The Letter (Repost)

This is a re-post of my previous entry with the font issues corrected...

As my wonderful long time readers know, I have a certain member of my family that I occasionally get into arguments with about politics. The arguments usually consist of him forwarding me severe right wing junk mail, with headings like "What will Obama do next?" or "Health Care reform will take your medicare away!" and me sending him e-mails back asking him to please stop sending me things like that.

I've been meaning to write a post about this topic for a while, with a good example, but i had to wait a while till he sent me another. Last night he did. For the sake of brevity, I can't go into the whole details of the exchange we've had over the past 24 hours, but I'll give you a run down: It was late (or early if you prefer) when I got home last night, and upon reading the e-mail (example to follow) i sent him a pretty mean response asking why he sends me this stuff, what HIS opinions were, and pretty much what the hell his problem is (note to self: 3 beer e-mail limit) I went to bed and woke up to find he had already responded, with a sincere e-mail about his veiws of health care reform. His arguments were basically that reform should come in the form of waste reduction and lower taxes, so that more people can get a job and get health care. He asked me (again) if I had read the whole House bill, and that there were provisions in there that would be horrible. He also threw in a good "you don't want illegals getting health care do you?" for shits and giggles.

My mental wits about me again after a shower and some food, I sat down and wrote a response. And thus, i publish here an open letter [with edits for anonymity] to opponents of health care reform as currently being proposed in the US Congress..

First, the e-mail he forwarded:

Statement by the President
________________________________________
I read in Snopes that this is partially true. As a Vet with service connected disability I find this very distastful. By the way, I did not volunteer for the army, I was drafted. Those who did volunteer did not volunteer to go to war, they were ordered by the President of the USA, their commander in chief to go to war.
[Relative]
it's unpardonable. He has the freedom to talk this way because of the soldiers who fought and died for the rights of all Americans!
Statement by the President ??
UNBELIEVABLE
THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT EVER MADE BY A PUBLIC OFFICIAL LET ALONE BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. AND THIS GUY IS OUR "COMMANDER IN CHIEF". HE IS A DISGRACE.
UNBELIEVABLE PRESIDENT???
HERE IS HIS RESPONSE WHEN HE BACKED OFF FROM HIS DECISION TO LET THE MILITARY PAY FOR THEIR WAR INJURIES.
WHAT AN EMPTY HEADED PERSON HE MUST BE....
Bad press, including major mockery of the plan by comedian Jon Stewart, led to President Obama abandoning his proposal to require veterans carry private health insurance to cover the estimated $540 million annual cost to the federal government of treatment for injuries to military personnel received during their tours on active duty.

The President admitted that he was puzzled by the magnitude of the opposition to his proposal.

"Look, it's an all volunteer force," Obama complained. "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice? It doesn't compute.." "I thought these were people who were proud to sacrifice for their country, "Obama continued. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow Americans."
Please pass this on to every one including every vet and their families whom you know.
How in the world did a person with this mindset become our leader? I didn't vote for him!!!
REMEMBER THIS STATEMENT... "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice?
If this PERSON thinks he will ever get another vote from an Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard service member or veteran of a military service he ought to think it over. If you or a family member is or has served their country please pass this to them. Please pass this to everyone.
I'm guessing that other than the 20-25 percent hardcore liberals in the US will agree that this is just another example why this is the worst president in American history. Remind everyone over and over how this man thinks, while he bows to the Saudi Arabian king.

WHEW! I think certain cultures would call this treason, especially since there is only one shred of truth to this e-mail...the fact that John Stewart made fun of Obama...
Now, my response:

Dear [Relative],

Thank you for responding to my e-mail so quickly and with your feelings. I want to apologize for the tone of my last email..i was really upset by the junk mail you sent me, and reacted.

Please allow me to respond rationally.

You mention that if the economy was better, then more people would be able to get jobs and therefore health insurance. I think this is exactly the problem with our current system, that our health care is employer based. This creates situations where people hold on to jobs they hate, or work under conditions that they normally wouldn't, just to get health care for their family. You also get situations like now, when during a recession people loose not only their jobs, but also the basic health care services (dental, vaccinations) for their family through no fault of their own. I believe health care should be portable, and completely independent of employer, so that situations like this do not arise, and people feel more free to determine where to work and what to do with their lives. This does not mean that their health care needs to be government run or paid (two different systems mind you). Private insurance that is portable and affordable is fine by me.

