Wednesday, October 23, 2013
The Fight About Obamacare is a Symptom of a Virulent Disease
by Tom Kando
The Right has lost the defund-Obamacare battle, but it won’t go quietly.
As the next “best” thing, the Right has brainwashed public opinion into believing that Obamacare is a “train wreck.” The Right is achieving this by harping on the technical problems associated with the program’s inauguration.
Yes, the program, the website(s), the software, the coding, all that does seem to be problematic. I don’t know whether these problems are unprecedented. I don’t remember how severe the “glitches” were when Social Security and Medicare were launched, or for that matter the new FBI website, or Apple’s iPad and iPhone.
Whatever the case may be, the focus on Obamacare’s TECHNICAL failures is now universal. Even liberal sources such as the Sacramento Bee’s editorial page agree that the situation is embarrassing, and that someone must be held accountable (Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius? President Obama?).
Of course, the Right feels that the technical difficulties justify scrapping Obamacare altogether.
I believe that it’s time to re-focus on what the true issues are:
1. Unlike EVERY SINGLE developed country in the world, the US until recently did not have universal health insurance. 45 to 55 million Americans - the poor, essentially - were deprived of what ALL other advanced countries long ago adopted as a FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT.
2. Every single democratic administration since President Truman (as well as several republican ones, including Eisenhower and Nixon) has tried to remedy this shameful situation. Finally, Obama succeeded - barely.
3. The Right is having a conniption over this, as it has every time that the country took a step towards greater justice and fairness - be it the abolition of slavery, the 14th Amendment, women’s suffrage, Civil Rights, Social Security, Medicare and other steps in the march of progress.
4. What can the motivation of people like Ted Cruz be? They may use all sorts of smoke-and-mirror “economic” arguments, but ultimately there can be only one true motive. Here is what’s going on inside such people’s minds:
“Whatever privilege, right or benefit I enjoy, I do not want to share it with you.
The fact that I have something and you don’t, makes me feel good.
My superiority over you is good.
It is good that 50 million Americans do not have health insurance.
I have health insurance, and I don’t want you to also have it.
Were you to also have this benefit, this would diminish me.
I hate you, and I want to continue to hate you and to know that I have more than you do, and that I am better than you.
Inequality is good, and it must be preserved.”
This is a disease which comes and goes. It is the disease of reactionary fascism. Its virulence fluctuates. It is a virus or a bacteria, and it is contagious. We are currently going through a recurrence of this epidemic, as we did during McCarthyism. We are now going through neo-McCarthyism.
I witness the illness all around me. At my health club, I sometimes overhear muscular jocks talking: “Obamacare! What a crock! The welfare chiselers are taking over! They’re turning us into Kenya!”
At meetings, I hear people saying things like: “All this Kumbaya stuff is disgusting! I am not responsible for how those pigs live in their ghettos! I never give any money to beggars; they just use it to buy drugs!”
Today, the social compact is in tatters. Feeling responsible for one’s fellow man is out. The government must be dismantled. Taxation is nothing be theft. Frank Capra is out. Ayn Rand is in.
Many of these pathological government haters are hypocrites: They are often the government’s greatest beneficiaries! They accuse “the government of wasting the taxpayer’s money, and public employees of being corrupt, incompetent, lazy bureaucrats,” while they themselves are often retired veterans, retired federal engineers, retired state employees. They are often double, triple and quadruple dippers who enjoy Social Security PLUS federal and state pensions, in addition to juicy IRA’s and various other investments. They clamor about those lazy welfare chiselers, those greedy food stamp users, the population’s growing dependency on the government. While playing golf at their country club, they pontificate that poverty and unemployment are due to an absence of “work ethic” (code for “laziness”), and that black men are often poor and criminal because they were raised by single mothers and lacked male role models, discipline, responsibility and proper family values.
This is a vulgar third-hand version of a theory originally formulated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the sixties (the “Black Matriarchy” thesis) and subsequently adopted by Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and all the other Right-wing ideologues as a convenient pseudo-sociological justification for blaming the victim (“black poverty is the blacks’ own damn fault.”)
