The Politics of Hate

Back in July when all of the rhetoric around President Obama and his proposed healthcare reform was really starting to heat up, I wrote a previous posting How About Some Rational Discussion for a Change? and incredulously wondered how somebody could actually go as far as circulating an E-mail comparing Obama with Hitler.

Today, photos of public protests with signs calling Obama a Nazi along with posters of his likeness sporting a Hitler moustache are so common they no longer have any shock value. These protesters along with many who listen to conservative radio talk shows that egg them on have gotten to where they have so much more than just disagreements over political issues. It’s gotten personal. Many of these people obviously have a strong personal dislike if not an outright hate of the president along with others who may agree with his policies. Disagreement in a free country between people of differing views is always healthy. Hate between them is never healthy! At its worst, it can become a cancer that robs us of our capacities to feel compassion and empathy for others. And it also has the ability to grind a government to a total halt because when hate comes between two sides, compromise which is needed to make anything happen becomes impossible — an irony that is probably lost on so many of these same people who complain about how ineffective government can be.

Of course it doesn’t have to be this way. Those who saw the eulogies for Ted Kennedy were touched by the genuine and mutual respect that Republicans Orrin Hatch and John McCain had with Kennedy despite the fact that their conservative political philosophies could hardly be more different than Kennedy’s liberal ones. Despite their differences, Orrin Hatch proudly talked about the health insurance program for children that he and Kennedy worked on to become signed into law.

But many in the Republican leadership today are trying to have it both ways. On one hand, they are not actively participating in the name calling and are saying that they did not approve of Congressman Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” outburst at Obama’s Congressional address. But on the other hand, they are not doing anything to condemn the hateful behavior that has taken place at many of these demonstrations and town hall meetings. In fact Minority Leader John Boehner’s comments this morning to moderator David Gregory on Meet the Press calling the demonstrations “spirited” did little more than give his implicit approval of what has transpired.

MR. GREGORY: I want, I want to come back to some of the specifics about health care. But I want to, I want to stay with this tone of the debate right now and whether or not you agree that by some of the things the president said in the course of that interview, he is trying to cool off the debate, the tone of the debate. Do you see it that way?

REP. BOEHNER: Well, I don’t know that the tone of the debate has gotten out of control.

MR. GREGORY: You don’t think so?

REP. BOEHNER: It’s been spirited, because we’re talking about an issue that affects every single American. And because it affects every American in a very personal way, more Americans have been engaged in this debate than any issue in decades. And so there’s room to work together. But I first believe that we’ve got to just take this big government option, this big government plan and move it to the side. Now, let’s talk about what we can do to make our current system work better. Then we’ll have some grounds on which to build.

Then Gregory brought up the concern of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about possible violence if things get too overheated to Senator Lindsey Graham.

MR. GREGORY: This question about the role of the government, and, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying this week what she worries about in terms of the tone of debate is that it could lead to violence, as it did in the ‘70s; you know, there was anti-government violence in the ‘90s in Oklahoma City, as well. How much of a concern is that? Do you share it, or do you think that that was an overstatement on her part?

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, quite frankly, I mean, the whole idea of the role of government needs to be debated.

Graham then continued to spout off talking points before Gregory could finally pin them down to a response that neither Boehner nor Graham are concerned about any violence.

Again, honest dissent is fine. But it is obvious that neither of these Congressional leaders care about whether we are getting beyond simple dissent and into mean-spirited hyper partisanship that benefits no one.

To stir things up further, former President Jimmy Carter spoke his opinion that the overwhelming majority of the hate directed toward President Obama is racially motivated. Only the most naïve person would totally discount that racism plays some role in all of this. But even so, the racism question provides an unwelcome distraction. Yes we can label some of these people as racists which would in turn lead to denials of racism which leads us to an unproductive dead end since many of these people may well have hate that has nothing to do with racism.

So maybe the most appropriate question for these people — including those whose radio and TV talk shows feed on all of this — would not be to ask why or even if they are racists. But instead we must ask why they have such hate in their hearts!

The Health Care Protests Go On

Few presidential speeches have been as anticipated as the recent one by President Obama on healthcare reform. For many observers, the speech did a wonderful job of outlining the major problems in the US healthcare system. More importantly, he conveyed that there was an urgent moral imperative for the government to help those people who were needlessly suffering and even dying for lack of health insurance.

But in listening to conservative commentators after the address, the questions usually centered not on whether we really need healthcare reform but on how much the president’s proposed healthcare reform would cost along with how it would be paid for.

