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.
Health Care “Reformers,” Don’t Make Me Swear.
December 19, 2009 by Julia King · 3 Comments
A friend just emailed me about health care, wondering if I think the Senate ought to (as he put it) “shitcan” the current bill. Hmmm. I’ve never used the word before (this rather sailorish “shitcan”), but I think I might like it. Shitcan. I type the word a third time and still it looks good.
He owned up to being only on the “edge of understanding” and claimed some malleability on the issue, which coincidentally puts us in the exact same camp.
I wonder: Is there anyone in the center of understanding? Someone who really gets it? Gets the fact that every other “advanced” nation on earth is able to give its entire population medical care but we cannot? And is there anyone who can explain how it is the Catholic Church appears to be on the brink of blocking women from accessing a perfectly legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure? And the legislators who are helping them do it are called “moderate.”
I haven’t written much about this for two reasons. One is that, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a full time job. Yes, real writers with full time jobs that are not writing jobs, wake in the wee hours of the morning just to string together words. So I guess that makes me the Velveteen Rabbit of writers, all full of stuffing and not actually real.
My job is a challenging, fulfilling job, by the way, and one that exposes me regularly to people who need, among other things, health care. This leads to the second reason I haven’t written: It’s just so incredibly sad. It is tragic that Americans can find the money, the will and the way to launch war on any given day, but get all tripped up and bogged down in ideology when it comes time to provide basic care to its citizens… or those who want to be its citizens.
It should have been Single Payer from the beginning. We all get there together. If we don’t, it doesn’t mean a thing. Okay. I confess I’ve given a different speech to friends who are even more disillusioned than I am. I’ve talked about Susan B. Anthony and how she devoted her whole adult life (not just a campaign season or two) to getting women the vote – and in the end she never saw it. It happened, of course, but not on her watch. And in the process, Frederick Douglas sold her out; and later suffragists like Kate Gordon and Laura Clay sold African American women out. They all got there eventually, but not together. Was Douglas a brilliant negotiator to leave white women behind? And were Gordon and Clay equally brilliant to leave black women behind?
No. They were all just humans desperate for a taste of dignity. It’s human frailty, not cunning and intellect, that allows us to cut others from our cause just so we can get there faster. But it’s what we do.
Heavy sigh. We’re screwy.
Yeah. Shitcan.
Give These People Some Low-Cost, High-Quality Chill Pills
August 8, 2009 by Julia King · 11 Comments
I know two people in this video: My cousin appears briefly, standing on a table (wearing a white pair of pants and a reddish shirt, sunglasses propped on top of her head like a good Floridian). Her husband is the man with the ripped shirt near the door. And here he is again in The New York Times.
It’s been years since I’ve seen them, my cousin and her husband. I’ve always liked them though, considered them cool since the time I was about eleven and my sisters and I went sledding at their (then) rural Indiana home. They are therefore stashed permanently in my memory as good, lighthearted people… despite what appears to be their current-day hatred of health care.
Why? Why do they hate health care?? Who are these people anyway? Not just my cousin and her husband, but this entire angry mob? “Hear our voice!!” they shout over and over again. But what do they want us to hear? What? SAY it already, People.
I happen to want health care for all because… well, because it seems so clearly moral to consider health care a human right rather than a profit-driven luxury. I’m not asking for government-sponsored strappy sandals. I’m not asking to squeeze the profit out of manicures and spa treatments. Go ahead, price me out of a balloon ride. Or a weekend at the Cape. Profit is okay. A little elitism and exclusion is okay. But not where health care is concerned. Stupid, lazy, fat, drug addicts, immigrants, the sick, the really sick… I want to cover them ALL. That’s how I roll.
What do these other people want?
MORE LATER….
Okay, here’s the MORE: The family gossip is that my cousin and her husband (Randy) didn’t go to the town hall meeting with the intention of disrupting it. They went to watch and listen. They even claim to be open to some form of health care reform (although they are NOT fans of Obama).