Hopefully, this cynical selfishness will dissipate, as similar epidemics of the past have dissipated... leave comment here
© Tom Kando 2013
15 comments:
An outstanding article
Unfortunately, much of the mainstream press seems to have missed the huge distinction you raise between the difficulties with the rollout and the Affordable Care Act itself. As I recall, the California DMV had similar software difficulties some time back, but no one seriously argued that driver licenses or registration of automobiles ought to be abolished. Excellent essay.
Excellent points. The web sire problems are unrelated to the Affordable Health Care Act. I've lived in Washington State and California where state government agencies have a sad tradition of failure to upgrade computer systems--usually after spending years and millions of dollars. As a former contract programmer, I know there are systemic and management reasons for these difficulties. Still, I wish Obamacare's website would have rolled out better!
I’m really enjoying this. It reminds me of when that buffoon Obama and his Dem compatriots were openly hoping for the failure of Bush, Petraeus and the Surge in Iraq. Payback is a bitch.
PART 1 - I think the long term economics of the ACA are nuts. I agree with any effort to fix the problems even if it means they should start over.
Brainwashed???? Can you honestly believe that the implementation of this nonsense is anything but incompetent? You argue that Apple has similar problems - that is just not true. On Tuesday Apple released a new operating system and a series of new free programs for all its users. About two weeks ago they released a new operating system for phones. At this point, according to data on the web 64% of all iPhone users are upgraded to iOS 7. On Tuesday - to test whether Apple had its act together I downloaded the new software for all of my devices with absolutely no problems. But I suspect Apple actually did some testing of the site(s) before they were released. Note - the iPad numbers of users are now in excess of 170 million devices. (Or about the number of Americans who might have to log into the site for the ACA if everyone actually wanted to go in).
Part 2 - Health care is not a right - especially in the way it is implemented in the ACA - the only conclusion of expanding demand significantly and not increasing supply of health care officials is to diminish the health care of those in the population who have health insurance. Have you wondered why hundreds of thousands of Americans have been cut off by their current plans (If you like your current plan - nothing will change).
You horribly misrepresent Senator Cruz and other opponents of the ACA. If you are going to throw around those kind of epithets why not also include that anyone who has misgivings about the monstrous idea is homophobic, racist, and sexist?
I go to the same health club you do and have heard a lot of people express serious reservations about both the ACA and the way it was adopted with no serious attempt to respond to legitimate concerns of the other party - as has been done in every other piece of legislation in the history of the country. I have never heard anyone make any of the statements you claim to have heard.
The Social Compact is in tatters because the left has tried to ignore anyone who dissents from their way of thinking. The country is split politically pretty deeply - as the last four or five presidential elections have shown - the guy you voted for promised to change that in Washington - can you give me one instance where he made a sustained effort to try to improve the climate?
One final comment - you confuse entitlements with welfare. A lot of the people at your health club receive Social Security - if there are any that worked after the Social Security Amendments of 1983 - which significantly increased taxes for all wage earners - they are not receiving even a decent return on all those contributions they made over the years. Even for the Medicare tax - the return on the investment made is not positive. At one point I did a net present value calculation of what my social security "contributions" would have produced had they been invested in a standard retirement vehicle over the four or more decades that I worked - that included at least three major drops in the stock market - a system like those in Chile and a raft of other countries - I found that my check would be about three times what it is. Or taken another way it would be double but would also leave my heirs a remainder - all that the current system offers is growth on the already impressive $17 trillion debt. The ACA has the same kind of dynamics. Had the majority in Congress taken some time and thought in 2009 they could have come up with something that would actually serve people's needs.
