“…When the market crashed on Black Tuesday, and civil rights marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday, the future was anything but certain. These were the times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements, our hesitations and our fears, America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, as one people.” — President Barack Obama, State of the Union Jan. 2010

Of course, Obama said plenty of other things in his State of the Union Address, but I got so hung up on the above assertion, that I couldn’t hear much else.

For real? In the midst of moral crisis, Americans just hold hands and plow forward together like one big, loving family?  Granted, I’m no history scholar; but this is not the way I read our nation’s past.

Slavery didn’t end because slave owners awoke one morning and realized that holding human beings in captivity was barbaric. Women didn’t get the vote because they batted their eyelashes at men and said “please.” Labor rights, Social Security, the racial integration of public schools, the end of the Vietnam War: none of these things came on the American scene because everyone chose to move forward as “one people.” To this day, there exist pockets of backward-thinking Americans who preach racial intolerance, and others who have never stopped romanticizing the raw, bootstrap-brand of capitalism that had children (and still does in many parts of the world) working as seamstresses and coalminers.

Bloody Sunday (and a whole host of other bloody days throughout history) only convinced SOME of the people that it was time for change. If we had waited to move forward as one, we never would have come this far.  Progress has always meant dragging some Americans kicking and screaming away from the old days and into the new days. Ruby Bridges did not integrate a school in front of a resigned, respectful crowd of dissenters; she did it with marshals at her side and a mob of adults so angry and racist that they yelled and spit and cursed… at a little girl.

Lest I be chastised for traitorous thought, I am not sorry I voted for Barack Obama. I believe he is a good and decent man. I believe he is fiercely intelligent — and equally compassionate. Furthermore, I am shamelessly charmed by his entire family, from his wife down to his dog.

But if he thinks our nation’s moral progress has ever been a result of coming together as one, I’m afraid he’s sorely mistaken. And that mistaken view will make it impossible for him to deliver the national healthcare plan he promised Americans.

Many of us have already figured out that health care for EVERYONE makes sense for a multitude of reasons (including the oh-so-simple notion that it is MORAL).  But Obama seems to think we ought to WAIT for insurance company CEOs and pharmaceutical company CEOs and anti-tax, anti-regulation advocates for itty-bitty government to figure out that having basic medical care for human beings in one of the richest nations on earth might be a good and just idea.

Okay. I guess I’ll WAIT.

Let’s talk about it. Let’s hold hands. Let’s be as one. Please.

Have you figured it out yet, CEOs? Tea Baggers?

No?!

Well, I’m done waiting.

Put universal healthcare in the spotlight, Mr. President. Explain it to people (and call it whatever you want to call it; don’t get bogged down in the terms). Say YOU support it (because putting everyone in the same healthcare pool is the best plan out there for both fiscal and ethical reasons). Tell the Democrats that THEY should support it — including self-serving, bland politicians like Evan Bayh).  Tell the Republicans (ideologues like Mark Souder) that they may not hold progress hostage due to their private religious beliefs (re: abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion…) beliefs that should be held apart from their sworn duty to serve the public good.

And then let everybody vote – or filibuster, or whatever else they see fit to do.

A president’s job is to set the bar high and to push everybody to get over it. If it doesn’t work, someone else will just have to try again (and again and again).  But waiting for the people who are wrong to figure out what’s right is not the way of progress. It never has been, and it never will be.

He owned up to being only on the “edge of understanding” and claimed some malleability on the issue, which coincidentally puts us in the exact same camp.

I wonder: Is there anyone in the center of understanding? Someone who really gets it? Gets the fact that every other “advanced” nation on earth is able to give its entire population medical care but we cannot?  And is there anyone who can explain how it is the Catholic Church appears to be on the brink of blocking women from accessing a perfectly legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure? And the legislators who are helping them do it are called “moderate.”

I haven’t written much about this for two reasons. One is that, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a full time job. Yes, real writers with full time jobs that are not writing jobs, wake in the wee hours of the morning just to string together words. So I guess that makes me the Velveteen Rabbit of writers, all full of stuffing and not actually real.

