Only WE Can Defeat Health Care Reform: More Notes from the Circular Firing Squad that is the USA

McCamy Taylor

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Sat Nov-21-09 05:25 PM
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Only WE Can Defeat Health Care Reform: More Notes from the Circular Firing Squad that is the USA

Divide and Conquer

Divide and Conquer is the way the elite keep power in a democracy. If you ask a man to cast a vote that denies his family the basic necessities of life, he will laugh you out of office. If you ask that same man to cast a vote that will deny his neighbor those necessities, he will think about it. Suggest that he vote to keep some folks on the other side of town uneducated and unvaccinated, and he just might do it. Tell him that the folks on the other side of town are shiftless, lazy criminals, and he will make damn sure to teach them a lesson---even if that lesson ends up hurting his own family. Don�t believe me? Remember, in Texas, the majority of people polled said that they would rather see innocent people put to death than risk having one guilty person live. That is the power of fear. It makes us forget that we are our brother�s keepers. It turns us against ourselves.

It makes the corporate class in this country a whole lot of money.

Nothing is more profitable right now that the medical industrial complex in America. Insurance companies consume obscene amounts of money as overhead for operations designed to deny us necessary health care. Drug companies pay off politicians so that they can extend the patents on medications that were discovered using taxpayers� money. The medical profession is full of specialists who apply very expensive Band-Aids to treat problems that could have been prevented by a little inexpensive primary care. And all of these folks want to see things stay the way they are�

Just how bad it it? We spend over 15% of our GNP---- $5000 per person per year, twice as much as any Western European nation----to buy ourselves health care that gives us a quality of life that rivals�.

Mexico?

Engels predicted that the United States would never have a successful socialist worker�s movement as long as the corporate classes could divide us along immigration lines. He could have added race, religion and gender. Big Business has many ways to pit the average voter against his neighbor.

I. Race or �I�m not paying for liposuction for any _____�

If you look closely at the faces of the people who show up at Tea Parties you will notice that they are almost all white. No, they are not being organized by the NeoNazis or the KKK. As I noted in a DU journal last July, the Tea Parties are being funded by Koch Industries, the largest privately owned company in the US, a firm whose founder started the John Birch Society.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/421

Corporations have been the number one sponsor of racism in this country for over a century. Keep folks divided along racial lines, and they will not vote together as a block to tax the rich in order to provide services for the working class.

Lee Atwater spelled it all out:

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, �Nigger, nigger, nigger.� By 1968 you can't say �nigger��that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Atwater_on_the_Southern_Strategy

You got that? Straight from the mouth of corporate America�s favorite horse�s ass. �Cut my taxes� is actually code for �Keep the ____�s down.�

So called �Tea Parties� are really �Keep Them Down� parties. A sizable minority of European-American workers have been brainwashed into believing that they have value only because they are not ____, _____ or ______ (fill in the racial slurs of your choice). Any attempt to improve the lives of those who have been kept down by systematic discrimination scares the shit out of them. If they are not �better� than ____, _____ or _____, then they are just cogs in the corporate machine.

In an article �Blacks, Hispanics Biggest Losers if Health Reform Flops�, Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes:

Blacks and Hispanics make up nearly half of the estimated 50 million Americans who have no health care insurance, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund.

Snip

The huge racial disparity in the number of uninsured has been a sticking point for every Democratic president since Harry Truman proposed the first national health care plan in the late 1940s. The number of blacks and Hispanics without a prayer of obtaining health care at any price has always been wildly disproportionate to that of whites � even poor whites. It has steadily gotten worse over the years.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=91b33c75d7596d21b9a19206ca443b2b

For over half a century, corporate America has exploited the fear some people feel at the thought of racial equality to make those same people fear health care reform.