Based on data from Oregon and a couple of other states where the ACA seems to be getting people to sign up - the cast majority of signups are not the people we need (which are the young and uninsured) but recipients who are going to get a tremendous subsidy. We may reduce the number of emergency room visits with this change (although there is precious little evidence that will happen) but we will not in any way control the increases in health care costs. There were plenty of alternative models to consider to improve the quality of health insurance (not health care) in the country but the "leaders" like Obama and Pelosi and Reid would not consider any plan which deviated from their socialist notions. Socialism is the ultimate in selfishness because it deprives all of us both those with legitimate financial needs and the rest of us.
IT AMUSES ME THAT YOU DECRY FASCISTS ON THE RIGHT (ALTHOUGH REMEMBER THEY WERE NATIONAL SOCIALISTS) AND YET LIMIT COMMENTS IN RESPONSE.
The more reaction, the better.
I thank R., William, and Carol Anita for supporting me.
Unfortunately, the squeaky wheel gets the grease - those who disagree. While I’ll ignore anonymous’ drivel, I do owe a response to Jonathan’s elaborate comments:
1.You yourself hit the nail on the head with the key word: IMPLEMENTATION. The problem with Obamacare is just TECHNICAL, not essential. See William and Carol Anita, above. Apple is irrelevant.
You Republicans exploit these implementation difficulties in a blatantly transparent attempt to discredit the SUBSTANCE of the health plan.
2. Health is constitutionally defined as a RIGHT in dozens of societies. Not as welfare or as a mere entitlement.
If the US lags in this regard, it is because of its political philosophy.
3. If I am a bit shrill in my description of people like Cruz, Limbaugh and Bachmann, it’s because I am angry. I don’t view all conservatives as neo-McCarthyist thugs, only their most ruthless and fraudulent spokesmen. My description, while somewhat hyperbolic, is a mirror which should show these people how ugly they are.
4. Your calculations claiming that we would be better off investing in the stock market than making Social Security contributions - in other words, “privatize SS” - are not believable. The little guy’s chances of doing well on the stock market are very limited. Reminds me rather of Las Vegas. No thank you.
5. What you people fail to understand is that PROFITING from people’s illnesses is fundamentally wrong. As long as the American health care system is based on PROFIT, it will remain inferior to that of other countries. By inferior I mean: costlier, and keeping people less healthy.
The only part of this country’s health care system which works well and fairly for all participants is that of the military. I don’t mean retired veterans - the V.A. bureaucracy also has many problems. I mean the health care of the active military. That system is excellent, efficient and fair, and it doesn’t ruin the participants. Why? Because it is not profit driven.
6. It’s a bit late for you to complain that there was no consultation with the opposition party: Republicans have opposed ANY form of universal/mandated health coverage!
7. I’ll repeat, ad nauseam: EVERY other advanced country has some form of universal/mandated health care system. Check out Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Germany, Scandinavia, the UK, France, most of the rest of Europe and much of Asia. Do you really want America to remain the last bastion of feudalism in the world?
8. Us censoring our critics? What are you whining about? To the contrary, we publish your lengthy comments word for word, as well as the insults written by anonymous cowards.
Thank you. But how can this message get to where more people read it? And when will government leaders, all of them, realize that we still need civil servants to work in the IT sector because the great computer in the sky is not going to solve our problems without human face-to-face hands-on communication and task management.
As egregious as the Repubs are, and have been since 2008, we fall right into their mouthy trap. We need to get smarter and change the talk, change the vocabulary. The Repubs are the ones with the money. They should have presented better solutions for federal exchanges (which would not be needed if the red states had set up their own exchanges). They are truly on a very bad path but they are word wizards. And how do we know that Repubs are not the culprits in the computer room? It is very easy to mess up a computer program, especially such a massive one and one where people expect real-time and fast response. Has anyone investigated this possibility?
Terry,
thank you for your wise words
I must protest on a couple of clear issues. First, the GOP (and remember I am not a Republican) proposed many reliable alternatives to the ACA starting with one proposed by Douglas Holtz Eakins - which the Democrats simply ignored. They have, as do you a blind faith that government action will always (or most always be better than the market) - that is naive at best and dangerous at worst.
The record you need to look at is something which you might have participated in called TIAA - whose return on investment is considerably better and more reliable than the "Trust fund". Read what the former actuary of the Social Security Administration has said about the financial reliability of the system.
