Talking About Health Care

It was a bit refreshing. The caller was not a mechanized sales pitch for an Auto Warranty or a bill collector. That, in and of itself, justified attention. A Gentle Reader was expressing concerns about health care reform. One hopes to have been persuasive in favor of a public option and President Obama’s goals. Some of the information being offered is, at best spurious, anecdotal, and inaccurate.

That is a nice way of stating that some of the rhetoric is best referred to with an eight-letter term synonymous with bovine waste. The caller was polite, and our conversation was decorous.

One was a bit dismissive of some of the caller’s sources. The broadcasters cited included several well-known conservative presenters. One of the presenters comes from a background of objective journalism. The vast majority has minimal educational attainment, and is best characterized as entertainment only.

Entertainers are well within their rights of free speech on any side of a debate. While educational attainment is no guarantor of competence or talent, the skills obtained in post-secondary education are often better predictors of reasonable debate, What has been notable from the right has been a dependence upon volume and questionable partisan sources lacking empirical integrity.

The political left has been little better. There may be method in the left’s madness. While the right has been making much of vocal displays to legislators, the left has been remarkably non-committal toward such demonstrations. By focusing upon quantitative and independent means of refuting dubious information, the Obama administration has managed to seize the mantle of reason and judgment.

This is the part where your Wandering Gentile becomes a bit sarcastic, because the spurious, anecdotal, and inaccurate are not part of the pizza he ordered.

Claim: America’s health care system is the best in the world.

Polite Response: While we remain among the foremost researchers in the world, there are some inadequacies which remain to be rectified.

Wandering Gentile Sarcastic Response: Maybe more people would be able to get the attention they need if there weren’t half a dozen drug companies sponsoring right-wing bloviators with commercials for jumped-up talleywhacker pills. Who do you think is paying Rush Limbaugh US$40,000,000 a year? It damn sure ain’t the people listening to NPR!

Claim: Health care will be rationed.


Polite Response: A plan with a strong public option will allow more people to get better care, at a lower cost.

WGSR: What, precisely do you call a bureaucrat at a for-profit insurer deciding which procedures will be covered? And who, exactly can you appeal to if and/or when coverage is denied? Does anybody think Sean Hannity is going to stand up for individuals outside his immediate circle whose insurer has declined a necessary procedure?

Claim: Evil Death Panels will euthanize the elderly and the infirm.

Polite Response: End of life counseling will be made available but not mandatory.

WGSR: Thank God Conservatives like the Second Amendment! That way when someone can’t get coverage for a chronic health condition that ruins their quality of life, they can buy a really good gun which will end their misery. It might be messy, but they won’t have to clean up.


Claim: A public option will be a terrible burden to taxpayers.

Polite Response: Legislators and the White House have been cooperating to find a revenue-neutral solution which will give every American access to health care.

WGSR: You have to be kidding me!!! Fifteen years ago, these same insurance companies promised us that they would cut costs and improve services. Now we have three times as many uninsured with costs which have wildly outpaced inflation. What the hell? On top of that, parquet floor treatments at my local hospital were tax-deductible as a business expense. Here’s a good idea! Try treating a few more patients instead of the (profanity) floors!

Claim: Socialist Health Care like Canada will mean a decline in service and increased costs.

Polite Response: If you’re happy with your private insurer, you can keep them.

WGSR: Let me see, I’m supposed to reject the system which costs half of our system, gets better results, has a spectacular approval rate, and has proven to reliably serve the entire population of Canada. In trade, I get private bureaucrats telling me that my insurance will cost more than I earn in a month, with huge co-pays, and the possibility that my claim will be rejected. Just one question-do you think I was born on Planet Stupid?


Claim: You won’t like nationalized health care, if it happens at all.

Polite Response: As with any new mechanism, some fine tuning may be necessary, but we can rise to the challenge.

WGSR: Maybe. But there is a better chance that I will be around to complain than if we continue down the track we’re on.