Decius wrote:

janelane wrote:
This is why I don't watch town hall meetings on TV. Nobody with at least a halfway informed opinion shows up.

I've been waffling about posting on the Keep your Goddamn Government hands off my Medicare crowd. I have to admit that I take some pleasure in watching them look stupid.

I watched this debate unfold first in Tennessee before watching it unfold nationally, and I'm both angry and tired of it. I'm tired of being called a "socialist" by people who have no idea what they are talking about. I'm tired of the lies and the punditry and the over simplifications, and I'm tired of arguing with friends who have absolute convictions about an issue that they can barely explain.

I do think the way things work right now is fucked up and I'm tired to trying to explain it to people who aren't interested in listening. There are a lot of policy objectives of the Democrats that I'm not too happy about. I'm skeptical of the climate change legislation, and the EFCA's ban on anonymous ballots for unionization seems blatantly and overtly crooked. But I'm glad they are able to push through healthcare reform. Its opponents have demonstrated consistently for 15 years that they aren't interested in engaging in an intelligent discussion about the issue. Eventually, the time for conversation is over, and they must loose.

I think to watch any of this it's indicative of our society and how easily it's manipulated. Medicare is the largest health system in the world. To have it for the last 45+ years is to already have had "socialized" medicine. In many ways, it runs better than any other state funded health system in the world, and its influence on world systems is incalculable. Still, the current proposals from the administration is to expand it, which is a catastrophic mistake. Because it has proven that it is unsustainable.

I seriously doubt that any person protesting health reform or single payer model is willing to give up Medicare, or even allow their invested dollars to be flushed away without compensation. It just doesn't make sense. You can't have it both ways.

The other thing to note here is how seriously inept our society is at handling problems of any difficulty other than "this or that". As we've covered many times here on Memestreams, there seems to be an over-polarization of issues. Health care and health is EXTREMELY complex. It's gargantuan, complex, and it bleeds externalities into almost every facet of our lives. It is not a blue state vs red state issue.

It also cannot be ignored. And it makes the finance crisis seem like a dress rehearsal. This is not something that can be solved in one legislative session. You can make the comparison that the Bush administration's lack of planning and hubris is what caused the debacle that is Iraq, so to the Obama administration's lack of planning and hubris has lead to a debacle on this legislation. They should've started the process with open debates, fireside chats, studies and research, and a gradual culmination of "we're all going to get fucked, so here's how it's going to work" legislation. Instead, they calculated that they could win votes by expanding access to services by ramming a bill through, and this has backfired and for good reason. It's pouring gasoline on a wildfire.

There is no silver bullet here, and the reality is that every segment of society is going to get LESS of whatever it is that they've invested in or expect. Care is a finite resource, and we are no longer in a position to treat it as anything but. There are ways to cushion the blows, but pretending that it will be "fixed" is disingenuous and I think is what people are sensing intuitively under the surface.

RE: Healthcare "debate"