My job is a challenging, fulfilling job, by the way, and one that exposes me regularly to people who need, among other things, health care. This leads to the second reason I haven’t written: It’s just so incredibly sad. It is tragic that Americans can find the money, the will and the way to launch war on any given day, but get all tripped up and bogged down in ideology when it comes time to provide basic care to its citizens… or those who want to be its citizens.

It should have been Single Payer from the beginning. We all get there together. If we don’t, it doesn’t mean a thing. Okay. I confess I’ve given a different speech to friends who are even more disillusioned than I am. I’ve talked about Susan B. Anthony and how she devoted her whole adult life (not just a campaign season or two) to getting women the vote – and in the end she never saw it. It happened, of course, but not on her watch. And in the process, Frederick Douglas sold her out; and later suffragists like Kate Gordon and Laura Clay sold African American women out. They all got there eventually, but not together. Was Douglas a brilliant negotiator to leave white women behind? And were Gordon and Clay equally brilliant to leave black women behind?

No. They were all just humans desperate for a taste of dignity. It’s human frailty, not cunning and intellect, that allows us to cut others from our cause just so we can get there faster. But it’s what we do.

Heavy sigh. We’re screwy.

Yeah. Shitcan.

So, there I stood, in line with a couple of hundred people on Dec. l, as President Obama left the White House in his helicopter about 5:45 p.m. to fly to West Point to give his long awaited speech. I felt helpless and somewhat chagrined, which lasted only until I entered the White House (after, of course, three checkpoints, and the metal detector) a little after 6 p.m. A string trio played as each person was “welcome (ed) to the White House.” Wreaths of red painted magnolia leaves adorned the East Colonnade, which we walked down. Each room was absolutely beautiful, with holiday decorations, sparkling decorated trees and lit fire places in every room. The gigantic 18 ½ feet tree in the Blue room was adorned with 800 ornaments from previous administrations. Red taffeta ribbons and cranberries festooned the two trees in the Red room. An unbelievably beautiful white orchid plant was prominently displayed in the women’s rest room.

I began my evening with maybe the most delicious eggnog I have ever had; it was laced with rum, and ladled out of a crystal punchbowl. But that was just the beginning. In the East room, tables were laden with vegetables, fruit, oysters, shrimp, smoked salmon, roast beef, cheeses, and fruit. Wine and other drinks were plentiful. After this smorgasbord of delight, I went to the State Dining Room where we sampled the most scrumptious desserts, and admired the miniature gingerbread White House covered with white chocolate panels..

But it wasn’t only the stunning decorations, the beautiful music, the bountiful and delicious food. It was the feeling of warmth and good will that emanated from every area, and the graciousness and hospitality expressed by Michelle when she thanked all of us for volunteering. As she shook hands and gave hugs to those volunteers she knew from the campaign, I thrust my hand out and she took it in both of her hands. I was happy; I had made brief physical contact with Michelle Obama, an amazing first lady who exemplifies beauty and grace, elegance and naturalness. As I walked out of the White House at 8 p.m., the bushes glimmered with white lights, a full moon hung over Pennsylvania Ave., and I realized for a little while I had not thought about war, and Afghanistan. If only everyone could have those two magical hours in the White House.

Joan

That year, my liberal parents took their liberal kids out of their “liberal” public classrooms… in order to pay homage to the democratic process that gave them a conservative president.  We didn’t carry protest signs or wear anti-Reagan buttons; my family was just part of the crowd, indistinguishable from the throngs of thrilled Republicans.

I don’t remember a thing Reagan said on that January day in 1981, but I do remember that my parents told me to be respectful. I was warned not to scowl or roll my eyes because, regardless of my feelings, Reagan was the president.

Of course, listening to Reagan didn’t mean abandoning my parents’ (or my) liberal principles; it meant learning the lesson of civic engagement. I was always encouraged to question authority (including my parents’), to analyze the relationship between a speaker’s words and his or her actions, to make up my own mind – but to back up my conclusions with evidence. Reagan’s inaugural speech was no exception.