Listen to radio talk show host Joe Pagliarulo describes health care reform as �anti-white� because one of its goals to remedy health disparities.

http://aliberals-hitlist.blogspot.com/2009/11/kkk-radio-host-joe-pagliarulo-thinks.html

Now think about this for a moment. We all have a vested interest in keeping our neighbors healthy. Healthy folks are more productive workers, which keeps the economy stronger. They have less risk of communicable diseases that they could pass on to our children. They do not end up disabled and on Social Security at a young age, draining our tax coffers. If there is a segment of society that has chronically poor health because of disparities built into the system, we all suffer.

So, how the hell can measures designed to correct health disparities be dangerous to the average voter? They can�t. They are only a problem for the financial elite, who stay in power by dividing and conquering the working class. Pagliarulo should have said that health care reform is �anti-rich.�

II. Nationality or �Work Them Till They Drop and Then Send Them Back Home.�

What is clear is no elected official is likely to touch the incendiary issue, if they can help it. Before coming to the health beat, I covered immigration for eight years. I can think of no other issue that's sure to spark a backlash for politicians already under heavy scrutiny by voters. Couple that with health care reform and oh man, go grab yourself some popcorn and get ready for the drama.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/health/2009/08/illegal_immigrants_and_health.html

Undocumented immigrants from Mexico are a relatively young, healthy population. They require little in the way of health care, except for their children (who are often born here and therefore are entitled to care as U.S. citizens). They can get health care in their own countries cheaply, so they are unlikely to come to our country for services.

So, why are so many folks (even Democrats) up in arms about providing any form of health care to people with surnames like Hernandez and Aguilar? Why did Rep. Joe Barton scream �You lie!� to the president? Because �Fear the Immigrant� is corporate America�s most successful pr campaign since �Better Dead than Red.�

Consider the hypocrisy. American business just loves their underpaid immigrant workers. They love them so much they will spurn citizen workers in order to hire aliens. They are cheap. They are docile. If they try to unionize, they can be sent back to Mexico.

As much as business loves cheap immigrant labor, you would think that they would want to keep them healthy. But no, they turn around and declare that their most favored employees are the cause of all our nation�s economic woes. When unemployment rises, they say �Blame Mexico.� And meanwhile, American companies post big profits and pay their CEO huge sums for their very un-American policies.

This is not a new strategy. A century ago, you could have heard the great grandfathers of our current CEOs telling German-American workers, �Sorry I had to lay you off. Those Italians will work for so much less. Maybe you should take it up with them.�

It is easy for people to declare that undocumented immigrants should not expect government services, because they do not pay taxes. The problem with this logic? The undocumented do pay taxes. They pay sales tax, property tax, gasoline tax. Many of them even pay income tax and Social Security taxes. And their low salaries allow American business to accumulate capital that can be reinvested into the economy. This has lead immigrant advocates to protest the exclusion of foreign workers from health care reform. So, now people on the left are angry. Now, they threaten to vote against health care legislation which discriminates against tax paying non-citizen workers----

Which has the insurance companies, drug companies and medical service providers laughing all the way to the bank.

III. Gender or �No Tax Money for Abortions.�

In their war against a single payer option, the medical industrial complex has tried a lot of tactics. It will cost too much. It will drive privates out of business and reduce choice. We will have long lines and medical rationing.

Americans who have no or insufficient coverage as not fooled by these arguments. They know that Medicare works and that a system for all Americans based upon Medicare will also work. Except�.

Women of Medicare age do not get pregnant. In contrast, a single payer option will be available to young, fertile women, who may have an unplanned pregnancy which they want to terminate.

Back in September, in my journal �Health Care Hypocrisy�, I pointed out something that the right wing appeared to have (conveniently) forgotten. Most of the private insurance companies (which they defend so vigorously) pay for abortions. Insurance plans do not do this reluctantly, because big employers twisted their arms and forced them to write the coverage. They gladly pay for pregnancy termination, because it is a lot cheaper than paying for obstetric care. In contrast, government funded programs like Medicaid do not cover the procedure, because it is another of those hot button political topics that law makers do not want to touch.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/436

It was only a matter of time before the economic forces which oppose health care reform seized upon the issue of abortion in order to drive another wedge into the U.S. electorate, which, up until now, has been more or less united in its demand for a single payer option.

