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!) 
“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.
