Liar, Liar, Health Care On Fire
Students have returned to school in recent weeks. As a first assignment, many will be asked to answer a familiar question: “What did you do for your summer vacation?” Depending on who they are, there answers may turn out to be surprisingly political.
Though we often forget the power inherent in who we are and what we do, children think their parents set the sun in the sky every morning. Teens, while hormonally designed to distrust parental authority and occasionally behave badly, nonetheless count on us to set the limits that make them feel safe. Parents have as a foremost responsibility the modeling of appropriate behavior.
One of the beauties of American freedom is our ability to speak and, to some extent, behave freely. But in summer town hall conversations that were to have been about health care has emerged a virulence of feeling for President Obama too profoundly deep to have been about health care alone.
People claiming their Second Amendment rights took automatic weapons to meetings close to where President Obama was speaking. CNN’s Rick Sanchez reported a sermon titled, Why I Hate Barack Obama given by an Arizona preacher:
Turn back to Psalm 58 and let me ask you this question -- why should Barack Obama melt like a snail? Why should Barack Obama die like the untimely birth of woman? Why should his children be fatherless and his wife a widow, as we read in this passage? Well, I'll tell you why. Because since Barack Obama thinks it's OK to use a salty solution, right? -to abort the unborn, because that's how abortions are done, my friend. We're using salt. And I'd like to see Barack Obama melt like a snail tonight. Aired August 28, 2009 - 15:00
This is free speech that rides the line of incitement to violence. Following this sermon, Chris Broughton, a young black man who was a member of this congregation showed up toting an automatic weapon at a meeting on health care held by President Obama in Phoenix . When a guns right lobbyist was asked later that week on the Chris Matthews Show about whether gun owners should have been allowed concealed weapons in the arena with the president, the answer was yes. The reason: they are trustworthy and wish to defend the rights of their country.
The summer’s town meetings differed by party. While I must make the disclaimer that I am a registered Democrat, there did appear to be a difference in the town halls held by Democrats and Republicans politicians. Democratic meetings, while not without some noise, let people tell stories of no insurance and bankruptcy and made the most noise about whether or not there should be a single payer v public insurance options. People on the far left expressed their anger at the president’s unwillingness to firmly state a position for single-payer health care, a great system for coverage that could never get voted in. Most anger was expressed toward insurance companies. No individual who told a personal story was shouted down and the president was called no unseemly names. His process was sometimes criticized but never his character.
The Republic town halls were decidedly different. The president was called a socialist, a fascist and a Nazi. Working people with significant medical conditions who told stories about losing health care insurance were denigrated. They were often told to get charity care or Medicare or Medicaid – two much talked about encounters occurred with Party Chair Michael Steele and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia. In addition to being inhumane, these responses did not take into account that there are circumstances when one can be broke and yet not qualify for government programs. Nor did they acknowledge the inconsistency of the typical Republican small government argument – it seems unreasonable to recommend increasing numbers of people to programs that are anathema to one’s political philosophy. Additionally, lots of the shouting from the crowd at the Republican meetings misunderstood basic truths of health care as it currently exists; for example, people insisted that no one mess with their Medicare without the knowledge that it is a well-run government program.
One conservative response to government was tea parties. While tea parties have often been thought of as the games we play with our children or the elite white-gloved, crustless sandwich functions of ladies who lunch, they also have a distinctly revolutionary history in America. Many far right conservatives and some independents have spent the summer traveling on the Tea Party Express . While touted as a grass roots organization, this is, in fact a well-funded, highly structured organization that has a new revolution as its goal. People state that they want limited government (rather than responsible government. So how are roads, schools, parks managed? What is the purpose of an elected government or laws? How is civic chaos avoided?).
Many tea party attendees also appear to believe Obama’s presidency to be illegitimate. At these tea parties could be seen placards of the president dressed as a bone-nosed witch doctor, telling the president that he and the recently deceased Senator Kennedy belonged together in death, and photos and shirts of Obama as Hitler. Parents and their children held these signs and shouted incendiary slogans. This is not a model for raising polite children. It’s a model that leads to fights on school buses and kids who don’t understand what they have done wrong.