Apparently they were in the hallway when the chanting started and when Randy saw the door being closed (and empty chairs still available in the meeting room), he tried to push his way through — and ended up getting more than he bargained for from two aggressive union guys. That’s the story anyway. It is worth noting, however, that Randy (and my cousin) are regular right-wing radio listeners, meaning that at this point they are poised and ready to pounce on anything that looks like “socialism.” (NOTE: health care for ALL looks a little bit like socialism.)
I’m sorry Randy got roughed up. It’s a sad day when a person goes to a town hall meeting and comes home with a ripped shirt and a bloodied chest. It’s also a sad day when the prospect of giving tens of millions of human beings access to health care is seen as a license to start a revolution; so I’ve spent the day trying to figure out whether Randy was a victim or an accessory. I’m still not sure.
What I do know is that democracy can’t work if people shout down (and shut down) their ideological opponents. It just can’t. So being part of the democratic process (showing up at public meetings, for instance) has to mean that a person is committed to sorting out all of the available information — and to listening to all of the viewpoints.
Randy showed up (and good for him, because a large part of anything is showing up!), but he acted not when the chanting started (which was the real closing of the meeting), but when the physical door was being closed… in order to drown out the disruptive noise. He tried to shove his body in, but it was too late.
(Randy, if you’re reading: I welcome your input here. I’m sure I need to be set straight!) 
Pumpkinvine People, I Heart You.
June 21, 2009 by Julia King · 3 Comments
Good-for-nothing Blogger Gets Actual Job
June 19, 2009 by Julia King · 6 Comments
A couple of people (Okay… ONE. One person.) expressed concern about the lack of new content on my site. It’s true. It’s been a while. I recently took a job and haven’t found (or made) the time to write. Thank you for noticing, One Person. I like that about you!
I don’t know about all of you (“all of you,” apparently meaning One Person’s entire self), but my mind is on health care. I just haven’t figured out a way to write about it without using lots of swear words, so I’m pondering for now…
In the meantime, do your part and make some noise out there about the need for a national health care plan. Single Payer is the way to go, but at the very least we need a public option. It is SO past time for this. Read HERE to be convinced.
Okay, bye. Write to you later, One Person. Hey — I’m working on something about MOTORCYCLES. What do you think of THAT?
Strip Searching and Other School House Lessons
April 22, 2009 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
Message to my fifteen-year-old daughter: if you put illicit ibuprofen in your underpants, the principal will find it. DON’T DO DRUGS.
This week the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case about a 13-year-old who was strip-searched at school in the ever-important and never-ending War on Drugs.
Isn’t it a little ironic that while some school administrators are busily fighting “sexting,” (the sending of erotic messages and photos on cell phones), others are disrobing pubescent girls in the nurse’s office? Yes. The answer is, “Yes, indeed. That’s ironic.”
It would be amusing, except that a living, breathing, developing human being was humiliated in the search for an ibuprofen. Okay, to be fair, it was EXTRA STRENGTH.
When IS it okay for a school official to strip search an 8th grader? Because most 13-year-olds would rather be water-boarded than strip searched, I’m going to go with a firm “never,” although I’m willing to consider exceptional scenarios that involve hidden explosives.
It’s forgivable (and even understandable) for an administrator to occasionally display bad judgment. Anyone who’s ever spent much time around middle schoolers can attest to the fact that they have an uncanny ability to bring out the worst in people. As a substitute teacher, I remember distinctly one eighth grade boy who decided it would be funny to “beep” all through math class. Mercifully, his peers found the behavior even more annoying than I did and he abandoned the game (before I had the presence of mind to search his nude body for electronic beeping devices). But his goal was typical of his age group – to push the buttons of authority figures, and the limits of good taste.
In the course of working with young people, in the course of trying to establish boundaries and guidelines, a slip-up now and then is to be expected. And when the stakes are high, like in the case of drugs or weapons, those errors in judgment can be correspondingly dramatic. Mistakes are a part of life, whether it’s the kid who thinks it’s cool to pass out anti-inflammatory pills in the cafeteria… or the assistant principal who thinks it’s cool to stop the behavior at all costs, including the cost of a young girl’s dignity. One bad call needn’t destroy an official’s career – or tarnish the reputation of an institution, or worse yet, an entire profession.