This brings me to another point you made. You said that anyone who is sick can go to the emergency room and get care. This is quite true, and a testament to the goodwill of doctors and hospitals. The probelm is, that when (if) that person recovers, they are going to have a bill for multiple tens of thousands of dollars to pay. The price of health care in the US is astronomical, and has no relation to actual costs or work. The reason that those who don't have health care haven't gotten it isn't because they don't want it, but rather it is too expensive for them, or the insurance companies deny them coverage based on pre-existing conditions. If there is one thing that NEEDS to be reformed, its insurace practices of price gouging, denial of service, and revoking coverage when emergencies do happen. The current legislation is designed to do all of these things, regardless of whether we have public or private insurance. I do believe that a strong publicly run insurance agency would do much to help combat abuses by competing with large health insurance companies that often have set up regional monopolies. I also think having the government regulate what hospitals and doctors can charge for service is a good idea: the fact that a person has to pay $170 out of pocket to get his teeth cleaned even when he has insurance (like I did a few years ago) while the dentist is driving a maserati is not only ridiculous, but is at some level immoral (in my eyes). Another way of combating monopolistic behavior by insurance companies would be to induce diversification in the market (similar to what happened to AT&T) and make the health care market much more competitive. To do this, we would STILL need significant government regulation of the health care markets, even if no public plan was offered.

As for the legislation itself, i haven't read the house bill because it makes no sense to read a bill that will be changed (minimum) twice before becoming a law. The various bills being talked about in the Senate are all different than the House bill, and once they get together in committee the final product is going to look completely different than the one you've read. While i think it is important for our legislators to know what they are voting on, I think it is weak to use "Have you read the bill?" as an argument when "the bill" doesn't really exist.

This brings me to my final point, and the one that made (makes) me so upset when you send me these anonymous forwards. I find the general tone of debate in America right now deplorable, and it makes me really sad to see what is happening at the town halls around the country. There is no debate, only screaming, and the people doing the screaming are either misinformed, or afraid and reacting. The organizers of many of the groups have publicly stated that their goal is to disrupt meetings, not to contribute to debate. When someone stands up and begins to scream about the constitution and gun rights (watch this video) during a town hall on health care it gets us nowhere. When people bring firearms and stand outside of meeting places to "demonstrate their rights" it smacks of fascism and intimidation tactics. And when people accuse the president, or members of congress, of being Nazis, i see a sad lack of historical perspective and no chance at a rational conversation about the real issues with health care in America today.

The e-mail you sent me (and the others you have sent me) falls right into this category of fear-mongering and, well, shouting through the ether. First of all, it's an anonymous bulk mail, which claims to quote the president. You said that from Snopes it's partially true, but don't mention WHICH part (is it the part about how John Stewart made fun of the president? 'cause that's his job). I would agree with you and others that if the president said something like this:

"I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst
financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to
do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I
underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow
Americans."
That that would be atrocious. But c'mon, do you really believe that Obama said this? He's not stupid, and even if he THOUGHT these kinds of things (which I do not believe) he would never say something like that on record. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money..." c'mon. These kinds of charges are bogus (see here) and serve to perpetuate lies. There is a similar problem with accusations of "death panels". You were in the insurance buisness for a long time, and certainly know a few things about actuaries. Instead of having private insurance companies make cost effectiveness assessments, the House bill wanted to create a government body that would also serve this function (and would also allow private insurance companies to do their own risk assessments as well) and report of the efficiency of certain health services. Unfortunately, a bunch of screaming about "death panels" got people all riled up and afraid, and now legislators have caved and removed this provision from consideration. This is the tyranny of irrational fear over rational discussion. You mentioned that money could be saved by making the health care system more efficient: its hard to get more efficient if you don't have anyone looking for inefficiencies. Now that this provision has been removed, it will be that much harder to find and isolate effective and cost effective procedures being done across the country.

So, in summary, I believe that the health care system in America is broken and has been for years. I believe that most of the reform needed is in insurance regulation and in making health insurance more portable, affordable, and reliable. Those millions of people that do not have health insurance should have the option to get it at an affordable price, be it private or public insurance. I believe the costs of health care itself, from dental visits to emergency room traumas are obscenely high, and this is due to rampant price gouging and exploitation by hospitals and heath care providers. It's hard to fault them for these profiteering ways, since the system allowed them to get rich this way, but that's why i think the system needs to be changed. There need to be strong controls on what doctors and hospitals can charge. And there need to be protections in the system so that people are not dependent on their employer for family health care.

All of these provisions are in the legislation that is being debated in both houses (see here) and I hope to see some form of these reforms passed...with or without an expansion in government funded (medicare) or run (veterans health care) programs.

Thank you for your thoughts,

Love,

A Fortunate One


Update: sorry about the font issues guys, Blogger is frustrating me...