Question: When someone like Harman sees the HCR light because her son was dropped by an insurer...

Question: When someone like Jane Harman (D-CA and one of the wealthiest people in Congress) sees the HCR light because her son was dropped by an insurer, what the hell was she thinking before?

We hear this all the time from politicians... "I take health insurance reform seriously because my spouse had cancer."

That's kind of like saying, "I was for Vietnam until my son got drafted."

(Rudyard Kipling pulled strings so his almost-legally-blind son could go serve in WWI and not miss out on the glory of it all. Then when his son was killed he changed his hawkish tune and took a very sour position on the war. Think locally, act globally!)

Surely Harman knew that OTHER PEOPLE, people whose interests she was elected to represent, were being treated horribly by health insurers, right? I mean, it's been on the news and stuff. She has constituents she hears from.

The implicit message is that things are so bad that even the *good people* are affected.

Whatever it takes to get someone on board is better than nothing. But geez...

That's the mentality we are fighting here. They don't understand how fragile "theirs" is. Any one of us could lose all we have if there were a costly medical emergency. Sometimes all we have, and more. I heard a figure the other day, must have been from Steph Miller or Mike Malloy... 60% of personal bankruptcy is due to losing medical coverage. Add that figure to the 44k who die yearly (one every 12 minutes) due to lack of health care insurance, and we have a good frame for public option arguments.

so they can see life from the other side.

basic understanding and empathy to be a Congressperson.

Sad but it is true.

Wasn't that a fairly recent GOP talking point?

with their constituents. They really do exist in a bubble.

social justice.

I'm sure she would appreciate our support.

http://www.winograd4congress.com/

than to target for elimination people who are in favor of the public option.

Winograd's in favor of single payer. Harmon's a blue dog & despite her recent change on the public option, which only happened after a family member was personally affected, she's still a blue dog. The only way to get rid of the blue dogs is to primary them. But sure, continue to support Harmon, if you like, & then wonder why we never get any significant change. :crazy:

and was susceptible to information and arguments that reinforced her general political opinions. Then she found her political opinions at odds with a major event in her personal life. She had to then either recalibrate her personal beliefs regarding the value of her son, or had to recalibrate her political beliefs. Her personal beliefs won out, she found herself now susceptible to information and arguments that would lead to political viewpoints that did not lead to internal conflict, and adjusted accordingly.

Humans are tribal apes. We all naturally gravitate towards valuing those in our sphere of attachment more than those outside; it takes great mental effort to come to any. National politics is a strange framework in which we generally aren't quite equipped to operate.

coverage.

In her case, big deal. Isn't she the richest member of the House? She could easily sudsidize it.

What I'm saying here is why come out with this dishonest "oh, I've seen the light" comment?

It might be a CYA move after hearing from her constituency and trying to come up with a "personal" story to ease the tide of negative criticism.

Perplexing.

And agreed. Glad she is on board. But I'm not buying this as the reason.


edit to add: I see the answer to my query in a comment above. A more progressive challenger in the primary!

It's like if a politician cites a personal angle that gives his/her view greater credibility.

But if someone said, "I oppose HCR because my family is quite healthy" it would sound absurdly self-interested.

So it only works one way.

but nobody really believes they're wholly altruistic. "She/He has the same problems and concerns I do and therefore will work on something approximating my behalf" is the closest we can get.

Delusions die hard. For some, they don't die up at all. Is it possible that a lot of people are missing some essential human genes? Some do not have enough imagination to enable them to consider anything beyond their own experience/needs. Some have no empathy.

Someday, science may be able to provide gene therapy to make such people more fully human.

until they're literally forced to wear them.

I believe this is because those people consciously or subconsciously succumb to their instinctive nature or fear of wanting to avoid bad things, unpleasantness and tragedy; probably in the DNA as a survival mechanism. Some people are afraid of the dark and won't go there and I believe this is all Harmon saw until her son's plight illuminated the area.

I believe humanity has a long way to go in a short time if we're to avoid major catastrophe for our species.

Maybe she assumed most folks dropped by insurers had done something wrong, in the way we assume everyone arrested is guilty until someone we know is arrested.

That's normal human nature, but one hopes that veteran legislators have some sort of developed objective sense of things beyond the anecdotal.

C'est la vie.

In spite of our best efforts I believe most, if not all objective sense is clouded by subjective emotion, with some people that may be just a few clouds on an otherwise sunny day but with others it's more like a prelude to a tornado.

Having said that, I do agree with your hope.

Our politicians are not special people. They do not have special knowledge. They are joes and janes just like us, and screw up just like us, make poor decisions just like us, and everyone now and then, see the light... just like us