But according to the Christian Science Monitor, the National School Boards Association and the American Association of School Administrators filed a friend of the court brief in support of the school officials. Uh-oh. School administrators are staking out ground in favor of strip-searching 13-year-olds?? Maybe that’s the real story, the fact that there are professional associations — groups of men and women who deal with our children day in and day out — who are moved to defend, not a young girl whose underpants were peeked into at school – but their colleagues who made the decision to do it.
It’s bad enough that they even want that kind of authority (who in their right mind WANTS to be allowed to look into an 8th grader’s pants??); but what these administrators need to realize is that, regardless of what the Supreme Court rules, they can’t have the authority. Such acts, acts that tamper with the delicate psyches of girls and boys transitioning into adulthood, acts that are designed to take control over beings who desperately need to learn to control themselves, acts that are at their core about one individual looking past another… these are acts that can’t ever really be authorized. They can only be made legal (although I believe the Supreme Court will declare the strip search unconstitutional).
School administrators need not wait for external judgment; right now what they need is self-reflection.
Anti-tax “Tea Party” in Goshen
April 11, 2009 by Julia King · 5 Comments
It’s so much more relaxing visiting a protest than actually organizing one. As a visitor to a protest, all those people who wear the wrong clothes or make signs that are distractingly ill-conceived are entertaining. As an organizer of a protest, the goal is as much message cohesion as possible; but as a visitor, the presence of opposing political currents (like right-wing Christians and Libertarians, for instance) provides a nice undercurrent of interest. On the political Left, there are frequently too many drums and white guys with dreadlocks; on the political Right, there are too many flags and dirty baseball caps (and when I say “dirty,” I mean that they need to be washed, not that they are embroidered with naked ladies).
And so this morning I stood on the Elkhart County Courthouse lawn in Goshen as several hundred people (some with baseball caps, some with flags, and some with church flyers) threw a local version of the national anti-tax “Tea Party” that’s become all the rage on the Right. A lot of people who didn’t notice our dept or deficit or war expenditures when George W. Bush was in office are suddenly counting our collective pennies now that we’re talking about health care.
Have I mentioned that I like democracy? I do. I do like democracy. I love that Americans can congregate in public spaces and say anything they want (except “fire!” or “kill!” of course).
“Cut the fat!” read one sign (cleverly shaped like a pig). I approached the sign holder and asked her what, exactly, did she not want to pay for. She said she didn’t want to pay for things that “aren’t really necessary.” When I asked her about health care, she paused for quite a while. She wasn’t sure about that. Since she didn’t have insurance, she was iffy on that one. But she did not want to pay for some study about bird migrations, she said.
Midway through our conversation the prayer started, so we silenced ourselves to bow our heads and listen. The pastor at the microphone invoked Deuteronomy 28 and at one point mentioned “heathen nations” and at another point said we should be living as an “unabashedly Christian nation.” It was a long prayer.
I moved on through the crowd, taking note of a man’s “No Taxation without Representation!” sign. Was he from Washington, D.C. (where they really are taxed without representation)? Or was he just confused? Either way, the man (and the crowd) heard from Indiana state representative Wes Culver.
Culver speaks in sweeping terms, the way most good politicians do, but he isn’t afraid to utter specifics. Today he was the only one brave enough to make the real-world connection between taxes and government services. “If you don’t like taxes, don’t complain about potholes or the brush not being picked up on your street,” he said. (It would have been fair to add more items to that list of things not to complain about, including, but not limited to: your poorly educated kids, or when you have to file for bankruptcy because your health insurance runs out, or tainted milk products from China that end up on your table because regulators have been “cut back” along with the budget).
The people who congregated at the courthouse were there for a range of reasons, but they more-or-less agreed that taxes were too high (and that those taxes pay for things that “aren’t really necessary”). Some of them seemed like reasonable people who had done their homework, like the man I spoke with from a group called “FairTax;” (he was nice enough, but I’ll need to read more about it before I comment on the actual plan) but others just wanted to hang their ideology somewhere – and the “taxes” hook was the most convenient place. “Don’t use my tax dollars for abortion,” demanded one sign.
