A 66 year old woman from Oklahoma is worried about the quality of her healthcare; she believes that she will not be able to choose her own doctor under the new healthcare plan. When we spoke, she was also under the impression that the bill would be disastrous for small business as it requires them to provide healthcare to their employees, while the exact opposite is true. The bill is slated to support small businesses by removing the expenses they incur by providing healthcare to their employees, while ensuring that they have healthcare benefits for their employees. A 60 year old couple from Alabama with Medicare does not support the bill. A 42 year old woman from California said no to nationalized healthcare; it doesn't work in Canada or Europe, she said, so why would it work here? Besides, she went on, those uninsured who need healthcare coverage can get it through medicare and medicaid; we don't need any more governmental assistance in this area aside from the programs that currently exist. She believes that there is no choice as to whether or not you wish to have government-provided healthcare under the proposed bill. When asked where she received her news from, she quickly replied that she kept informed by listening to Sean Hannity, watching Fox News, and Right America. A 62 year old Texan who described herself as "antique" noted that the Democrats in the Senate and Congress "have messed everything up." She chooses to pick her bone with the "fact" that illegal aliens are included in the healthcare plans, pointing out that "California has gone down the toilet because of illegal aliens" (of course, California could not possibly be messed up because of the Republican "Govenator," now could it?). And don't even let her get started on the fact that the healthcare undertaking would put our country trillions of dollars into debt. Of course, for news, she mainly watches Rush Limbaugh "because he speaks the truth." A 39 man informed me that, "with nationalized medicine, there would be no medicine" and that there are "a bunch o' dummies in there [the White House]." However, he did support the bill in the case that a public option, rather than universal healthcare, was on the menu as it would help the uninsured. A 25 year old woman from Arizona supported the health care bill under no circumstances, because, pointing to a case in Canada in which someone had to wait for six months in order for a broken arm to be set, she contended that "socialized medicine" would lead to no relief for the American people.
Perhaps my most compelling interviewee was 67 year old Joan Leblanc of Arkansas. I met Leblanc (a talkative woman with an opinion about anything and everything) in Oklahoma, and she is the sort of old woman I wouldn't mind sitting down for tea with. She chatted with me about her children and grandchildren (she was in Oklahoma to meet her newly-arrived grandson), as well as her concerns about Obama's decisions. Openly conservative, she supports "small government" and staunchly disapproves of the healthcare plan because, according to her, it covers contraceptives and abortions, both of which are quite distasteful to her Southern sensibilities. Perhaps what struck me the most was her observation that Obama possesses "a pragmatic disrespect for the human person." A pragmatic disrespect. For the human person. A pragmatic disrespect. I always thought that pragmatic had a positive connotation when it came to politics. According to Webster's Dictionary, to be pragmatic is to be "practical as opposed to idealistic."
Joyce, an older woman I'd spoken to around election time had been proud of Obama's pragmatism. In explaining to me why she was volunteering for a presidential candidate for the first time in exactly 40 years, she cited the fact that Obama is "pragmatic, a negotiator who draws from everyone's ideas to pick what works, to formulate the best policies." Isn't this what we look for in our leaders? Someone who isn't overly partisan and single minded? Critic after critic of his policies told me that they received their news exclusively from Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh, or Fox News. One woman who doesn't like slanted stations told me that CNN did not meet her standards, and that Fox is a much more dependable, factual station. In a time when we can get our news from wherever we want, when we can choose to listen to "facts" and opinions that echo our own, which reflect our own, we do not often get to reflect on the veracity of what we hear. You may now be noting that when I listened to the dissidents of my opinions with an open ear, their talk only reinforced my own opinions. But I can honestly say that when I first heard some of their testimonies, I was shocked. Illegal immigrants! Trillions of dollars of debts! Abortions and contraceptives (this didn't really bother me, but it surprised me that it would be an issue, especially when organizations like Planned Parenthood take care of a lot of this)! Was this true? I wondered.
What set me apart from these people was the fact that I didn't just take them at their word. I didn't simply accept that non-citizens and non-residents would have their health taken care of by tax payers. I didn't believe that our President, who had promised Change, would sink us into debt like the one before us. So I did research. I read through a lot of the proposed healthcare bill (there's only so much I could take--it's 1018 pages long), called "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" (I know that names can be deceiving so I read more), a bill created in order "to provide affordable, quality healthcare for all Americans and reduce the growth in healthcare spending." The Bill does not propose that we provide healthcare for those who are in the United States illegally. It allows people to keep their own doctors. It does not cover abortions. And the authors of the Bill made it clear that they don't want this country to go into debt, and indeed, are aiming to reduce government spending on healthcare (no surprise, as Medicare and Medicaid are using up such a high percentage of our nation's resources). By the way, you can find the link to the bill here: http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf
Beyond the Bill, beyond Democratic supporters in Congress and the Senate, beyond President Obama, there are some surprising advocates for healthcare reform. One of these is Wendell Potter, former head of communications for CIGNA, a health insurance company. He recounted the seminal moment during which he realized just what his corporation was doing:
If you're interested, I'd suggest watching the entire interview (which is about an hour long) on Democracy Now! It's truly eye-opening, and you won't be disappointed; it's something anyone with doubts about what is at stake in this bill should see, and what everyone should view in order to be better-informed about this issue. There is a reason why insurance companies do not want this bill to pass; they profit from the lax regulations that are currently imposed on healthcare. Threats of regulation have not worked in the past. Regulations that have been passed have not been able to curtail the gross practices of these corporations; they are strong, and have great lobbying power. Money is a valuable ally. And they've got plenty of it.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/16/former_insurance_exec_wendell_porter
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