These questions seem reasonable enough but can conceal an agenda to effectively kill healthcare reform if none of the answers are deemed to be acceptable. In this case, President Obama estimated that this program would cost about 900 billion dollars over the span of about 10 years.

But what is an acceptable way to pay for this that would satisfy the conservatives?

We certainly can’t raise taxes — even for the wealthy who have done so well thanks to the Bush tax cuts.

We certainly can’t just add it to the deficit — even though this is how we financed those same tax cuts (along with the Iraq War).

Instead, President Obama offered to pay for at least most of this by eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare. But the conservatives don’t believe he can do it.

Undoubtedly, many billions of dollars in savings can be realized by offering a so-called public option similar to Medicare to compete with the private health insurance industry which now siphons off as much as 20 percent of what it takes in for overhead and profit. But conservatives are against this because of their objections to "government controlled healthcare".

So the result of all of this is today’s story Thousands Protest Health Care Plan

Thousands of people marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, carrying signs with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" as they protested the president's health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending.

The standard conservative argument is that we should solve these kinds of problems through charity instead of getting the government involved. But the massive size of this problem with tens of millions without insurance can only be addressed through government. And as President Obama said in his recent address to Congress:

That large-heartedness -- that concern and regard for the plight of others -- is not a partisan feeling. It's not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character -- our ability to stand in other people's shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

So what we have in these protesters is a group of people who despite the moral imperative to relieve the needless suffering of those without access to health insurance have decided that they are going to turn a blind eye to the suffering if it involves even a possible increase in their taxes.

What is especially ironic is that most of these conservative protesters would identify themselves as having strong Christian values. But what part of any of this is Christian?

We Really Need the Public Option

As predicted, the Congressional recess over August was a bitter fight over healthcare reform. But instead of helping to settle things, it looks like the issue has become more polarized than ever. Before it was a question between Democrats and Republicans of whether a healthcare bill needed to be passed. Now there is an even bigger battle among the Democrats as to whether the so-called public option must be a part of the bill to win their support.

What complicates things is that there is confusion by some on what the public option really is which is an offering to provide government insurance coverage similar to Medicare for those who are unable to find satisfactory choices among the private insurers. President Obama himself said that this was a necessary part of healthcare reform to in his words “keep insurance companies honest.”

In contrast, we have this whopper by Republican Senator Jon Kyl, one of many bought and paid for by the health insurance industry.

“The health insurance industry is one of the most regulated industries in America,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) on the Senate floor Monday. “They don’t need to be ‘kept honest’ by the government.”

But after President Obama first said how necessary the public option was, he then backed off by saying that it was only a “sliver” of the healthcare reform package. This enraged liberals which caused Obama to then clarify that he still favored the public option but would consider alternatives. All of this waffling has caused Obama’s approval ratings to fall, especially with the liberal wing of his party who worked so hard to get him elected.

An important point that needs to be made here is that the support for the public option is much stronger than many in media and government have led on. This New York Times/CBS News poll from June shows that 72% overall favor a public option. But what is amazing is that 50% of Republicans also favor it! So one has to ask if the Republicans’ solidarity in opposing any reform in Congress really represents their rank and file constituency rather than the health insurance industry that financially supports many of them.

To be sure, there are some powerful advocates of the public option such as former presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean who is also a physician.

Americans deserve the right to choose their own healthcare. Congress must act to give Americans more choices for their personal healthcare by allowing universal availability of a public healthcare option like Medicare. Limiting choice to for-profit insurance only is the same broken healthcare system we have right now.

Even more noteworthy is former Cigna executive and now whistleblower Wendell Potter who while with Cigna was part of their campaign to discredit any attempts at healthcare reform. Here is an excerpt of his interview with Guernica Magazine.

Guernica: Do you think the public option is important?

Wendell Potter: It’s essential. Reform without the public option would be far less meaningful and effective. The public option may not go as far as people would like in some ways, but we need a mechanism that controls costs and makes healthcare more available to citizens. It would go a long way toward keeping the insurance industry more honest, as the president has said.

At this point, I have to put in a word about the so-called liberal media. If more people had a chance to read and hear what Wendell Potter has to say, surely there would be more voices in favor of reform. But while Potter has gotten some exposure on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS and on MSNBC shows that cater to an already liberal audience, he has gotten curiously little exposure on the mainstream networks. For example, why hasn’t 60 Minutes done a story on him? Could it be that they and others are afraid of incurring the wrath (and possible loss of advertising revenue) from the big insurance companies by putting him on their air?

