “truths we hold to be self-evident” and divinely-granted exist only due to the government’s benevolent, diverse structure and state.)

The thinking is this: we have a measure of control (freedoms) over our personal lives (and by extension, choices) that cannot be impugned by any governmental body. The most common freedom referenced is that of Speech, tying into the freedom to disagree with the government and its members.

So were our freedoms infringed upon over the last seven and change years? And how does this factor into health care?!

Short answer: 1) no, and 2) health care reform as exists in draft form (ObamaCare) is a direct interference in our lives, a diluting of our personal liberties.

Not-as-short answer, we’ll talk first about Bush (yay, that hasn’t been done a lot!).

Aside from the flag-draped coffins arriving in cargo planes, the biggest uniquely “American” tragedy of the recent Bush years is the “loss” of civil liberties/personal freedoms. But let’s take a look further. Yes, the TSA interrupted our travel, causing frustration. We were also limited in the quantity of cosmetics we could bring on planes (still no guns). Regarding dissent – freedom of speech in general – if anything, Bush’s time in office saw a flowering of free speech. Having worked in a book store, I witnessed firsthand the number of anti-Administration books that were published – harsh tomes that didn’t hold their punches and outright derided, accused and insulted most of the top officials. Few were spared. One novel, by Nicholson Baker, had its main character fantasizing about killing Bush (though he was talked out of it).

In the theatres, we saw the scathing documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which took aim at the Administration’s run-up to and early execution of the War in Iraq (as well as the handling of 9/11 itself). “Critical” is an understatement. And how many times did we tune in to a left-leaning pundit, talk show host or guest lambasting Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld as evil, fascist, corrupt, or at the least questionable in their morality?

Is this provocative newsmaking? Strict journalism? No, much of what was published, printed, screened or screamed by the cable punditry was personal opinion, heavily biased and often filled with fervent desire to see those in power toppled like an Iraqi statue, i.e., brought low by impeachment. While this never happened, “administration change” was a stated policy goal of many armchair politicians.

So freedom of speech. Freedom to (angrily) travel. Abortion and gay-related issues existed at the end of term where they were at the beginning, from a national perspective. Your taxes went down (yes, for all of you; a new lower bracket was even created). Your incomes may also have gone down, or your home values or 401(k)’s; insurance premiums did rise. But those aren’t “freedoms,” but rather a part of living in a capitalist, largely market-driven society.

More importantly, during this time your freedom of choice wasn’t altered. Choice to drink or smoke, to have a hamburger, to drive an SUV.

To not be insured.

We require our drivers to get car insurance, mainly to pay for repairs when that other guy hits you while turning left out of a Taco Bell parking lot. It’s a safety net for those responsible in traffic accidents, so they don’t go broke when their ’89 Civic rear-ends a Bentley. There are multiple parties involved.

Health insurance is a different beast. It’s about you and your body. It’s a choice you make about protecting that body and your pocketbook in case of injury or serious illness. We don’t cover ourselves to pay for cold medicine; as John Stossel said recently, insurance isn’t welfare, but instead coverage for a potential catastrophic incident. It secures against the potential maladies that can’t be solved by a trip to CVS or Walgreens, those things that cost a lot to fix.

But we still – as of this writing, and since insurance was invented – have a choice whether or not to buy it.

Our employers might cover us. They certainly don’t need to provide insurance. Tying your health care to where you work has shackled many to careers they’d rather not have. But we expect it, don’t we? It’s taken for granted that if you work for a major corporation, “benefits” will be included – benefits being medical coverage, dental, vision, emergency room service, etc. When it’s not offered, many throw their hands up and moan. What am I going to do? they cry.

In the case you don’t have employer-provided coverage, you can buy insurance (as the company is doing for its employees) from a provider, paying semi-annually to maintain the safety net against grievous injury or sickness.

But, again, you don’t have to; there is no requirement. If we’re not careful, however, there could be.

For lack of a better term, I’ll call what’s coming out of the Democratic Caucuses “ObamaCare,” and in its purest form it approaches a single-payer (that payer being the gov’t) system that many in America don’t understand, but also recoil from when it’s mentioned. As is being drafted currently, ObamaCare would include a requirement – punishable, if violated – for all employers to buy their employees health care and for all individuals to somehow have coverage, buying it if is not provided otherwise. A mandate.

So be healthy, or pay a fine. Or another way to look at it, Dear Leader says buy our healthcare.

It’s just a matter of time, if ObamaCare is passed, before the single-payer option is introduced in some pilot phase. We have a debate now between a government insurance program (the “public” option; run & owned by the gov’t and funded with your tax dollars) and the co-op (a member-owned group that uses their purchasing power to get lower costs collectively than alone).

