There is some irony in listening to 60's and 70's left wing radicals (who are now running the government, who now believe that government is our 'friend') cast the current crop of anti-government protesters as 'lunatic fringe'. How quickly we forget how it feels to believe passionately that your government is the face and tool of control, the terrorist in a three piece suit, the government media complex, the puppet of the International Monetary Fund. How quickly we have shifted territory to the other end of the playing field. And now it's the turn of liberals to mock the 'disrupters', the 'tea-baggers', the ragtag bands of conservative activists who think Sarah Palin is the answer but don't seem to know what the question is.
Those of us who believe in a universal health care system as much as we believe in a public education system, a public police and fire system, in a transportation system built and maintained by the state, in a defense system built and maintained by the state, in a nationalised mail system, in protections for the environment, in protections for the forests, waterways and energy resources, in a federal taxation system - those of us who believe in those things find it incomprehensible that this issue is the line in the sand.
There is a huge irony in the fact that because the right wing controls much of the talk radio airwaves, this issue is what has brought kitchen table debate into the public village square. If only we could have had this level of public discourse before the war on Iraq. Now there's a thought.
And the greatest irony is that we have a President who clearly came to Washington with a mandate for change. You know, 'change we can believe in' (remember that?) and who doesn't seem to have the guts to exercise power. What real, genuine reform has ever been brought about by consensus? The forces for the status quo will always pour treacle on the advancing armies of change - votes for women (achieved in 1920 with the 19th amendment to the Constitution after a long and frustrating struggle), the Civil Rights Act (when as late as 1964, southern lawmakers were still defining blacks as a lesser form of humanity), the Social Security and Medicare reforms - and the progressives simply have to use the power given them at a particular moment in history to force a society to change course.
It was President Truman in 1945 who brought the idea of a nationalised health plan - Medicare - to Congress, and he retreated as attacks mounted accusing him of socialism and socialised medicine. It wasn't until 1965, when the much maligned LBJ signed into law the Medicare and Medicaid programs as part of his 'Great Society'.
There is much to complain about in the national health plans in England, Canada, Germany, France etc - but just as those countries no longer send mentally retarded people to the death chamber, they at least have a system that can be improved on. Unlike the good ol' US of A. I know, I know - apples and oranges, yet not really. The priorities of a nation can be judged, and we have the right to judge America on its' obeisance to corporate medicine, to judge lawmakers bought and paid for by big pharmaceutical companies, to judge the pressure exerted in Washington DC by those who profit from insuring or refusing insurance to those in the village square.
A public option. Think of it this way - you want to send a package to your cousin Florida from your home in Wisconsin. You go to the US post office and get a price, you go online and check out UPS and Fed Ex and then you do the most amazing thing. You choose. Freakin' amazing.
Regrettably, this Prez was always going to break your heart on the big stuff. He isn't enough of a dirty Chicago politico to understand that when you are gven the power, you don't just hand it back to the opposition.
It won't matter much if there is a public option or not if the fundamental costs and payment structure doesn't change. Other countries are able to provide almost universal care with a system of private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans but they put together a unified system, with a coordinated set of rules and principles.
Posted by: Deb in Minnesota | September 11, 2009 at 05:43 AM