I have opined in a previous posting that if the public option does not make it into the final version of the bill, the bill should be allowed to die. Without a public option, if all of the uninsured were then mandated to buy insurance from the private companies, it could well result in a windfall for the health insurance industry without any real control over the cost of coverage. Indeed, many of the more liberal Democrats in the House have drawn this line in the sand.

But others say that if the bill has other vitally needed reforms like the elimination of pre-existing conditions, it would be a disservice to the uninsured to allow the bill to die. And after all, half a loaf is said to better than none.

In effect, we now have a giant game of ‘chicken’. For those who want to hold out for a bill that includes the public option, there is a chance that if the bill is then defeated, the opportunity for healthcare reform would be lost for some time and the Democrats will again crash and burn just like when they lost the healthcare reform battle back in 1993 under the Clintons.

But this is not 1993. With the ever increasing number of uninsured people since then, the need for healthcare reform has stirred so much passion among US citizens that if a bill is not passed this time, it will surely not be long before enough of the voting public will demand another try to pass a bill to finally get some meaningful reform. So instead of negotiating out of fear and perhaps having to accept a bad bill just to get something passed, I hope that President Obama will have the courage to go after truly meaningful reform which includes a public option. In his upcoming address to Congress on healthcare next week, we will hopefully find out how much (if any) courage he really has!

Afghanistan - No Longer the Good War

With all that is going on domestically in the US with health care reform and a dismal economy commanding so much of our attention, it is easy to forget about the wars we are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But although Iraq is (hopefully) winding down with our troop withdrawals, there is still the war over in Afghanistan that is growing. But that was seen to be OK. After all the thinking goes, once the diversion of the Iraq War ends we can put more resources into fighting the good war in Afghanistan we should have concentrated on from the beginning.

But clearly as we get more involved in Afghanistan, many are starting to question whether we should still be there. Many now openly wonder Could Afghanistan Become Obama's Vietnam?

(Mr. Obama) looks ahead to an uncertain future not only for his legislative agenda but for what has indisputably become his war. Last week’s elections in Afghanistan played out at the same time as the debate over health care heated up in Washington, producing one of those split-screen moments that could not help but remind some of Mr. Johnson’s struggles to build a Great Society while fighting in Vietnam.

But is Afghanistan still the good war? At one time, that was easy to decide. The Iraq War was the bad war. After all Iraq, didn’t attack us and didn’t have Weapons of Mass Destruction. On the other hand the Afghanistan War was the good war. After all, Osama bin Laden and Al Queda who did attack us were based in Afghanistan. All we had to do was find and kill bin Laden, wipe out Al Queda, and then come home.

However, it has turned out to be far more complicated than that. When we first invaded back in 2001 in response to 9/11, we not only had to deal with one Islamic fundamentalist group in Al Queda but also another one in the Taliban who at the time had control of the Afghan government. Our removing the Taliban from power was seen as a good thing because of their extreme restrictions on personal freedom and abhorrent treatment of women.

But just like in Iraq when we toppled Saddam Hussein, there was no real government leadership to fill the void in Afghanistan when we toppled the Taliban. Just like in Iraq, the democratically elected government in Afghanistan has proven to be weak and corrupt. Many feel that Afghanistan with its history of tribal alliances instead of a strong central government may well be ungovernable. Even so, our principal mission there has now become nation building which has become a thankless if not a hopeless task. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

Even worse, the Taliban has come back stronger than ever as an insurgency movement fighting not only the Afghan government but that of Pakistan too. And Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal to counter the one that their arch-rival India has. What if the Taliban or Al Queda ever got a hold of those weapons? It’s a terrifying thought!

Indeed the Taliban has become so effective that the U.S. Military Says Its Force in Afghanistan is Insufficient.

American military commanders with the NATO mission in Afghanistan told President Obama’s chief envoy to the region this weekend that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operate across borders.

The possibility that more troops will be needed in Afghanistan presents the Obama administration with another problem in dealing with a nearly eight-year war that has lost popularity at home, compounded by new questions over the credibility of the Afghan government, which has just held an as-yet inconclusive presidential election beset by complaints of fraud.