It was a crisp and sunny spring day, perfect weather for a Tea Party. There was plenty of energy and determination. But there was no clear winning argument.
Givers and Takers (and earthquake makers) of the Economy
March 21, 2009 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
A couple of months ago I attended a memorial service for a woman who headed up her congregation’s Care Committee, meaning that while she was alive (and she was incredibly alive) she specialized in swooping in to care for others when they were in need. She baked casseroles for growing families, made sandwiches for the grieving, transported the sick to hospitals. In story after story, her friends described a woman with a nearly insatiable desire to give.
We all know people like this woman, the ones who stack the chairs and sweep the floors while others (me) stand around chatting, the ones who wash the last coffee cups and wipe down the counters… without the slightest expectation of reward. When these people are thanked, they deflect the thanks like Wonder Woman deflects bullets with her magic bracelets. It ends up anywhere but on them.
A.I.G. executives (and others in the news) have me thinking about that Care Committee friend. What is it that makes some people devote their lives to humble giving and others to seeking praise, money, and material reward?
Never mind the numbers — so big they might as well be starring in a movie alongside giant, mutant ladybugs (start with 800,000,000,000, then subtract 170,000,000,000; then sneak out 165,000,000…etc.). Sorry, but some of us (lots of us) are just never going to get the numbers. But if the economy runs in large part on “confidence,” the social psychology of our system matters just as much as all those loony zeros do. It matters that the economy doesn’t make sense in our guts.
We’re Americans. We believe in work and in excellence; we admire both innate ability and hard-won skill; we value persistence and optimism. Yes, we are willing to accept that those who achieve great things are entitled to live with a little more than those of us who never will. But we’re not fools. And we are not mean-spirited (well, maybe when we haven’t had enough sleep). The genial, middle-aged bagger in my grocery store may not be capable of complex problem-solving, but that fact alone should not put him at risk for poverty. In our system it does.
The problem with our fantastic free market is that it’s a little too much like a teenager, chasing after the latest trend and responding to desire over genuine need. For instance, it provides Americans with a dizzying array of affordable sexy shoes (fun, fun, FUN), while a large percentage of us can’t afford to visit a doctor (not so fun). Like a high-schooler, it gives preference to those who are naturally charismatic, or aggressive enough to demand serious money, and pretty much ignores people who are hopelessly incapable — or who deal in modest kindnesses. Sadly, we’ve got a system that even on its best days is about as considerate as a prom queen (hint: not everyone gets invited to her fabulous party).
A lot of people have figured this out, the lopsided truth about our system. But not everyone, like the very smart writers at The Washington Post. In one visit to the keyboard, the editors criticized a fire fighters’ union for wanting COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) pay, and in another they defended A.I.G. bonuses. Damn those greedy fire fighters, that’s what I always say. But the A.I.G. guys, well… they were promised the money, you know. They have bills too, you know. They might get mad and leave their jobs and what would we do THEN, you know?
(Give back HALF?? Did A.I.G.’s Edward Liddy really say that? Because that’s just funny.)
Despite what’s being said by right-wing men living in the mountains with stockpiles of ammo, there’s a lot of space between America’s current (confusing-to-the-people) brand of capitalism and that big bogeyman socialism. But it seems clearer all the time that the best way to guard against forces of serious Marxism is to fight against the forces of serious greed. (Capitalism devotees could learn a thing or two from hospital president Paul Levy, who inspired internal cooperation rather than competition when faced with a budget squeeze.)
Most of the folks at the top of the economic food chain are never going to head up a church Care Committee, but if they know what’s good for themselves (and the country) they are going to learn to live with less.
T’was a Time Before Twitter…
March 9, 2009 by Julia King · 5 Comments
Twitter is like lip piercings or a thong peeking out of a pair of jeans. It makes me feel old-fashioned, like I should be making meatloaf and wearing a house coat (not a Snuggie, but a house coat — the kind my grandmother used to wear with little buttons to keep it closed).
