Put This One in the Time Capsule
We don't yet know what the outcome will be of the current push to reform our health care system, but if we want to give future generations an idea of just how ridiculous the accompanying debate was, we should just save this "op-ed" from the Wall Street Journal and put it in a time capsule. Entitled "The Panel," it is a fictional account (written in the second person style of a choose-your-own-adventure novel) of a hearing before a government "death panel." It even includes a picture of three obnoxious-looking bureaucrats presiding over the fictional proceeding. I'm not making this up. You really have to read it yourself to appreciate the level of craziness on display, but here's a sampling:
"But without this procedure, I'll be dead before Christmas."Yes, the logic is inevitable. That's why we've had Medicare for 40 years and somehow managed to avoid the imposition of death panels. And it's so inevitable that despite the near universality of government-funded health care in the industrialized world, there aren't any examples of these death panels in other countries either. And while we're talking about "inevitable logic," are we really supposed to believe that a party that doesn't even have the cajones to defend a voluntary end-of-life counseling provision against blatantly false attacks--a party that immediately dropped a perfectly sensible provision when a crazy, discredited ex-governor screamed "death panels"--is really going to pass laws barring private insurance and private expenditure on health care and force people to defend their lives to before panels of government bureaucrats? Really? We're talking about a party that has a super-majority and still can't seem to pass even half-assed health care reform. The only "inevitable logic" when it comes to Democratic members of Congress is that they will find a way to cave, even in the face of broad public support.
You try to keep the anger out of your voice. The last thing you want to do is offend them. But the politicians promised you—they promised everyone—there would never be panels like this. They made fun of anyone who said there would. "What do they think we're going to do? Pull the plug on grandma?" they chuckled. The media ran news stories calling all rumors of such things "false" or "misleading." But of course by then the media had become apologists for the state rather than watchdogs for the people.
In fact, the logic of this moment was inevitable. Once government got its fingers on the health-care system, it was only a matter of time before it took it over completely. Now there's one limited pool of dollars while the costs are endless.
posted by A.L. at 9:58 PM
23 Comments:
So they're worried about a panel of bureaucrats denying a life-saving medical procedure, yet cheer lead the right for the government to pick up citizens off the streets, declare them terrorists, deny habeas corpus, ship them off to anywhere, and then torture them. To death.
um, arent insurance companies doing this kind of stuff today?
Knockout Ed,
You're not thinking like a libertarian. Insurance companies are part of the private sector and therefore everything they do is, by definition, right, even if it is exactly the same thing you so fear in the government.
I'd add that the contrapositive is also true. Medicare is a largely popular program, and is therefore not a government one. Crazy lefties- keep your government out of my Medicare!
What a florid writing style. First two sentences:
"The people behind the long table do not know what they've become. The drug of power has been sugared over in their mouths with a flavoring of righteousness."
Watch out everybody, people behind the "long table" are going to screw you over!
I'll just add that the whole premise of the essay is that the government is an entity totally divorced from public opinion. If you take that view, then anything can be conjured up. The police could round up whoever they want and beat them and toss them into the sea. Or the post office could shred every 5th letter.
That perspective is evident from this line:
"... the media had become apologists for the state rather than watchdogs for the people."
There you have it. The "state", which might just as well be run by Stalin's ghost, and media-apologists burnishing the state's image.
Klavan must be an anarchist in the strict meaning of the word.
What really amuses me about this is the simple bad economics of the article. I realize I am an egghead and a wonk for fixating on this rather than the purple prose and incendiarism of the quoted piece, but I can't help it.
"Now there's one limited pool of dollars while the costs are endless."
The costs are endless now. While it is true that they are not going to go down a whole lot, the method of paying them will be improved. Right now we have multiple little pools of dollars to throw at the costs. The kind of health care reform the right is trying to scare everyone with would mean one vastly bigger pool of dollars to throw at the costs. It would make paying for health care easier, rather than harder, and make procedures more available, not less.
This is basic economics.
Of course, economics have never been a Republican forte.
"Apologists instead of watchdogs,,,"? Ah, the projection, it hurts my brain.
I'll try to get a comment in here before one of the right wingers changes the subject and distracts everyone into a parallel universe. Take a hint from how Barney Frank responded to the kooky lady holding up a picture of Obama as Hitler and asking him why he supported Nazi policies. He said that arguing with her would be like trying to talk to a dining room table and he would not waste his time. So let's stop wasting time talking to the nuts who haunt this blog and sidetrack discussions. There is nothing to be gained from granting them attention and nothing of value to be learned from their ignorant rants. Ignore them.
That leads me to a comment on the posting. The purpose of the WSJ article, like the posts of right wing nuts and the ugly behavior at town halls, is not to inform or to engage in reasoned debate. It is not to be constructive in any sense. It is to be as flamboyant and outrageous as possible to attract attention and distract people from the real issues. If those of us who want health insurance reform (I favor single payer) spend our time answering and thus validating their antics, we never get out the positive messages as to why reform is needed. In other words, we end up on the defensive against their insanity and they'll win by distraction.
My proposal is to follow the lead of Barney Frank. Briefly ridicule their stupid comments and lies, refuse to debate with them, and set the positive agenda for reform.
the real inevitable logic was that a combination of the first amendment and free enterprise would result in a shit-storm of corporate propaganda hijacking our political discourse.
Oh, yes, and I forgot. Insurance companies don't engage in complex social engineering. They just care about profits. Obviously it is much better to be denied health care because it doesn't fit some insurance company's bottom line than because of some social engineering formula. Isn't it obvious?
