Health Care: From Despair to Hope
Health care seems to be the juggernaut issue for the next several years — one which both parties have tried to avoid. It’s closing in on all of us, one way or another: Costs continue to spiral upwards to the tune of 10-13% a year; people get dumped from the rolls; GM is cutting benefits, along with other relatively generous companies; etc. A continuous drumbeat of lousy news for us. We all know our "system", if you can call it that, is busted.
So why doesn’t anything get done at the federal level, which is where such reform really ought to occur? There’s certainly enough blame to go around, but let’s start with who we can control: Ourselves. As John Edwards says in his recent anti-poverty speeches, "We are the ones we’ve been waiting for."
Why do we feel so powerless? Pretty obvious, really:
- We all remember 1994 when our majority couldn’t get the job done and we got our asses kicked in historic fashion (although personally, I blame the baseball strike);
- Consolidated and disciplined GOP power since then, which is after all synonymous with special interest power;
- The corresponding timidity of the Democrats, in Congress and those who run for President;
- The sheer daunting complexity of the issue;
- The Zeitgeist fetish for "small government" (which in practice actually means crappy, corrupt, unresponsive but ever vaster government).
Yup, that all sucks, no doubt. So how do we get beyond this?
All politicians are subject to externalities, that is, Zeigeists and popular demands that are really beyond anyone’s control. Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act; Clinton signed welfare reform; Reagan signed COBRA; George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.
How do we create or enhance an externality that the pols can’t ignore? What’s our fulcrum, or tipping point toward hope?
Well, let’s look at the cards we’ve been dealt on the positive side:
- Widespread anger at our current system. People are pissed off. If Despair = passivity, Anger = action. Anger is our friend, if channelled properly.
- People are actively seeking out alternative systems that might be preferable to our own, and learning about the issues involved. Paul Krugman has recently done some terrific columns about adverse selection and other major issues in health care.
- The GOP is very weak right now, their discipline is currently shaky at best; their "commercialist", special interest ideology may well be on the ropes
- Communities of action and influence on the left, such as dKos and the blogosphere at large
- History: The dirty secret is that people actually like Big Government. They like programs that make their lives easier, and will vote for pols who will maintain those programs — after they’re established. Conservatives have been bitching about this for 70 frickin’ years, folks. Newt Gingrich feared this like the plague — see "The System", page 11. But it’s just human nature.
OK, so there’s an opportunity, if we decide to take advantage. What do we do now?
We need to work on a number of different levels. Remember the old liberal saws, "All politics is local", and "The personal is political". Both come into play.
- Read up. Get as into health care policy as fantasy-football buffs get into drafting linemen. Start here:
- Uninsured in America, by Rushika Fernandopulle and Susan Starr Sered. (Read a review here.) Justa tough, tough book.
- The Moral Hazard Myth, Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker.
Gladwell shows how we’re distributing risk, and the human cost. - The Best Care Anywhere, Phillip Longman in the Washington Monthly.
"Tenyears ago, veterans hospitals were dangerous, dirty, andscandal-ridden. Today, they’re producing the highest quality care inthe country. Their turnaround points the way toward solving America’shealth-care crisis." - The Quality Cure?
NYT Magazine profile of Harvard prof David Cutler’s ideas about health care reform: Quality, Knowledge, not Price. - "Re-creating our health care system":
"It’s ground zero, and citizens must take charge where elected officials have failed."An op-ed by Arne Carlson, former Republican governor of Minnesota, andBooth Gardner, former Democratic governor of Washington. (My point!) - Post your ideas in the comments!
- Talk openly with (not at) your family and friends about health care. (See this awesome diary about how to talk to all kinds of folks about political issues — keep it personal and specific.) Listening is one of the best things we can do. You can’t get through to someone unless they give you something to work with.
- Blog. Here, and at your own blog if you have one. John Edwards suggested in our interview with him that the media and pols pick up on things that have been widely blogged. He’s been on the other side of the public/politician divide, so he should know. What we do here matters.
- The usual:
- Letters to the editor: Respectful, factual, lively.
- Call and mail your elected reps, of course. Ask them their position on an expanded federal role in health care. Doesn’t matter if you’re in a safe Dem district, or the reddest of Red. They may not agree, but they listen. They have to.
- Op-Eds. Longer pieces for the newspaper. If they won’t publish it, blog it yourself, or hell, send it to me.
- In all of these, it’s good to tell your personal story, as much as you’re willing to say.
- Move the conversation beyond our comfort zone: How do we get beyond our mostly like-minded communities? How do we get the opportunity to talk with (not at) people who are not like us? That’s a tough question, and one I don’t have easy answers to. We must let compassion lead us. We aren’t engaging in conversation so that we can dominate other people.
- We can put ourselves in challenging positions, like the guys who call into Hannity and O’Reilly, although C-SPAN may be a better bet for this topic…
- Bring it up at work, though you may have to be careful to keep it non-political. Something like, "In Europe they don’t have to worry about this crap." etc.
- Post your ideas in the comments…
I’d love to hear the Kos community’s thoughts about this. We could really move the national conversation forward on health care, if we decided to put some work into it. Forget "one little candle", let’s light a freakin’ bonfire.