My own daughter now a teenager, I’m raising her much the same way my parents raised me – with instructions to listen to everything, but to be cautious about what she believes. Needless to say, I’m having some difficulty understanding all these parents who are so worried about President Obama’s address to the nation’s school children.

But maybe it’s just easier parenting as a liberal. As liberals, it’s not our job to control our children’s minds; it’s only our job to supply them with the tools they need to make up their own minds. If I believed it was my duty to keep my daughter from hearing all the wrong-headed ideas spouted by all the wrong-headed politicians out there, it would be a whole different game. I’d be frantic, too.

Of course, I can’t pretend that knee-jerk opposition comes only from the political Right.  According to this New York Times article, when the first President George Bush made a similar televised speech to schools in 1991, Democrats complained. (Don’t any of these guys ever learn?)

Liberal or Conservative, if we’re smart we’ll raise our children with some measure of respect for (and knowledge of) the democratic process. That doesn’t mean agreeing with the president (in fact, school children viewing president Obama’s speech should be encouraged to critique his comments).  Parents should help children determine if the president’s actions correspond with the president’s words (far too many presidents give good speeches that don’t match their actions).

It’s okay to dislike the President (Lord knows I’ve spent a lot of years disliking the President); but it’s not okay to dismiss the President.  For good or for ill, the President of the United States of America has far too much power to disregard.

So, conservative Kids – if you see President Obama and he fills you with despair (or propaganda), go ahead and throw yourself to the ground. But then pick yourself up and get back in the game.  That’s what democracy is all about.

This is not to suggest that the rest of us are slouches, because we’re not.  Just last week I stood in a hallway with fellow citizens and listened to friends and acquaintances make public speeches in an effort to update our city human rights ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity.  That night I heard some bigotry; but I also heard a lot of common sense and  eloquence. I heard democracy and the making of justice.

Not long before that, I watched a friend work for health care in a BIG way, as she lobbied people at a street festival, appeared in the newspaper, on television, and started a health care blog on the web — all in a matter of days.

Most of us step in and out of the public eye — and the pressure of the political arena. We take some causes on and leave some for others to fight.  We forgive ourselves our limitations (as we should). But Ted Kennedy stayed in there for almost 5 decades.

Thank you, Senator.

Rest in peace, Ted Kennedy.

I know two people in this video: My cousin appears briefly, standing on a table (wearing a white pair of pants and a reddish shirt, sunglasses propped on top of her head like a good Floridian). Her husband is the man with the ripped shirt near the door. And here he is again in The New York Times.

It’s been years since I’ve seen them, my cousin and her husband. I’ve always liked them though, considered them cool since the time I was about eleven and my sisters and I went sledding at their (then) rural Indiana home. They are therefore stashed permanently in my memory as good, lighthearted people… despite what appears to be their current-day hatred of health care.

Why? Why do they hate health care?? Who are these people anyway? Not just my cousin and her husband, but this entire angry mob? “Hear our voice!!” they shout over and over again. But what do they want us to hear? What? SAY it already, People.

I happen to want health care for all because… well, because it seems so clearly moral to consider health care a human right rather than a profit-driven luxury.  I’m not asking for government-sponsored strappy sandals.  I’m not asking to squeeze the profit out of manicures and spa treatments.  Go ahead, price me out of a balloon ride.   Or a weekend at the Cape. Profit is okay. A little elitism and exclusion is okay. But not where health care is concerned.  Stupid, lazy, fat, drug addicts, immigrants, the sick, the really sick… I want to cover them ALL.  That’s how I roll.

What do these other people want?

MORE LATER….

Okay, here’s the MORE: The family gossip is that my cousin and her husband (Randy) didn’t go to the town hall meeting with the intention of disrupting it.  They went to watch and listen.  They even claim to be open to some form of health care reform (although they are NOT fans of Obama).