Despite your comments - when you norm for the heterogeneity of the US population our system stacks up quite well - at least before the ACA.
I mentioned Apple - because you did and Apple or Amazon clearly have a better record on building large data systems than a buddy of the First Lady's from Princeton - who is now a VP at CGI the lead malfeasant who built the data system for the ACA.
The inherent problems with the ACA are not based on political disagreement they simply ignore basic principles of actuarial soundness - the ACA is a classic example of adverse selection but despite experts warning about that problem Reid, Pelosi and Obama thought they could over-rule basic economics.
Finally, some Constitutions do include as a "right" health care - most of those are in countries that are financially bankrupt.
Terry - one footnote - many in the GOP presented solutions to the health care problem but the dems were unwilling to consider them - making this the first major piece of legislation in more than 100 years which did not include some members of the other party supporting it. The dems simply closed them out and we are reaping the problems created by that hubris.
Jonathan, you sure are a high maintenance reader. Here we go:
1. Regarding privatizing SS: I suppose there are always some funds that do well - and many that don’t. In general, gambling is a bad idea. It’s good for the casino and for Wall street, not good for the gambler.
2. How do we stack up, compared to other countries?
As I said before: the US is the 20th best country in the world, based on a dozen indicators that also include public health (See my August 15 post, The United States is the 20th Best Country in the World and That isn't So Bad)
Pretty good, indeed, out of about 200 countries, especially for such a huge country.
Just don’t go all crazy on me because I don’t join the hysterical flag wavers on the right who blindly claim that “we are Number One” in every conceivable way. We’re number one in only one respect: the size of our GDP (which will end in a few years, as China takes over).
And another thing: Why don’t people like you ever go EXPERIENCE health care in places like Japan, Canada, Northern Europe, Australia, etc? Are you afraid to discover that it is indeed cheaper, more efficient and better than ours?
3. Apple schmaple: give it up already. All I said was that “I don’t remember whether or not there were glitches with Apple...”
I’ll gladly delete the one word (Apple) from my post.
Your hanging on to one silly word reveals how you guys operate: you cherry pick tiny flaws in the opposition, and harp on them for ever.
Take Benghazi: The government’s failings there are dwarfed by innumerable prior events, for example the HUNDREDS of needless American deaths during the 1983 Beirut barack bombings, thanks to Ronald Reagan. And that’s just one example.
The worst crime ever committed by the executive branch was the weapons of mass destruction charade, the deliberate lie to justify our senseless Iraq War. This should have landed many people in prison, as it was a far greater crime than Watergate or any other abuse of executive power...
Shit happens, but when it happens to Obama, you guys won’t let go.
You turn absolutely EVERYTHING into partisan politics. Fox News is having a heyday criticizing the NSA spying on Merkel and on other allies, even though there are no more rabid proponents of spying - in the name of national security - than right-wing Republicans....
3. Regarding your reaction to Terry: The gall! It’s the Party of NO which has adamantly refused to cooperate with Obama from day one on. Mitch McConnell’s famous words, at the very outset: ensure that Obama becomes a one-term President.
Obama has extended the olive branch innumerable times. He could offer to cut the federal budget by 50%, and the Reps would still refuse to work with him. Blind, rabid hatred.
Right on Tom!! I would like to suggest Jonathan and other folks with his mindset read "The Healing of America", by T.R. Reid. He is a longtime correspondent for The Washington Post and former chief of its Tokyo and London bureaus, as well as a commentator for National Public Radio. He also has an impressive list of published books. This book does a direct comparison of America's health care system, before ACA, and numerous other countries around the world. Very straight forward, very readable, and extremely interesting.
Syria, Benghazi, NSA, Obamacare…incompetence and dishonesty…and the snowball grows as the MSM begins to abandon this buffoon.
And, au contraire, the Republicans would put this buffoon on Mt Rushmore if he offered to cut the budget by 50%.
to Sharon:
Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out.
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