This has all produced a most difficult dilemma for the Obama administration. On one hand, the president can make a case that staying in Afghanistan is necessary to keep the region from becoming dangerously unstable in the hands of the Taliban. But on the other hand, this war can drag on indefinitely with increasing casualties and no real progress or end in sight — a bad war by almost anybody’s definition.

In Afghanistan, the Choice is Ours by Richard N. Haass is an excellent op-ed article that outlines this dilemma facing the president. The following passage is especially noteworthy:

The risk of ending our military effort in Afghanistan is that Kabul could be overrun and the government might fall. The risk of the current approach (or even one that involves dispatching another 10,000 or 20,000 American soldiers, as the president appears likely to do) is that it might produce the same result in the end, but at a higher human, military and economic cost.

So the important question to ask is not whether withdrawing would be bad but whether staying would only delay the inevitable. We need to ask the hard questions as to whether this war is truly winnable. And if the answer as many of us suspect is no, then it may well be time to leave Afghanistan to its fate just like we did with South Vietnam when we finally accepted that it too was an unwinnable war. After eight years of war there, it is time to finally bring our troops home. Instead of getting bogged down with unsolvable problems abroad, we need to put our full efforts into solving the considerable problems we face right here at home!

Time to Talk About Single Payer Again

As someone who has been avidly following the health care reform issue, I was stunned and angry to hear about President Obama backing off from the Public Option that he previously said was so important.

In a previous posting The Continuing Battle Over Health Insurance Reform, I concluded with these thoughts:

If indeed the promised health insurance reform turns out not to have a public option, we will then know that President Obama not only made a deal with the devil — but that the devil in the form of the health insurance industry came out the winner. Which would make losers of all the rest of us!

I still feel the same way today.

The ‘deal with the devil’ refers to a concession made by Obama where he agreed to take a single-payer plan off the table in exchange for cooperation from the health insurance industry in getting a public option passed. So when ‘the devil’ reneged on his deal and instead fought the public option, Obama then offered another concession to placate the insurance reform opponents? What was he thinking of?

Compromise is a necessary part of the political process but it has become obvious that the only way that President Obama is going to get real health care reform is to fight for it! A sign of real leadership is being willing and able to fight for a cause that deserves it. The story about the recent visit by Remote Area Medical to Los Angeles should remind us all that health care reform is first and foremost a humanitarian issue that he needs to fight for.

So instead of President Obama offering another concession, he should have fought back by at least threatening to put single payer back on the table.

Of all the solutions to the health care crisis in this country, single payer is the simplest and most cost-effective because we will then no longer have the health insurance industry as a middleman to siphon off money for overhead and profits that could instead go towards actual medical care. We know that single payer works because it is used successfully in many countries around the world including here in the US as Medicare for those over 65.

It is important to point out that the objection by those Democrats who do not support single payer is usually based more on the belief that it is politically unfeasible rather than any belief that it is not a good idea. Then presidential candidate Barack Obama explained this in an interview from last year.

A more recent example is Senator Max Baucus who as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee had the following exchange with NPR’s Julie Rovner.

JULIE ROVNER: The supporters of single payer health care point out that their plan is not on the table.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Well, just to be honest, it's not on the table - the only thing that's not - because it cannot pass. It just cannot pass. We can't squander this opportunity. We can't spend - we can't waste (political) capital on something that's just impossible.

Again, please note that Senator Baucus did not say anything negative about single payer itself except to say that it would be "impossible" to pass it.

The liberal Democrats in the House have now threatened to withdraw their support for any reform bill that does not include the public option. Along with them, I fear that any bill that is passed without a robust public option to provide competition for the private insurers will be worse than useless. The proposed public co-ops now being discussed may possibly work in theory but should we base our health care reform on something so untested?

Instead of accepting victory at any cost, perhaps it would be better to let this latest effort fail if we cannot at least get the public option included. If indeed the reform effort fails this time around, the stage will be set for the next round which will undoubtedly be about single payer. After all, if we have to start over, why not go with the best solution especially if it has been shown that all of the compromise solutions we have tried are no less “impossible”!

What Health Insurance Reform Is Really All About

I can hardly recall an issue that has emotionally affected me more than following The Continuing Battle Over Health Insurance Reform. In my previous posting I talked about the health insurance industry using “guerilla tactics” and waging a “proxy war” and even equating them to the devil. When I wrote that posting, I wondered to myself if I might have been a little too over-the-top in how I portrayed the health insurance industry.