Apparently they were in the hallway when the chanting started and when Randy saw the door being closed (and empty chairs still available in the meeting room), he tried to push his way through — and ended up getting more than he bargained for from two aggressive union guys. That’s the story anyway. It is worth noting, however, that Randy (and my cousin) are regular right-wing radio listeners, meaning that at this point they are poised and ready to pounce on anything that looks like “socialism.”  (NOTE: health care for ALL looks a little bit like socialism.)

I’m sorry Randy got roughed up.  It’s a sad day when a person goes to a town hall meeting and comes home with a ripped shirt and a bloodied chest. It’s also a sad day when the prospect of giving tens of millions of human beings access to health care is seen as a license to start a revolution; so I’ve spent the day trying to figure out whether Randy was a victim or an accessory.  I’m still not sure.

What I do know is that democracy can’t work if people shout down (and shut down) their ideological opponents. It just can’t.  So being part of the democratic process (showing up at public meetings, for instance) has to mean that a person is committed to sorting out all of the available information — and to listening to all of the viewpoints.

Randy showed up (and good for him, because a large part of anything is showing up!), but he acted not when the chanting started (which was the real closing of the meeting), but when the physical door was being closed… in order to drown out the disruptive noise. He tried to shove his body in, but it was too late.

(Randy, if you’re reading: I welcome your input here. I’m sure I need to be set straight!)

The primary problem with our system is its enormous cost. In March, 2009, Fox News reported that a study by the Business Roundtable (BR) had declared our current health care system “disproportionately expensive.”
The BR report noted that health care costs account for some 16% of our gross domestic product (GDP), while health care makes up only 6 to 10% of GDP in other advanced countries.

This disparity in costs between the United States and the rest of the world continues to grow. For 2009, the United States Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects health spending to increase 5.5 percent while GDP is expected to decrease 0.2 percent (the first decrease in GDP since 1949), resulting in the largest one-year increase in the health share of GDP in history (from 16.6 percent in 2008 to 17.6 percent in
2009).

Measured by health care costs per person, ours still is the most costly in the world. During 2004, the latest year for which statistics are available, health care here annually costs $6,096 per person. By contrast, the national system of our next door neighbor, Canada, provides health care for less than half our cost, $3,037 per person. Similarly, the per capita costs of those other dreaded national health care systems in the UK ($2,899) and in Western Europe [(e.g., Germany - $3,523; France - $3464; and Italy ($2,579)] are far lower than ours. Health care in Australia ($3,123), Japan ($2,831), and New Zealand ($2,039) also is far less expensive than here.

As the BR report noted, “Higher U.S. spending funnels away resources that could be invested elsewhere in the economy….” This nation’s current gross domestic product is approximately $14 trillion per year. If this nation’s expenditures for health care could be reduced from 16% -18% to 10% of our GDP we would each year have the remaining 6%, more than $700 billion, available for other purposes, or to reduce our deficit.

Americans also pay heavy costs at a personal level. High medical costs are the primary cause of bankruptcy in this country.
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/72/31551/despite-health-insurance-medical-costs-lead-bankruptcy.html
It is especially startling that 78 percent of those declaring bankruptcy because of health costs actually have health insurance. This is so because many health insurance policies provide far less than full protection to the “insureds.” Many have high deductibles and co-payment requirements, and leave some procedures uncovered.

Among people declaring bankruptcy, 77.9 percent had health insurance, and middle-class incomes. Catastrophic illness, such as multiple sclerosis, complicated diabetes, and neurological disorders accounted for high medical costs for hospitalization and pharmacy bills in half and 18.6 percent of all families declaring bankruptcy due to medical bills respectively.

Of course, if the additional expenditures gave us better health care, most of us presumably would agree that the results are worth the high price, at least to those of us who can afford the high cost. Unfortunately, however, this is not the case. Fox News quoted an author of the Business Roundtable report was reported by as saying, “Spending more would not be a problem if our health scores were proportionately higher, but what this study shows is that the U.S. is not getting higher levels of health and quality of care.” The report put it this way: “Other countries spend less on health care and their workers are relatively healthier.”