(I’m more for the latter, predominantly because I think small businesses should have the option – should they choose – of collective bargaining that we think only unionistas are entitled.)

Public or co-op, under ObamaCare one way has to be in the bill to ensure “lower” cost insurance options, as we would all need to have something under pain of high fines. And here’s where the freedom of choice goes away.

We should not be forced by a governmental body to buy health insurance, something that affects solely the individual (if I punch you, and you need dental work, no health care plan of mine in the capitalist world would pay your bill). It’s our choice.

Many of those that are uninsured are post-college adults who either don’t have the job that supplies insurance or choose not to be covered, as they are young and healthy. Catastrophic risk is low for them, as relates to illness (we all can fall victim to accidents & injuries).

Why are we seeing a party that champions individual choice (we can cut to the quick with one word: abortion) refusing to allow the same regarding health care coverage?

This is a step toward a nanny state, and what do nannies do but take away the choices of the child.

If we are soon mandated to have health insurance, how long before fast food joints are fined for serving real beef burgers (too fatty!) instead of veggie burgers? Or bread producers (and their supporting farmers) ordered to make only gluten-free products, as some claim our bodies aren’t supposed to handle the stuff? Or regular pop – or pop in general, as diet might possibly in an alternate world lead to cancer! It’s all unhealthy, right? We shouldn’t consume these products, as they’d raise the potential for future maladies (and jack up costs)…right, Dear Leader?

What about the “legalize” movement, predominantly supported by the same left-leaning people who voted Obama into office? It’ll be a cold day before pot is legalized; in fact, it’s more likely that cigarettes face a 100% national tax – punishing smokers, isolating them, even more – on their way to an eventual banning.

And then there’s that can of beer you drink while watching a game. Prohibition was a failure, and it was the result of a religious-backed temperance movement that saw it pass. Well, “health care reform” advocates want your body to be insured and in tip-top shape; liquor doesn’t factor into that equation. Look for higher sales taxes, more restrictions on purchases by individuals and establishments, neighborhood bar & grill closures.

Because you have to be as healthy as the government says. There is no more room for personal choice when it comes to our bodies, right? That’s what I’m hearing with ObamaCare. Health care reform is no longer an issue of children being without insurance or the homeless being denied care. We’re not talking about lowering costs so the woman working two jobs can afford coverage to combat her returned cancer.

No, we’re skipping the true “need” aspect of health care (that being low, market-driven costs with state restrictions eliminated, co-op pools for small businesses, et al) for the ideological stance of a small group of policy makers too enamored with the concept of “universal coverage” to realize the dread cost to the end-consumer or the country as a whole.

The potential for failure to reform health care – to make it affordable for all – is high. No one likes to hear the tragic stories where if they had coverage Bobby would be alive, or little Susie’s heart valve defect would’ve been detected in utero, avoiding frantic emergency surgery, or Ted wouldn’t have gone bankrupt paying for his wife’s caner medication and treatment. Those stories will compound if nothing is done.

But the right action isn’t necessarily the one presented, and I’m not saying it’s 100% the Grumbling Opposition Party’s way either. What I do fervently believe is that we need to be mindful of the individual’s right to choose – and the related personal freedoms that could be endangered should we lose that right.

Our civil liberties come in many forms. A woman’s right to choose is not the only heath care choice we have the “right” to make. If we want to create a society that lets the person and not the government make the choice in the vast majority of cases, we cannot allow ourselves to turn a deaf ear when protest is raised on a topic we feel strongly about.

Take a few steps back. Slow down the process. Reform the health care system, but don’t devolve our rights in the process.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

TPH: The Final Debate (Dun dun duuuuuun!!!)

The Political Hoedown
The Sit-Down Debate (#3)


Forced to share the a table, John McCain and Barack Obama faced off in an uncaged verbal death match last night at Hofstra University. Moderating was the elderly, but deft Bob Schieffer of CBS, probably the best moderator we've seen this political season. The questions cut to the quick on many issues, were not softballs and prompted intense back-and-forths unlike anything we've seen in the previous 2008 Presidential debates.

Not that it was really that exciting.


***

Obama still monotoned his way through most answers, sticking to the stump speech talking points, using the phrase "middle class" about as often as he could and, if the opportunity arose, getting in some quick jabs or "nuh uhs!" to block McCain's attacks. On the issues, he was able to give a broad, appealing answer for any Health Care questions without really getting into the nuts and bolts of the matter. It was probably his best response, but certainly he did not show a complete mastery of all domestic matters.