Now, before I get into ideology, I want to talk practicalities. Even if Congress writes a law that says �No federal tax dollars for abortion�, the nation�s private health plans will do everything they can to facilitate their clients� abortions. Most likely, they will offer special abortion riders for ridiculously low sums---say, $25 a year. Yes, the women will have to pay this part out of their own pocket book. There will be no tax subsidies. But the insurance industry will make sure that no woman is without pregnancy termination coverage, because abortion makes such good sense if you are in the business of keeping costs low. If there is a parallel, single payer option, it will not cover abortion, the same way that Medicaid does not cover it, because the folks in Congress are a bunch of spineless weenies who are scared to death of being labeled �baby killers�.

That said, the abortion wars are heating up to be just as fierce as the immigrant wars. We have Catholics declaring that any health care reform bill which does not ban abortion altogether is unacceptable. We have women outraged at more government intrusion into their health care choices. Neither side is going to win this one----as I mention above, private insurers will continue to cover the procedure and public insurance will continue to exclude it. However, the endless bickering serves the purposes of those who do not want to see any reform passed this year. And it especially helps in the war against single payer insurance, since Right to Life will insist that a federal single payer plan exclude abortion coverage, while women�s groups may drop their support for single payer if it discriminates against women. Since many working class Catholics (usually part of the Democratic base) will side with Right to Life on this one, corporate America can use abortion as a successful wedge issue to divide and conquer the Democratic Party which should be united over the issue of a single payer option.

IV. Age or "Don't Touch My Medicare Benefits!"

The nation's elderly are particularly vulnerable to fear messages. Early on, corporate America targeted old folks in their war against health care reform.

One mailing from the 60 Plus Association, which bills itself as a "conservative alternative to AARP," warns that the proposed Medicare changes will mean "longer wait times at hospitals and doctors offices, less money for new treatments, restrictions on care, prescriptions and what's best for you -- the patient!" Officials at the Virginia-based group did not respond to several messages last week.

Conservative talk-radio shows have raised the prospect of euthanasia based on a provision to reimburse doctors through Medicare for counseling sessions about end-of-life directives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/08/AR2009080802367.html

Ah yes. Death panels. Such lies have the ring of truth, because the U.S. does not value and respect its elderly citizens the way that people do in other countries. Instead, we are more likely to hide them away in nursing homes when they have outlived their usefulness as workers. And everyday, we are told that Medicare is on the verge of bankruptcy by year 20xx.

Here is the Heritage Foundation with a list of reasons why seniors should fear health care reform:

http://www.heritage.org/Press/FactSheet/fs0031.cfm

Now, here is the reason why the elderly should welcome health care reform. If we continue our present course, chronically ill seniors will become the majority in America----and there will not be enough young workers to pay for their dialysis, heart surgeries and prolonged ICU stays. Medical costs could well rise to 30% or more of our GNP. At that point, economics will force us to begin rationing. And this could happen during the lifetime of the folks who are currently on Medicare.

The solution? Offer cradle to grave insurance for all Americans. Encourage disease prevention in young people now, so that twenty years from now they will still be working and healthy. If we decrease the number of Americans who reach the age of 65 suffering from diabetes, heart disease, renal failure and emphysema, then the folks who are unlucky enough to already have these disorders will not have to worry about rationing.

We do not have to choose between health for the nation's younger citizens and its elderly. But the forces of divide and conquer would like us to believe we do.

V. The Last Word

I am going to give the last word to Gillian Hubble from an essay �Many Roads to Divide and Conquer Health Care�

Have you noticed throughout the healthcare reform debate that most everyone seems unable to see the forest for the trees? We get hung up on illegal immigrants, abortion, the disabled, the poor, the pre-existing conditions crowd, the young, the old, the military, the employed, the self-employed, the government-employed, retired union members, small businesses, and large businesses. So much minutia, so little time. What if didn�t have to be like this?

http://healthcare.change.org/blog/view/many_roads_to_divide_and_conquer_healthcare