This indeed is so when we look at life expectancy and infant mortality rates. For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles. True, Americans are living longer than ever. A baby born in the United States in 2004 is projected to live an average of 77.9 years. Even so, the US now ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.

The story on infant mortality is the same. The National Council of Health Statistics recently noted that the United States health care system ranks 29th in infant mortality, tied with Poland and Slovakia.

All those countries referred to above as having lower health care costs have far better figures than do we concerning life expectancy and infant mortality. Plainly, our system is not working efficiently and is not producing acceptable results. As Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said in response to the infant mortality statistics, “Something is wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries.”

Finally, realize that we have not even yet mentioned one of the most shocking and distinctive realities of our national health care system: some 47 million people in this country have no health insurance of any kind. This disgraceful fact is a byproduct of the priority we have given to having profit-making entities provide health care in this country. The other nations to which we compare ourselves provide national coverage and cover all their citizens. We who place such great value on individualism are willing to disregard 47 million of our brothers and sisters when it comes to health care.

Our system, most expensive in the world, produces the 42nd best life expectancy and the 29th lowest infant mortality rates in the world. It is the primary cause of bankruptcy in the nation and leaves 47 million without coverage. Against this background, the World Health Organisation recently concluded that  ours is the 37th greatest in the world.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html Tell that to Senator Shelby and others who wring their hands about the importance of keeping our system as it is.

I don’t know about all of you (“all of you,” apparently meaning One Person’s entire self), but my mind is on health care.  I just haven’t figured out a way to write about it without using lots of swear words, so I’m pondering for now…

In the meantime, do your part and make some noise out there about the need for a national health care plan. Single Payer is the way to go, but at the very least we need a public option. It is SO past time for this.  Read HERE to be convinced.

Okay, bye.  Write to you later, One Person.  Hey — I’m working on something about MOTORCYCLES. What do you think of THAT?

In the photos and news footage she looks like a normal woman, a loving mother, maybe a tad sure of herself, a bit too territorial (she touches her son almost as though he is an extension of her instead of simply himself). But there is no doubt in my mind that the woman loves her son – and that’s worth something (although we parents know all too well that our love, mercilessly, exists in a realm separate from our parenting skill).

Although I try, I can’t quite find the “loony” in her eyes, meaning the thing that makes her vastly different from me — or any of us who are trying to live out our values and beliefs.

Is it simply a lack of scientific understanding that allows her to disregard the advice of doctors? Most of us can’t fully grasp what’s going on in our bodies at any given moment, or what, exactly, our doctors are doing to alter them; but we can see that traditional medicine rests on a set of principles that, over time, lend themselves to honest inquiry. Yes, we’ve got an imperfect, profit-driven health care system that deserves some measure of distrust; but it’s irrational to imagine that the real problems within a traditional medical setting somehow translate into the superiority of other, less rigorously tested (or proven) alternatives.

My own worldview would have me rushing to get chemotherapy for my daughter, but as a general rule, is it wrong to believe that medical intervention is wrong? Is it wrong to submit to the rhythms of nature (or to “God”) rather than to humanity’s collective attempt to control those rhythms? In order to be moral, must we adopt each new medical “advancement” for ourselves and for our children? Is the mother’s embrace of vitamin therapy an ill-informed and stubborn belief that it will cure her son, or only the belief that the chemotherapy is immoral?

While these are all questions worth asking, the most important question involves the boy’s understanding of the situation. Does this child fully comprehend the potential (deadly) consequences of delaying or rejecting chemotherapy (in this article the boy is said to believe the chemo will kill him)? It looks to me as though he is a loyal, loving son who has absorbed well the lessons his parents have taught him – despite their erroneous content.

Because we’re human, we are entitled to be foolish. No amount of schooling or peer pressure has been able to rid our species of that trait. So maybe parenting just requires that we know our limits, that we grasp our inherent imperfection – and that we not confuse our certainty with truth. Maybe it requires that we not spoon feed our children our eccentricities, but that we let them develop their own.

(The last I heard, the woman reappeared with her son, ready to cooperate, although one presumes her return is an obedient act rather than a philosophical shift…)