On education, a key issue for any parent or potential parent, he said nothing. Oh, he said a lot of words, but they boiled down to an ignorance of the underlying problems and a desire to increase funding at a federal level without holding states at all accountable for the money they currently spend from their own coffers, much less the federal dollars. When the talk turned to vouchers in District of Columbia public schools, he agreed with McCain that they worked, then said he wanted to move away from them because there weren't enough available.

If something works in a pilot program, you usually expand, rather than eliminate, the specifics of the program. That leap in logic, pretty small, eluded Obama and I'm sure McCain is hoping this resonates particularly with urban parents who see their schools deteriorating and want another option.

Taken overall, it was another bland performance, or as the punditry says, "reassuring." He might be black, in other words, but he's not gonna steal your Jeep's spare tire. Smooth move, media.

But this wasn't about Obama. The last two debates haven't been. He has proven that he can give reasoned answers to questions, regardless of their origin (read: stump speeches), and that he can "look" presidential. It is known he is a good speaker, able to portray his ideas in a way that most can understand, even if nuts-and-bolts workings aren't overtly discussed. He has done very well in these debates, because there wasn't a very high standard he had to reach. Provided he didn't ramble like Kerry or act peevish like Gore or wild-eyed and hostile like Hillary, he had it in the bag.

Could you sit for 90 minutes and act respectable? Exactly. Not a lot of pressure was placed on him to present specifics on all of his plans, how they differ from McCain's (they are both very close on education and energy with only a few, though key, differences), how bipartisan they are or can be. Nor was he really pressed about his past legislative experience. He had to show up, not look like a clown and, three even-if-unexciting debates later, no big shoes or red, honking nose.

***

For all he was expected to do, McCain both hit the mark and wildly missed it. His two biggest missteps were Health Care and Obama's associations. There are enough circumstantial links between ACORN, Ayers and Obama to keep the latter flummoxed and without enough time to answer everything, but McCain only scratched the surface, trying to keep things above board (as his was considered the more negative campaign going into the debate).

On Health Care, his plan looks more complicated, but below the surface turns out to be a savings for the regular consumer and a "hand up" type proposal; he did not let people know Obama's was more hand out than not, and that simple in appearance, it was a mess when you get into it (a little partisan, I apologize, but I'm very concerned about health care costs long-term). Another prime opportunity to back Obama against the wall and he didn't take it.

True, the format - only 90 minutes with supposedly only 10 minutes per topic - limits the sort of true back-and-forth we need on these issues. For a candidate coming from behind, they either need a stellar quip that rocks their opponent back on their heels, or a mini-speech that effectively outlines a proposal while showing its merits versus the other guy's. McCain constantly needed more time to make his case now that he's realized there are three weeks left, his campaign staff led him astray for months and if he wants to even lose with dignity, he needs to make up at least four points in the polls and about fifty electoral college votes.

Sounds pessimistic, but as I mentioned when talking about Obama, McCain scored big on education. In the past, he's talked about the Department of Education in less-than-fond terms, even supporting its elimination. Right now, states provide the bulk of education funding for their states, though the Federal Government also chips in. A lot of money is thrown at education, but it's inexpertly applied. We're lagging in worldwide education standing because we can't add up the numbers we're spending on it, to paraphrase a joke my wife told me. McCain made it clear that he would aggressively attack education funding to cut the wheat from the chaff, make schools accountable, increase charter schools (which work) and vouchers (which also work, but aren't out of test districts yet). It's classic conservative policy - lean, efficient funding that gets the job done right, instead of a bloated budget (to be increased more under Obama) so big it's bound to hit the right beat every now and again.

And that leads in to McCain's key - and potentially game-changing - victory for the night. Spending & the Government. He emphasized time and again that he was for reduced government spending, spending freezes coupled with a "scrubbing" of every department of government to rid them of waste and lower taxes for everyone. Saying the corporate tax should be lowered was a gamble, and an open invitation to Obama to bring up Exxon and other oil companies that would benefit (McCain never in the debates reminded Americans that more than oil companies are corporations and will benefit from such a cut, as will your pocketbook), but it got the idea out there and gave him another stump speech talking point. Obama repeatedly mentioned that we needed to invest in this or that program, code for increased government spending.

By reigniting, even at this stage, the idea of a tax-and-spend Democrat running deficits up and mortgaging our children's future, McCain can avoid character assassination as the driving strategy. Here, domestically, is where they differ. Can McCain drive that stake into the Obama's campaign and make it stick? That's the big question.