So it has been an outrageously angry summer. More heat than light in the town halls. Concepts of America’s governance not well thought out. On the right, Glenn Beck calling President Obama a racist, others insinuating that the president is not an American citizen despite evidence to the contrary. Rush Limbaugh and Beck connecting Obama to many negative and sometimes outrageous behaviors of community groups. The shouting has been from conservatives on the far right of the Republican Party. The mainstream of the party has not, however, consistently distanced itself from its ugliness. As a result, the roiling pool of this very climate may well have contributed to what made even an incensed Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina feel so comfortable calling the president a liar during a joint session of Congress. Normally Southern gentlemen know how to keep their anger under wraps. The far left has its wingnuts, too. People wedged into corners from which they won’t budge on health care, more concerned about the position than getting some coverage for the majority. People yelling about the right in ways not attached to the data. From both directions, yelling.
Invoking the 1978 murders of San Francisco mayor, George Moscone, and gay activist, Harvey Milk , House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated her concerns that this form of heated rhetoric could have devastating national consequences.
In Joe Wilson’s significantly black state, South Carolina has 15.4% premature births, 10.1% low birth weight babies, and a 9.4% infant mortality rates, exceeding those of much of the country. While these rates result from a complex of state race and demographic factors, for its Republican majority to not want public insurance options for its impoverished people is a questionable choice. If we imagine that the state wants nothing else but to be economically viable, then finding a way to enhance community health is vital. Calling the president a liar because he wants to create health care for all means not helping the people who helped vote you into office.
It is also fascinating to note that Representative Joe Wilson has some credibility problems in any attempts to portray himself as race-neutral. He did not shout, “You lie!” until the president was talking about immigration. A black man talking about brown people was somehow terrifying.
Of course, this health care bill will not allow illegal immigrants to get health care services. But it should. We need to be honest that we actually welcome illegal immigrants into the U.S. to do jobs in farming and service industries at disgracefully low wages that benefit business owners. If they become ill, the truth is that they are not terribly likely to go to health care clinics or hospitals because of fear of deportation. Which means that any infectious agents make them more ill and weaken their families and our communities. Ultimately, it makes more sense to find a way to provide amnesty and a road to citizenship for those who have been in the country for a proscribed period and, at a minimum, catastrophic insurance. This, then, is also, a decision that mixes economics and race to bad effect.
Former President Jimmy Carter stated his belief that an “overwhelming portion” of responses to President Obama stemmed from racism, a disbelief of the dying political right that a black man had been elected president. Former President Clinton does not believe the attacks to believe the attacks on President Obama to be primarily racist. He thinks that during economically challenging times, people feel unsettled and get angry. Of course, this is a profoundly economically stressful moment in our history. Clinton does note, however, his view that a vast right wing conspiracy is out for President Obama, not as strong, but still as virulent, as that which challenged his presidency.
I tend to side more with President Clinton that most of the response to the president is not racist. Most people are angry because they have no idea when they will next work, how they will provide good futures for their children, when they can dream again. People are scared. But those few on the very far right who are worried about the country’s changing demographics – the browning of America - are perfectly described by President Carter’s concerns and whipped into absolute frenzies by the Beck’s and Limbaugh’s of the world. In this sense it is absolutely true that “once you go black you can’t go black.” The tans of intermarriage are permanent. People who enter the country stay. Maybe in your neighborhood. Equal opportunities mean that someone may qualify for your job. Or get to be your president. For those who fears take on this tint, it explains why there has been an increase in the amount of ammunition sold in recent months and an increase in hate groups. Or why some parents seem to have no qualms about having their children shouting terrible things about another human being of any standing or authority.
The Golden Rule says that we should treat others as we want to be treated. We should not threaten the President. We should not tell lies. We should not dehumanize others. We should ensure healthcare for everyone because it is the right thing to do. We should provide excellent models for our children.
And because the summer’s mess over healthcare meant that no one learned a thing about it this summer, here is a great Time Magazine article by Kate Pickert that lays out exactly what you need to know as well as a fascinating book by T.A. Reid called The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. Sorry I did not get to do it. I was deafened by the noise.