After what has happened in the week since, it looks like I may have been too kind to the health insurance industry. When seeing what is happening at these Town Hall meetings that are being sabotaged by protesters that often have been planted by those with ties to the health insurance industry, there can be no doubt that this is a war that is being waged against anybody who is a threat to bring reform to the health insurance industry which would put a damper on the huge profits they have been enjoying under the present system.

So what’s the big deal about people coming to a Town Hall meeting to voice their opinions and concerns? Nothing, if that is really their intent. But it is obvious that the intent of these protesters is not to promote public discussion on health care reform but to disrupt it! This is not about accommodating those of differing viewpoints but is instead about silencing them!

What so many observers including many in the media are missing is that this fight is really not about the protesters or even the others on the political right who are spreading the poisonous rhetoric. In fact, these people are little more than surrogate warriors on behalf of those in the health insurance industry who are truly pulling the strings in this war against health insurance reform.

The most important thing is to realize who is actually getting hurt the most by this war. No, it’s not the Democratic politicians taking the verbal abuse although their egos may have been bruised a bit in the process. The people who are truly getting hurt in this war are those who are struggling to get by without health insurance and sitting on a ticking time bomb hoping they do not get sick enough to require a hospital stay. While those who wish to obstruct health insurance reform try to stall for time and hopefully kill it, it is easy to forget about the roughly 14,000 people who are losing their health insurance each day along with the roughly 1,500 people on average who die each month in the US simply due to lack of health insurance. Is it any wonder that those who are really behind this war welcome all of these distractions?

I realize that my rantings about the health insurance industry may make me look like just as much of an extremist as those on the other side of the issue who rail against the evils of “socialized medicine”. But the case against the health insurance companies is quite compelling if not overwhelming.

Even though most conservatives hate Michael Moore on general principles, his documentary Sicko still does the best job of describing the serious problems inherent with the for-profit health insurance system in the US and how people literally die due to insurance company decisions based on maximizing profit. For those who have still never seen this movie and wish to, it is available for viewing online in this link.

One of those who appeared in the movie, Dr. Linda Peeno became a whistleblower against the abuses of the HMO system while testifying to Congress that one of her decisions while working for an HMO caused the death of a man.

Another more recent whistleblower is Wendell Potter who made a recent appearance on Bill Moyers Journal. The complete interview is available for viewing online in this link. I urge those who wish to learn more about this issue to take the time to watch this roughly 35 minute interview. I have to admit that the more I listened to the interview, the more feelings of rage I had towards the health insurance industry as Potter confirmed most of the darkest suspicions many of us had about them.

Here are a few excerpts from the interview.

Despite at one time being part of an industry campaign to discredit Sicko, we have this stunning admission.

BILL MOYERS: So what did you think when you saw that film (Sicko)?

WENDELL POTTER: I thought that he hit the nail on the head with his movie. But the industry, from the moment that the industry learned that Michael Moore was taking on the health care industry, it was really concerned.

BILL MOYERS: What were they afraid of?

WENDELL POTTER: They were afraid that people would believe Michael Moore.

And concerning the present pending legislation on a proposed public option…

BILL MOYERS: Why is public insurance, a public option, so fiercely opposed by the industry?

WENDELL POTTER: The industry doesn't want to have any competitor. In fact, over the course of the last few years, has been shrinking the number of competitors through a lot of acquisitions and mergers. So first of all, they don't want any more competition period. They certainly don't want it from a government plan that might be operating more efficiently than they are, that they operate. The Medicare program that we have here is a government-run program that has administrative expenses that are like three percent or so.

BILL MOYERS: Compared to the industry's--

WENDELL POTTER: They spend about 20 cents of every premium dollar on overhead, which is administrative expense or profit. So they don't want to compete against a more efficient competitor.

So the next time you hear this issue being obscured by blowhards pontificating on the supposed horrors that health insurance reform is going to bring us, please remember what this issue is really all about — a health insurance industry that will stop at nothing to preserve its handsome profits even if it means that more sick people will suffer or maybe even die needlessly as a result. Only then will you know whom to support when you talk to or write to your senator or congressman!

The Continuing Battle Over Health Insurance Reform

The battle over US health care reform enters a new stage while Congress takes its August recess to visit constituents to get their input. So this gives us a chance to pause and take stock of what has happened up to now.

For those who have not read it, I offer a previous posting, The Continuing Fight Over Health Care Reform as an overview of this issue. It is interesting that President Obama is now starting to refer to this issue as Health Insurance Reform. Indeed there are some commentators such as in this blog from Time, Health Insurance Reform? by Karen Tumulty who speculates on this change in semantics.