***

The line that sticks in everyone's mind? John McCain said, "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." It effectively stopped the "Bush III" or Bush/McCain bit Obama's been throwing around, and opened the door for McCain to attack Obama on never opposing his party (to which Barack failed utterly to present a time he did think for himself. The tort reform bill? 40% of Senate Democrats supported it. Hardly breaking with your party).

Does the winning sound bite mean he won? For that accurate hit that line landed, it did not make up for Obama's measured, cool, almost detached approach to answering questions. McCain was hopped up on crack for most of last night, full of energy, overflowing with talking points, righteous indignation and hope for victory. It, unfortunately, did not come through that way in the split screen, the big judge of debater's success, i.e. reaction shots.

So I can't say that McCain won based on his performance. Reading the transcript, I can't honestly say Obama won, since he repeated himself for the third time in a row. No change, no deviation, no off-the-cuff explanations of programs. Even McCain's answers seem run through with too much excitement, throwing him off track at times. He dominated for a third, went off the rails and missed opportunities, but then came back to finish strong. I think it was his best showing. Obama's best was last week, and here he appeared peevish, annoyed that he had to sit next to this old coot, and uninterested in really diving into the discussion. But he also appeared more focused for the balance of the night, and that might have won him the election right there.

***

Obama and McCain have been campaigning since early 2007 at this point. We know where they stand and the depth of their stances. By now, if you don't know a particular policy - unrelated to the bailout or economic correction/crisis/collapse - that's not the candidate's fault. Through writing, speeches, debates and surrogate interviews they have articulated exactly what they think about taxes, health care, Iraq, Iran, education, abortion, etc.

Last night's debate reminded us that for the first half of 2007 and 2008, John McCain led in national head-to-head polls. He's passionate, driven, focused on reform in government and changing course from what was promised in the Bush Administration to what we ended up with. Yesterday we also understood, yet again, why Barack Obama is a Democratic golden child, a leader and mouthpiece for his party, the true victor of the primaries and the driving force behind every political discussion in the latter half of the year.

Who is John McCain? Who is Barack Obama? What do they stand for and do I know more last night than I did yesterday morning?

I hope the debate came close to answering those questions. It was important, somewhat boring at times yet crackling with electricity at others.

***

We vote two weeks from next Tuesday. Not much time to make up your minds. We will be presenting cases for and against each candidates to help you if you're on the fence or give you talking points if you're not.

If you want to participate, send me an e-mail at denofmystery@gmail.com or, if you're on the distribution list, reply and let me know what you think.

A bit of humor: when interacting with the crowd at the end, McCain sort of waved his hands at one guy and did a little Gene Simmons' impression, over and done in a second. Well, someone had their camera ready:



God bless him, but that is not a flattering picture.

But Obama has looked...goofy, to say the least, including in this shot, at the first really featuring Joe Biden:



I don't know what to say that wouldn't be offensive. I...guess that means I'm going to hell.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

TPH: The Need of Our Own

A Political Hoedown Special Edition

Disclaimer: The opinions of Hooper McFinney are his own, and do not reflect yours, so don't worry. You won't get a mild case of intolerance from reading the following.


I read an interesting article in today's Chicago Tribune (credited to the LA Times, by Anna Gorman): "Illegal immigrant's case raises transplant issues." Ana Puente, the article tells us, is waiting for her fourth liver transplant. She received her first as an infant and other two in 1989 and 1998, all at UCLA Medical Center. The "approximate cost for a liver transplant and first-year follow-up," according to the article, is $490,000.

Ana is also an illegal immigrant. Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

To preface, I am not a heartless monster who thinks a child in need should be denied care. We need medical safety nets in place to make sure that children of all stripes are provided with responsible pediatric attention. I'd of course argue that the children of the wealthy deserve the coverage, but shouldn't be eligible, just like the requirements certain schools have regarding scholarships. The redistribution of wealth, as some Democrats might say, to the youth of this country is a finer thing than broad welfare spending on able-bodied adults. I digress, though.

What we're faced with is slap in the face, a people - and yes, I will stereotype and generalize, and to be sure, I'm talking about illegal Hispanic immigrants - full of a skewed sense of entitlement. Puente was quoted as saying, "It doesn't matter if I'm undocumented...they should take care of me at UCLA for the rest of my life because I've been there since I was a baby."

The waiting list for liver transplants in California alone is 3,700 people long, and only 767 transplants were performed in 2007. As many as 75 of those were for non-US citizens, the number for illegals unavailable.

