The Tea Bagger Paradox
Apr
6
Written by:
4/6/2010 9:05 AM
To find ill-behaved "right wing" mobs and nice, hard-left-against-the-stop, progressives both denouncing Obama's health bill is a paradox. An attempt to resolve follows. The tea baggers' message is that the government should not be in the business of providing healthcare. The hard-lefter's message is that this bill leaves health care firmly in the control of the insurance industry. How in the world, one may ask, does a bill that further entrenches the insurance industry seem to the right wingers to be socialistic? It is put that the tea baggers are a decoy invented by the pro-industry forces in the administration to make the single payer/public option people think the bill is a step in that direction.
In support of the contention that the bill leaves control with the industry note for example the wide approval of the bill by the European financial sector.
As to the substance of the bill, here is Liberal's comment:
"What's wrong with extending basic, preventative health care to a larger segment of our society? Why all the angst about this?"
Angst is the word all right. But the angst concerns the lack of basic preventative care intrinsic to the delivery of health care by insurance. Basic health care starts with nutrition and low cost ready access to a doctor. We're not getting it now, nor will the bill provide it. Here's an example that weighs heavily in my assessment of present health care: breast cancer. The story told by the industry and by government agencies is that care consists of early detection and treatment. Nothing about prevention. In contrast, prevention of breast cancer has to start with correcting the poisoning of Americans by the food industry, poisons in prepared food, in the containers, in artificial sweeteners, and by the pharma industry in ill-advised hormone replacement, and now on top of all that, in genetically engineered food crops. In sum, collateral poisoning in the drive for profit.
There's no profit in prevention, there's loss of profit in regulation, and there's lots of profit in insuring repair.
The health care bill just passed is a disaster unmitigated by temporary minor gain for some sectors.