The phrase "health insurance reform" is indeed an effort to tailor his message to the concerns of people who have coverage--who are, after all, the vast majority in this country. But one challenge there is that these people--86% of them in our latest poll--are satisfied with what they have. And while you might think that in the middle of a recession, a lot of people would be concerned about losing that coverage, because it is something they get along with their jobs. Our poll found that only a surprisingly low (at least to me) 33% are.

But using the magic of 20-20 hindsight, I now believe we should have called this health insurance reform from the very beginning because the problem we have in the US with health care is first and foremost a problem with our health insurance system. Despite all of the yammering about the fear of “government run health care”, those who want reform actually want the government to tackle the problems surrounding health insurance which is shutting people out of receiving needed healthcare.

The reason behind these problems is an inherent conflict of interest associated with private health insurers. On one hand they are there to serve their policyholders by making healthcare available when needed. But more importantly, they have an obligation to their shareholders to maximize profits. This creates an incentive to restrict or even deny healthcare whenever possible. The more healthcare they can deny, the more profit they make. This is why so much time and money is spent by private insurance companies to try and deny claims from the present policyholders as much as possible along with avoiding future policyholders with preexisting conditions who would be a drain on company profits. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in health insurance companies making huge profits while many sick people were being shut out of getting needed healthcare.

So why not solve the problem directly and replace the private insurers with a public insurer (a.k.a. 'single payer’) like what we presently do with Medicare for those over 65? The answer is that the private insurance companies are politically very powerful and would undoubtedly fight to the death to avoid their demise — a fight that few of our politicians have any stomach for.

But how do the Democrats try to make progress in health insurance reform without going to war with the insurance industry? Essentially, they had to make a deal with the devil. In exchange for keeping the health insurance companies intact in any proposed health insurance reform, the Democrats would get to propose an alternative “public option” to provide a way to keep the private insurers honest.

And indeed President Obama kept his part of the deal. When seeking input on health insurance reform, those who were for a public single payer insurance system that would eliminate the insurance companies were specifically excluded from the conversation.

But when you make a deal with the devil, you take the chance of getting burned! The insurance companies have apparently decided that they like the idea of not having public insurance competition and don’t want that gravy train to end. So instead of cooperating with the proposed public option, they are fighting it with a guerilla tactics like providing talking points for Republican opposition through a so-called "nonpartisan" source of information in the form of the Lewin Group.

The Lewin Group, exposed by the Washington Post as a subsidiary of an insurance company, has been widely cited as an objective, nonpartisan source of information by those opposed to the creation of a public health insurance option.

And while the health insurance companies can hardly admit that they want to squash any public option in order to keep their profits as high as possible, they can mobilize their political base to wage a proxy war on ideological grounds as in the following E-mail ad from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity.

After months of debate in Washington and the usual wheeling and dealing between the politicians and lobbyists, Senator Specter is coming home for a month. Now it’s your turn to talk with him. Don’t miss the chance.

Bring your own signs! Prepare to ask questions!

You can bet our big government opponents are gearing up to turn out their troops. They’ll be shouting for government to take over our health care. They’ll be pushing the job killing, tax increasing cap-and-trade scheme. Already, their turnout operation is in full swing.

It’s up to us to make sure Senator Specter sees and hears our side – the side of freedom, of lower taxes, less government, of making your own health care decisions.

Of course this conveniently ignores two vital facts. One is that nobody is advocating the government takeover of health care — they are only looking for reform in the way health insurance is offered to finally make it affordable and available to all. And as for people making their own health care decisions under the present system, we know that it is insurance companies that have been making the healthcare decisions for Americans — sometimes with tragic results.

Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage.

Although some Americans may indeed be satisfied with their insurance, others have learned the hard way after they got sick that their insurance really didn’t protect them from financial catastrophe. But by then it was too late.

One of the concerns raised about the public option is that it may put the private health insurers out of business if they were unable to compete with government run health insurance. But if that really were to happen, why would that be bad? Why is it that the same people who say that government shouldn’t keep companies like General Motors afloat will gladly fight to keep the same health insurance companies afloat who have been getting rich denying coverage to sick Americans?

If indeed the promised health insurance reform turns out not to have a public option, we will then know that President Obama not only made a deal with the devil — but that the devil in the form of the health insurance industry came out the winner. Which would make losers of all the rest of us!