A Conversation With My ACLU-Boardmember-Cousin...

Here’s a conversation with my dad’s cousin Terry. Terry works with the ACLU, but strangely is an advocate of the 2nd Amendment….

T: Congress has gotten so polarized and dogmatic that they put the next election ahead of anything that might be good for the country. Both sides of the aisle are guilty of this mentality, but (forgive the bias) the ultra-conservatives don’t have any compunction about checking their brains and honesty at the door in order to present a unified opposition. So who is lying??? Do you believe that:

· There are death panels that will determine which old people get treatment and which ones don’t?
· That Obama wasn’t born in the United States?
· That the world is only 6,000 years old?
· That Obama is a socialist and/or communist and/or nazi?
· That maybe it’s time for some of the states to succeed from the union and that the constitution supports this position?


J: Let me answer your questions first, just so you can get the lay of the political land in my head.

1. "Death Panel" is certainly an exaggeration. The focus of any bureaucratic review of recipients of government healthcare will certainly not be on any individual. Rather the review will be a rational and objective one that compares the economic benefit of the treatment in question with the viability of the patient.
2. I don't know. Do you?
3. I don't care. Why do you?
4. President Obama certainly has expressed views that are not capitalist in nature. He has railed against "profit" and has moved to bring several large companies including banks and manufacturers into government and union ownership. That lies somewhere between socialist (state ownership) and communist (worker ownership). He has supported an ousted would-be socialist dictator in Honduras over the country's legitimate constitution and the actions of its Supreme Court and military. That is at very least tacit endorsement of socialist aggression.
5. While it certainly is the right of states to secede from the Union, I do not believe that is a good idea. States have a long history of yielding their rights under the 10th Amendment, going back at least to Reconstruction. If the States want to, they must understand that teaching the federal government that the 10th Amendment is as important as the 1st or the 14th is going to take time.

T: And CAN you believe that the same Republicans that are opposed to the government interfering with end-of-life decisions are the ones who supported the government intervention in the end-of-life family decision for Terry Schaivo?


J: So, with the Terri Schaivo case, are you saying that government will interfere with end-of-life choices; and we should be okay with that because (and you must forgive me - I was busy that summer and didn't pay much attention to the whole Schaivo thing...) some Republicans thought it was okay? (There are plenty of "Republicans" who think that government is the answer.) Do you think it's okay for government to do that? You see, on one hand I hear liberals protesting that the government will not make those decisions for us, and on the other I hear them saying we shouldn't complain about the government making those decisions for us.

T: I am easily convinced that Democrats can stretch the truth and revise history. But the outrageous allegations made by Republicans who can’t stand being out of power for 8 months outclasses anything I have witnessed before.

Given the fact that the Republicans believe that if they defeat health care reform, then it will be “Obama’s Waterloo,” I have no doubt about who is willing to lie in order to accomplish that lofty objective. And… One final question that has been niggling at me for the last couple of weeks… Why are so many Americans, even those on the extreme right, so darned concerned about preserving the fantastic profits of the insurance companies??? They are actually concerned about the company’s well-being if they are faced with… get this… competition. Please explain to me why. I await with bated breath.


J: As for "Obama's Waterloo", this is the first time I've heard healthcare reform called that. But let's look at the context of Waterloo. It was not that Napoleon's enemy was superior. The reason Napoleon lost at Waterloo was a series of mistakes he made. Waterloo is synonymous with a self-inflicted defeat. Napoleon had bad timing, a bad plan, and a set of poor leaders. He failed to execute; failed to exploit his advantages. In short, he overestimated his own forces' capabilities and underestimated his enemy. Further, he failed to see the possibility of 50,000 Prussian reinforcements arriving on the scene. In that context, whoever came up with the "Waterloo" analogy may be right.

President Obama missed the wave of popular support. He used that time to pass a stimulus package that is still largely impossible to track. That was a big withdrawal from the fledgling emotional bank account he had with the American people. It left him trying to paddle up the backside of the wave. President Obama still has not articulated a plan for healthcare reform which leaves many wondering if there is a plan at all. The extraordinarily poor quality of appointees he has made - ranging from tax avoiders to conflicts of interest - has been a distraction.

He has failed to execute; failed to exploit his advantages. In short, he overestimated his own election. Rather than reading it as the rejection of a spineless and double-dealing Republican president he read it as a whole-hearted mandate of his socialist agenda - which was largely hidden from the ignorant voting population that numbs its mind on CNN and the Today Show. That misreading caused him to fail to see the possibility of really upsetting a large number of people who would take time off work and travel long distances to express their disappointment (and some contempt) to their elected representatives.

Anyone who paints those folks (of which I am part) as "astroturf" is living in denial.

Your final niggling question about why we Americans are concerned about preserving the profits of insurance companies has a simple answer that ought to be crystal clear to any of you who are drawing down a 401k, 403b, or IRA. All of our financial futures are tied to the profitability and the future profitability of large companies, not just insurance companies or auto makers. Take away the profit potential for any company and what is the investment value? Zero. Now, go try to cash in your investments so that you can live with dignity in retirement when the profit potential for even a small portion of your portfolio has been taken away. You WILL be eating dog food, as the fearmongers in the 1980s asserted.

Competing with the government never was competition, Terry.

Don't point to UPS and FedEx, either. They are not allowed to play in the first-class postage arena. If they were, we might see some very interesting things happen at the USPS. You see, government writes the rules and, as is the case in parcel post, government writes them in its favor.

If you want to open up competition in healthcare, let's deregulate the market and allow companies to practice in all 50 states. I'd love to have the Kaiser Permanente option here in Arizona, but becaus the market is so tightly regulated Kaiser is locked out. Level the playing field, as the liberals say.

And let's get some tort reform going here. When I try to understand what trial lawyers add to the cost of medical care in the country my head swims. I think back to Tina's OB in Ohio who paid $500,000 per year in malpractice premiums - although she'd never lost a case and was only sued 2 or 3 times per year.

I return to my assertion: We do not understand the root problems of healthcare in this country. Therefore we cannot fix them by addressing the symptoms of cost and availability.