“Even I know that Twitter is weird,” writes a blogger who Twitters. That’s encouraging, because we all do things we know are weird (for instance, I sometimes watch America’s Next Top Model). Normalcy (if there is such a thing) requires that we at least know when we’re being weird (as in, “I know it’s weird, but I have to stand on my hands every time I see a cow”).
The fact is, it’s all strange: blogging, Facebook, MySpace, texting, tweeting, tooting (I made that last one up, but it’ll happen).
If computers have made bad writing too easy (and they totally, really, completely have), applications like Twitter have made co-dependence too easy. No one should know what someone else is doing at all times (as in, Julia is shaving her ankles and clipping her toenails for spring!). Personal information sharing is fine, but if the group of people who get to hear it ALL can’t fit into a minivan, it’s too big.
Togetherness. Community. Right on. We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving (that’s a song from the olden days, when we talked to each other with our voices). But surely there are limits (please let there be limits!) to the healthy exchange of information between people. And when I say between “people,” I mean between Person A and Persons B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, and so forth. Small numbers of people are designed for genuine friendship and daily minutia. Big numbers are made for traffic jams and riots and Publisher’s Clearing House.
“It keeps me connected to people,” is the prevailing claim from those who routinely use an array of technologies to communicate with people out of view while people in view wait for a turn to “connect.” It’s as though we’re all Paris Hilton, distractingly popular and struggling to dole out small (and not so small) servings of ourselves to satisfy our many admirers.
It’s easy to get sucked into the frenzy, to “friend” everyone and her sister, to live each day (each hour?) with a new one-liner for the world, to upload cute profile pictures and clever homemade videos. Actually, that’s not true. It’s hard!
“Health Care for a Few” is Not Much of a Motto
March 2, 2009 by Julia King · 2 Comments
Last week lawmakers in Indiana passed an amendment to exclude undocumented immigrant families from Medicaid in order to “…protect legal Hoosiers and spend their tax dollars responsibly,” according to a statement from Representative Jackie Walorski’s office (Walorski is sponsor of the amendment to House Bill 1653).
My own representative (Wes Culver) voted for the measure in part because he said a survey of the district showed 80 percent support for it. 80 percent?! Yikes. We are certifiably down-and-out here in district 49; and people do get cranky when they’re down-and-out, but still…embarrassing (right??).
In a town hall meeting Saturday morning at the Goshen Chamber of Commerce, Rep. Culver and State Sen. Carlin Yoder both said voting against Medicaid for undocumented immigrants was a matter of fairness, as though there is some moral code that involves turning one’s back on sick people if they come from the wrong country.
It’s not easy, this whole health care thing (covering as many people as possible with the least amount of money) but it would be good if we could at least agree that it’s almost always “fair” to grant human beings basic medical care. Not only is it fair, but it’s smart. Leaving significant portions of a country’s (or states’) population without access to medical treatment can quickly jeopardize public health as communicable diseases incubate and spread. Viruses don’t care much about citizenship.
It makes sense to look for ways to save money in the health care system, but there are better places to look than in passports.
For instance, thumb-tacked to the bulletin board beside my desk is a glossy advertisement for the emergency room of a nearby hospital. The hospital is so nearby, in fact, that fifteen years ago when my daughter was born I walked there (in labor) at 3 o’clock in the morning. Why would a non-profit, tax-exempt hospital waste valuable resource courting my “business” when I live so close to its facilities? Why would a hospital advertise its emergency room at all?
Also gracing my bulletin board is a shiny 8-page health “magazine” sent from the Marketing and Community Relations Department of another hospital, one roughly half an hour away from my home. Why is a non-profit hospital from a neighboring city competing for me when I already live a stone’s throw away from a hospital in my own city?
Such mailings and publications (in addition to the billboards and radio and television ads) represent large amounts of money, money that is not treating sick or dying people in Indiana. According to one hospital administrator I spoke with, non-profit hospitals have virtually no regulations regarding expenditures. Advertising, huge CEO salaries, none of it’s regulated. If legislators are looking for places to cut or redirect health care dollars, to see to it that tax breaks within the system make sense, here’s a place to start.
