I on the World

. . .the only problem is — what we have is a joke.  A big, sad, expensive joke on the American people.  Oh, they’ll try to sell it all right, as hard as they can.  They’ll try to tell you about all the money it will save and all the people it will help.  They’ll pat themselves on the back and wax eloquent like the carnival barkers they really are, shilling for the carnival owners — the health care industry.  But don’t be fooled.

Remember all the parrots, reciting that wonderful-sounding phrase “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”?  Well, now we get what they really meant — “Don’t let the good be the enemy of taking whatever we can get, and selling it to the American people as though it was something.”

Maybe it’s time that this country went the way of ancient Greece and ancient Rome and all the others who imploded from their own greed and corruption and selfishness and stupidity.

Reforming health care in this country is not difficult.  It’s simply a matter of bringing quality affordable health care to every man woman and child in America.  One does that by ignoring the pressures from the industry and doing what’s right for the people.

Which  was why I couldn’t believe that any reasonably intelligent population would actually oppose reforming our health care system until I saw a crowd of people lining up for a Sarah Palin book signing, and then reality hit me – maybe the error in my thinking was that we have a reasonably intelligent population in this country.

I’ve been trying for over a year now to figure out what Sarah Palin’s appeal is to the people who flock to her without question or qualm.  She is, after all, an intellectual lightweight, totally lacking in any intellectual curiosity.  Despite attending five colleges, she is abysmally undereducated.  And on every single issue that matters, she is nothing if not grossly ill-informed.  I believe I’ve finally figured it out.  The people who flock to her without question or qualm do so precisely because she is their peer, or their superior.

I’ve been watching the health care debate, mostly out of curiosity, I admit, and I just don’t get it.  You see, I’m on Medicare – that dreadful socialist old-folks-killing government-run program, so it’s no skin off my nose.  I get to choose my own doctor – he makes house calls when I need it.  I get whatever treatment is necessary for whatever is ailing me – I’ve got a nasty viral thing going on at the moment that the doc and I have spent the weekend dealing with.  My prescription drugs are pretty reasonably priced, all things considered – I save even more by getting some of my medications from Canada.  I don’t have to hassle over paperwork – I’ve never had a head for numbers.  And I can tell by the itemized bills that show up in my mailbox that I’m getting rock bottom rates for my care.  It’s terrible, I tell you.  I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.  Why can’t those people we send to Washington realize that paying premium rates, being denied treatment and coverage at every turn, and having a cap on the cost of some conditions people have to live with is the real way health care should be run in this country?  Not the way my health care is run.  Come to think of it, not the way health care is run for the people we send to Washington, either.  I just don’t get it.

In the interests of full disclosure, let me state that I voted for Barack Obama for President, and contributed to his campaign.  Not because I had anything in particular against John McCain, other than his totally irresponsible choice of a vice-presidential candidate, but because I had come to recognize that Dick Cheney and George Bush had headed one of the worst, if not the worst, administrations in the history of our county.  I concluded it was time for a change.  Not necessarily the kind of change Mr. Obama was campaigning on, but change in general.  You know, like a clean sweep.

I am now beginning to wonder what on earth I was thinking of.  Because the last nine months have shown, if nothing else, that politics is politics, no matter what party is in power.  Mr. Obama is no beacon of light or breath of fresh air.  He is a charming, articulate politician, who did what he had to do to get elected, and is now proceeding to do whatever he believes he must do to get reelected.

And therein lies the problem with government.  People elected to public office are generally focused on one thing and one thing only – getting reelected.  Some of them are also focused on lining their coffers with corporate interest dollars and/or securing their futures as lobbyists once they leave office.  Few of them are particularly focused on doing what they were elected to do – represent the people.

In the past eight years, we have spent an estimated three trillion dollars, and still counting, on two useless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we cannot win and will not win, but we can’t find a way to pay for quality, affordable health insurance for every American?

The bills making their way through the House and Senate are jokes, nothing more than page after page of watered down words that translate into giveaways to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, engineered by congresspeople bought and paid for by said industries, and a president who campaigned on health care reform and a strong public option and holding said industries accountable, but has more recently spent his time in closed-door sessions with members of said industries, making assurances that the status quo will not be significantly disturbed.

In the past year alone, we have given away some twenty-four trillion dollars to banks who engaged in practices that make Bernie Madoff look like a nobody.  With foxes like Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Ben Bernanke in charge of the hen houses, we will never see most of that money again, but we can’t find a way to pay for quality, affordable health care for every American?

Is this what we elected Barack Obama to do — steal from the poor and give to the rich?

Give ma a break!