Not all of y'all may remember Siskel & Ebert,
or even Ebert at the Movies With ...
but I do.
Roger Ebert was always the fellow I agreed with about movies. I agree with him about health care reform, too. He's probably got a whole lot more recent experience with the US health care system at the peak of its performance than I have. Here's what he writes on health care:
The notion of "universal health care" does not mean "socialized medicine." It means just what it seems to mean. America is the only developed nation on earth that does not provide it. Why does it inspire such virulent opposition? Who is behind it? It is opposed mostly from the far right, whose enthusiasm seems to be encouraged by financial support from some (not all) insurance companies. Those companies have priced American insurance out of the reach of millions.
One result has been that our national life expectancy ranks 42nd among all developed nations. We spend more on medical care that any other nation, and get less than 41 of them. These figures are pretty clear.
You should read his entire, and excellent, column. He's a man brought back from death's door, and pleased to go on living. A man who cannot speak, now, but can still write, and does so with passion and a gift for pointing out the truth that mustn't be missed.
He calls "death panels" what it is: a lie.
He identifies the opponents of health care reform accurately: "insurance companies" whose actions in the past 20 years have priced health care out of reach of more than 50 million uninsured and another 40-plus million underinsured Americans -- all in the name of money.
"Death panels" is an example of a meme. A meme is a word, phrase, saying, idea or belief that passes from one mind to another. The Domino Effect. Alligators in the sewers. Blondes have more fun. Tax and Spend. The New Frontier. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Swiftboating. Where's the beef? The King of Beers.
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One thumb up
It would get the second thumb up if it properly critiqued the weaseling the Democrats are doing, putting forth a plan so corporatist and compromised that it's almost laughable that the Repubs are finding it objectionable. Also, why is "socialized medicine" such a bad thing?
He's not a Democratic pundit, vl. He's a movie critic,
and this is one of a very few columns he's written that stray into politics.
I won't fault him for not joining the hysterics of the M$M/Corpomedia on this subject.
I think he did write a cogent column on the need to make the kind of care he had available to all Americans. I think his experience as a patient lends weight to his words.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
The problem is
The debate on this topic is badly broken. And perhaps the biggest break is that the majority party is accepting this "public option" pig in a poke.
It's the elephant-pig in the room, and I've seen too many otherwise smart people narcotizing themselves because saints like Howard Dean make a decent case about what's wrong with our health care while helping sell a different health care wrong. Ebert makes a compelling and heartfelt case about the existing problem but is guileless about how inapt the Dems' "solution" is.
Take the good and leave the rest, I say -- and if we put Ebert on too high a pedestal for this, we're not leaving behind the part that doesn't wash.
Our culture seems to be becoming ever more Manichean, where it's taboo to -- among other things -- be candid about the flaws in a piece of content that one overall likes.
The health care reform debate *is* badly broken, One reason
is the refusal of either side to recognize that there's no bill. There's no detailed plan at this point. For whatever reason, the House did not send out a bill before recess.
Ebert's point is salient here -- how many uninsured persons do you think could get cancer surgery in a hospital in the US today?
I doubt there'd be many. Oh, sure, some of the charity hospitals would work with some of the younger patients; but for a 40-year-old single male? Chances are slim to none.
We've been distracted from the true cause of this ourselves.
The true cause of this is that profit rules medicine here in the US. This is not true anywhere else in the civilized world.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18