I'm a little late coming reading this article, but no matter: How fascinating to see Giuliani's emotional and public policy reaction to his prostate surgery, back when he had it in 2000:
At a packed and emotional news conference in May 2000, in which he announced he was dropping out of the race for the U.S. Senate as a result of his illness, Giuliani admitted to suddenly seeing the world very differently. He said his illness had changed him and that he wanted to reach out to minority groups and the poor. Most important, he said, he had newfound respect, understanding, and empathy for the city's uninsured. It seems Giuliani couldn't feel people's pain until he, well—literally—felt people's pain. But once he had, he stated that extending health insurance coverage to more of the city's uninsured was his top goal for his remaining 18 months in office. ''One of the things that I felt from the beginning of [my illness] and continue to feel is a tremendous sense of compassion for the people that have to make decisions like this alone," he explained. "One of the things maybe that I can do is figure out how we accelerate making sure that people are covered."
And so he got through a $390 million/4 year commitment to a public health care program for the disadvantaged. Wow. Give the man credit — he had a powerful personal experience, looked around at those around him, said "There but for the grace of God go I", and used his position of power and influence to help them. It's a great story!
A great story that unfortunately shows how brittle and mean are the conservative orthodoxies which Giuliani now feels he must follow in order to curry favor with the Republican primary electorate. Giuliani is now famously using his own surgery experience to criticize Hillary's health care plan — and aggressive government intervention more generally, at least except for tax cuts and credits. And as we know, he's even lying about the difference between the US and British systems.
Now, the money that Giuliani's NYC administration spent actually covered people. But none of the GOP plans for health care actually have a real shot at getting 47 million people covered. For instance, I defy anyone to find a generally-respected health care expert who thinks that Mitt's new plan of … uh … federalism and de-regulation … or something … is going to get everyone covered. Not only will it not accomplish that, it doesn't even set it as a necessary goal.
And this points up a problem with contemporary conservatism more generally: The tendency to simply deny that a problem exists, or to minimize it to such an extent that the proposed "solution" is simply no such thing. You see this with global warming: Conservative responses tend to fit into a few molds:
- The Inhofe: It's not happening; big fat commie/UN hoax.
- It is happening, but we shouldn't do anything about it 'cuz then we'd have $100 oil or something … (hrm…)
- The Bush: It's happening, and we're going to look real busy with stuff that won't actually fix it.