[/snark]
I realize it's virtuous and commendable, in part, for the Dems to not march lockstep on everything. That’s part of why I, although still a registered Indy, have been behind the blue team for some time. But why so feckless? I just don’t see the backlash, politically. Who are they afraid of? If you debate and argue and present with facts, the debate about bringing the country REAL health care reform (should be) is a no-brainer win.
Did no one think, "satire" here?
Thanks for the link. This is the perfect distillation of the right-wing mindset. The essence:
"Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end."
I can just hear Rod Serling saying this, as grim bailiffs drag our too-late-the-wiser hero off to the death chamber. It's a dirt-simple slab of irony fit to blow the mind of any not particularly bright 13-year-old.
And it's the animating philosophy of the Republican Party.
Jayhawk -
No it cannot be satire. It is from the WSJ, and this really is how they think.
And without a scintilla of irony.
JzB the ironic trombonist
Thank you for your anger, and for the way you articulate it. I feel the same frustration. We entered this term with (to quote the last administration) a clear mandate. How has it been allowed to come to this?
I just don’t see the backlash, politically. Who are they afraid of? If you debate and argue and present with facts, the debate about bringing the country REAL health care reform (should be) is a no-brainer win.
Ex-freakin'-xactly.
That said, a few points. When Nov 2010 and Nov 2012 rolls around, people are going to vote based on how they feel in Nov 2010 and Nov 2012 - not based on how they felt in Nov 2009. And if the plan is a good plan, which it is, then the people will have a positive feeling in 2010 and 2012. So the Conservadems are more worried about losing their insurance stipend than in losing votes.
A less cynical view is that Dems are, by nature, more capable of self doubt. And they want to be right, to which the self doubt gets in the way. So when they're pushing an agenda, they do so a bit more tentatively - based on the realization that maybe, just maybe, they might be wrong. Republicans, on the other hand, don't give a sh*t if they're right or not. They just want to make sure they get what they want. Perfectly evidenced by Limbaugh copping to wanting Obama to fail. He doesn't give a rats arse about what's right/successful, he just wants what he wants, results be damned.
Wow. In the old days you had to track down a copy of a John Birch Society tract to read prose like that. Now it's right in the Wall Street Journal. Thanks, Rupert Murdoch, for doing your part to bring the lurid fantasies of right-wing extremists to the masses in multiple media channels.
i agree with ferrapo, why engage the right? i tried debate with friends/family/ relative strangers at various coffee shops to no avail. when i switched to ridicule and dismissiveness the right wingers actually listened to me. go figure.
AL- to avoid having two threads going at once, I am posting this here in response to your rejoinder in the previous thread.
I did read your entire post. When you stated that Obama’s pitch was designed to blunt criticism from the GOP that he was “proposing some expensive new entitlement program,” I inferred that you thought this would be an unfair criticism. Perhaps I was mistaken. Maybe you meant that Obama has been trying to fool the public into believing that he is not proposing an expensive new entitlement program but that, on the contrary, the new health care entitlement he is proposing will not merely pay for itself, but will “bend the cost curve” so as to make significant progress toward solving our structural budget deficit.
If I understand your follow-up correctly, you think that the reform proposal has some costs and some cost-savings, and you take no position on the relative size of these two figures. This seems like a strange position. After all, tax cuts involve both revenue losses and revenue increases. But if tax cut supporters were even to suggest the possibility that the latter might be greater than the former, you accuse them of magical thinking. By contrast, you seem indifferent to whether Obama’s proposal will result in substantial net savings, as he claims.
This is hardly a side issue (like death panels), but one that goes to the very heart of the healthcare proposal. If one makes the (very generous) assumption that the costs and savings in the proposal actually cancel each other out, this means that there will be significant cuts in Medicare without any reduction in the structural budget deficit. Even if one grants Obama’s claim that these cuts will be painless to Medicare beneficiaries (contrary to the longstanding Democratic position that any cuts in Medicare constitute an assault on the heath and well-being of the elderly), the bottom line is that Obama will have transferred billions of dollars from Medicare to the uninsured, while leaving Medicare in the same insolvent condition as he found it. This means that the future needed Medicare cuts will need to be even deeper than they otherwise would have been.
Sure, it would be great if politicians would discuss these issues in realistic terms, recognizing that decisions involve hard choices and tradeoffs, rather than engage in pie in the sky promises (Obama) or apocalyptic warnings (Palin). But they don’t, and focusing solely on the exaggerations or dishonesty of the politicians you don’t like won’t change the math or make the policy any better.
Quiddity said...
I'll just add that the whole premise of the essay is that the government is an entity totally divorced from public opinion.
Considering that a majority of Americans are in favor of a single payer health plan, favor strong gun control laws, and favor at least moderate abortion rights, I’d say that the government is totally divorced from public opinion.
Most elected government officials consider public opinion only after listening to their masters, the corporate and big money interests.
Enlightened Layperson said:
"You're not thinking like a libertarian. Insurance companies are part of the private sector and therefore everything they do is, by definition, right, even if it is exactly the same thing you so fear in the government."
No, no, no. A private insurance company is a "panel" of 1, whereas the gov't requires three people to make these decisions. The private sector is preferable due to its efficiency donchyaknow.
The other, arguably most disturbing part, is reading the comments with Mr. Klavan's article. You'd think that these are people reading the Wall Street Journal, no? That they'd be remotely educated and--right leaning or otherwise--would repudiate Mr. Klaven's outlandish hyperbole. Unfortunately, no such response exists. The one voice of reason in the comment thread is drowned out by throngs of cheering believers. There was a point when I really wanted to believe that people were fundamentally self-aware and that a simple thing like truth would be able to cure the ills of the doublespeak. This country frightens me anymore.
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