We have a health care crisis in our country, no one denies it. People go without or with too little because of insurance, medicinal availability or full patient dockets at public hospitals. While the crisis is not necessarily widespread, it is still pervasive and threatens millions of people with, at the least, inadequate care. Why then are we so eager to give our services, our time, our tax dollars and our medicine to people who have violated federal law to be here?

I understand the "people are people" argument put forward by Dr. Michael Shapiro. "When you make an incision in an organ donor, you don't find little American flags planted on their organs." If you come to this country legally and get placed on a donor list, but your citizenship status is Iranian, you shouldn't be denied because you aren't a US citizen. But you're here legally, you went through the right channels; you didn't swim under them.

The executive director of NumbersUSA, Roy Beck, was right when he said transplants are about rationing. It's a needs-based system, but one that should also have built in it a legality component for those competent enough to seek their own health care. Basically, if you are in your twenties, like the two illegal immigrants in the article who are awaiting further transplants, there's a reason you're kicked off the state health care bill. You are old enough to make any decision you want, and perhaps the first one is to go home.

Home being, in these cases, Mexico. Seek its donor lists, wait with your countrymen, allow our citizens who paid for your livers - plural - to get one of their own, because they deserve it more than you. I know you couldn't choose where you were born, that those of us in the US don't realize how good we have it. It's a foregone conclusion!

But if you want to stay here, to take our benefits without putting anything else in the pot, how dare you demand our service.

Jose Lopez, the other illegal 20-year-old in the article awaiting another transplant, said, "You can't just leave a person to die. That's pretty much what they're telling me: 'You're illegally here. We're just gonna let you die.'"

Damn you for placing that burden on us! For putting the responsibility of your life at our feet! The sword of human dignity cuts both ways. If you want to live, don't say it's our ethical imperative to provide that life; man up! Run back across the border, apply for a worker visa, for citizenship or stay there and use your own nation's health care system.

It is not the responsibility of the United States to care for the world. I'm no isolationist, but on this there can be no argument. We have to order our own house, heal our own people who are in dire straights. The plight of a Mexican child with a bum kidney or livery might be heart-rending to hear, but if it's the difference between them and the child of an Ohio steelworker, or a Dakotan farmer or a Maine fisherman, there's no choice. I place us before them.

"Selfish" easily describes that action, but it's a small word for this, and makes the action small by relation. But this isn't a kid in a playground pouting and taking his ball home; it has to do with protecting the health, welfare and future of a whole nation. The more we allow programs like Medi-Cal, which seems to be a loophole program letting illegals get medical service at the cost of the state, to prosper, the less service we offer our own.

Think of it this way. Ana Puente, conservatively, has cost the state of California at least $1,000,000 (unadjusted) over the last two decades, Jose Lopez a little less. These two - just two - illegal immigrants by the end of the year, if all goes to plan, will have spent over $2,500,000 overall in California-taxpayer money by manipulating the structure of state health care systems. Illegal immigrants, mind you.

California has a program set up to provide quality health services for the poor, exactly who need the benefit. Medi-Cal in theory is great, but in at least this instance tragically flawed if it allows the downtrodden of our country to be beaten into the dust even more by those flagrantly ignoring federal law to seek our superior medical capabilities. Medical service that should be intended for the truly less fortunate of our country, not Felipe Calderon's or Alvaro Colom Caballeros' or Antonio Saca's.

I get frustrated with people who demand we treat the 12 million illegals as though they were already citizens when we have our own citizens dying from lack of the same medicine these illegals are utilizing. The economic benefit of cheap, head-down-cash-only labor does not outweigh the suffering of our own people. Again, it's a sense of entitlement, that because we are the "land of the free," that means it's free for any to walk all over and abuse.

Some argue it's our Christian duty to provide this much-needed care to the "undocumented," but not all taxpayers are Christian. If an organization independent of our state, local and federal governments wants to provide funding in a private clinic setting for illegal workers at no cost to the taxpayers, or detriment to poor US citizens, more power to them. That's one great thing about our country, the amount of private giving. Our charities do a great job complementing Federal programs and aid. Let's have them take a larger role.

But I do not see how, in clear conscience, we can continue to provide medical benefits to illegals above and beyond what we give our own citizens.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's ethics department chair, Arthur Caplan, stated, "Physicians and institutions do have a duty to these patients once they transplanted them. . . . Insurance running out is no excuse for abandoning them." The latter statement is correct, but greater need is an excuse. The need of our own sick and dying.

How can we lead the world, like all politicians preach we will if only you vote for them, if our own country has its very foundations crumbling due to disease and avoidable medical calamity?

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!