They’ll Never Figure it Out; and Other Reasons to Push Health Care for ALL
February 8, 2010 by Julia King · 8 Comments
Since the Super Bowl was played last night (congratulations Saints!), I thought I’d write about the State of the Union Address. Maybe for Easter I’ll write about the Super Bowl.
“…When the market crashed on Black Tuesday, and civil rights marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday, the future was anything but certain. These were the times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements, our hesitations and our fears, America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, as one people.” — President Barack Obama, State of the Union Jan. 2010
Of course, Obama said plenty of other things in his State of the Union Address, but I got so hung up on the above assertion, that I couldn’t hear much else.
For real? In the midst of moral crisis, Americans just hold hands and plow forward together like one big, loving family? Granted, I’m no history scholar; but this is not the way I read our nation’s past.
Slavery didn’t end because slave owners awoke one morning and realized that holding human beings in captivity was barbaric. Women didn’t get the vote because they batted their eyelashes at men and said “please.” Labor rights, Social Security, the racial integration of public schools, the end of the Vietnam War: none of these things came on the American scene because everyone chose to move forward as “one people.” To this day, there exist pockets of backward-thinking Americans who preach racial intolerance, and others who have never stopped romanticizing the raw, bootstrap-brand of capitalism that had children (and still does in many parts of the world) working as seamstresses and coalminers.
Bloody Sunday (and a whole host of other bloody days throughout history) only convinced SOME of the people that it was time for change. If we had waited to move forward as one, we never would have come this far. Progress has always meant dragging some Americans kicking and screaming away from the old days and into the new days. Ruby Bridges did not integrate a school in front of a resigned, respectful crowd of dissenters; she did it with marshals at her side and a mob of adults so angry and racist that they yelled and spit and cursed… at a little girl.
Lest I be chastised for traitorous thought, I am not sorry I voted for Barack Obama. I believe he is a good and decent man. I believe he is fiercely intelligent — and equally compassionate. Furthermore, I am shamelessly charmed by his entire family, from his wife down to his dog.
But if he thinks our nation’s moral progress has ever been a result of coming together as one, I’m afraid he’s sorely mistaken. And that mistaken view will make it impossible for him to deliver the national healthcare plan he promised Americans.
Many of us have already figured out that health care for EVERYONE makes sense for a multitude of reasons (including the oh-so-simple notion that it is MORAL). But Obama seems to think we ought to WAIT for insurance company CEOs and pharmaceutical company CEOs and anti-tax, anti-regulation advocates for itty-bitty government to figure out that having basic medical care for human beings in one of the richest nations on earth might be a good and just idea.
Okay. I guess I’ll WAIT.
Let’s talk about it. Let’s hold hands. Let’s be as one. Please.
Have you figured it out yet, CEOs? Tea Baggers?
No?!
Well, I’m done waiting.
Put universal healthcare in the spotlight, Mr. President. Explain it to people (and call it whatever you want to call it; don’t get bogged down in the terms). Say YOU support it (because putting everyone in the same healthcare pool is the best plan out there for both fiscal and ethical reasons). Tell the Democrats that THEY should support it — including self-serving, bland politicians like Evan Bayh). Tell the Republicans (ideologues like Mark Souder) that they may not hold progress hostage due to their private religious beliefs (re: abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion…) beliefs that should be held apart from their sworn duty to serve the public good.
And then let everybody vote – or filibuster, or whatever else they see fit to do.
A president’s job is to set the bar high and to push everybody to get over it. If it doesn’t work, someone else will just have to try again (and again and again). But waiting for the people who are wrong to figure out what’s right is not the way of progress. It never has been, and it never will be.
