Archives for 2009

This month’s Atlantic feature on “25 Brave Thinkers” illustrates, to me, the same kind of thing that is wrong with our health care debate. Their list is mostly a mix of millionaires, billionaires, miscellaneous big shots, and people with permanent positions at academic institutions.

I’m sure a lot of them do great work. But how can what you’re doing be so brave when there are no possible serious repercussions? Why is it so gutsy for Freeman Dyson to spin his global warming denial nonsense when he’s a permanent member of the Institute for Advanced Study? What could possibly happen to him as a result?

I love my iPhone and I give Steve Jobs (who is on the list) credit for that. But how on earth is it braver for a billionaire businessman to unveil a new line of consumer electronics than it is for Joe Shmo middle-class person to take out a loan to open up a new business?

We live in a society where the well off have everything and the poor have nothing. Do we have to laud the rich as brave heroes, to top it all off?

Update. I didn’t articulate this well, but what bothers me most is juxtapositions like this:

Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe

Why he’s brave: He stood his ground against Robert Mugabe and is now bringing some normalcy back to the country.

Jeff Zucker, President of NBC Universal

Why he’s brave: He retained Jay Leno and moved late-night TV to prime time.

Courage on the cheapPost + Comments (81)

Sardine on health care reform:

Forget all the talk about the public option for a second and ignore your political consultants who are cautioning you about the imaginary negative repercussions of a “government takeover.” The reality is this debate really isn’t about politics, it’s about health care. It’s not left or right, it’s about all of us.

People need help. They can’t afford their health care bills. People are dying. The crazy health care expenses are hurting businesses. Please don’t turn your back on these people. If you join with the Republicans and block health care reform, you’re basically saying to the American people – go fuck yourselves.

The discussion of health care reform has been endless: we’ve heard about Blue Dogs worried about being tagged as liberal, we’ve heard about CBO scores, we’ve heard about how all of this will affect the career trajectories of various powerful, well-off people. We haven’t heard much about the millions of people who have been bankrupted by health care costs under our current system. We haven’t heard much about the millions of people who have little or no access to health care.

I agree that CBO scores are important and should be discussed. And I understand why politicians’ futures are always a subject of discussion in DC. But can there be *any* discussion of regular human beings’ lives here? I know that everyone who appears on tv or writes for a national paper has a good health care plan already. But don’t they ever wonder what it’s like for other people they pass on the street, for the people who serve them coffee or wait their tables?

I realize that if you’re poor in this country, then everything is your fault. If you take out a loan you shouldn’t have taken out, it’s proof that you’re too much of an idiot to handle money, whereas when rich people are fleeced by Bernie Madoff it’s proof that Madoff is a super-genius monster. If you’re hit by a stray bullet, you were probably in a gang. If you’re sick, it’s because you smoke and you’re overweight. And whatever trouble you have getting a job, it’s all because of your genetically determined low IQ. And if you weren’t poor, overweight, genetically deficient and so on you wouldn’t have trouble getting disqualified because of preconditions and you’d never get scammed by bogus insurance outfits.

But still, even in a society that accepts these myths, shouldn’t there be some concern about 45 million Americans without health insurance?

And I guess I’d ask you this: the politicians and pundits who stand by and watch millions of lives destroyed by our health care system — are they any better than the people who watched that horrible crime in Richmond? I think you know the answer.

Not a gamePost + Comments (106)