My mother turns ninety in April. We were sitting in front of the television watching congress vote on the health care bill. When the vote was over, Representative Boehner went into his rant about the dire consequences of passing such a bill. Mom smiled.
“You know,” she said, “I’ve lived long enough to hear people predict the same sort horrible things if we had Social Security or Medicare.”
Mom is a deeply religious person who has never given up on life here or in the hereafter. She does not simply sit around waiting for her life in this world to end. She still pays attention to what is happening today. She is living proof that we cannot always predict how people will react to something based upon their religion or some other grouping such as ethnicity or race or age. Forget the demographics. We are all individuals, and the conclusions we draw from our experiences will decide how we react to current events. What her experiences have taught her is that the world does not come crashing to an end if we make a mistake. Things usually get sorted out over time, and there is invariably an opportunity to change course and make the corrections we need to make. People who give in to their anger and make vitriolic statements predicting the end of the world look foolish for making those statements when things are finally sorted out. This holds true not just in politics but also in the normal course of our daily lives.
I was sitting in a restaurant once when I overheard a gentleman expressing anger over what another business had done. I do not know exactly what caused his anger because I was not intentionally eves dropping, but the part I did hear is instructive.
“I can’t believe the son of a bitch did that,” he said with raised voice. “I know they’re not exactly in compliance either, and two can play that game!”
His companion calmly said: “No. I want to find a way to get along with them because it’s not a good idea to get into a pissing contest when we’re both dressed for the prom.”
My point is that the normal give and take we have every right to expect from our politicians has degenerated into a pissing contest. The progressive Democrats are in a snit because the health care reform bill does not include a public insurance option, and the Republicans are in a snit because the bill that was passed in spite of the unanimous opposition of their party. It is time for both progressives and conservatives to take a deep breath and calm down. Neither party is setting out to ruin this country or destroy our democracy. I am not going to discuss the issue of a public insurance option here. That is a subject better suited to my political blog, and I am afraid I have to admit that the anger I occasionally express there will probably make me look foolish sometime in the future.
Calling the law that was passed a government takeover of our health care system and saying that it will lead to a socialistic state is absolutely absurd. A more accurate description is that it consists of a few corrections and some new regulations designed to curb the worst practices of the health insurance industry. Who can argue with the fact that the doughnut hole in our prescription drug program is undesirable and needs be closed? Who can argue with the fact that the insurance industry’s denial of coverage because of pre-conditions is leaving far too many people without the health care they so desperately need, or the fact that far too many people are being deprived of the health care they need because of annual or lifetime caps on their coverage? Those are some of the things this new law is designed to correct. The real question is not the need to correct those things; rather it is a question of whether the new law is the best way to accomplish that. No matter how you feel about this law, I think you have to admit there will be an opportunity to correct any flaws it may have. In that respect, I think it is a good starting point, and there is always room for improvement.
The question of who is to blame for the give and take degenerating into a pissing contest is one that I address in my political blog, if you are interested in that. Frankly, I do not think blame is productive if we are willing to come together and do what needs to be done. What should be readily apparent is that we are wasting too much of our precious time and energy by shouting at each other. Clearly what we need are honest debates that acknowledge the facts rather than knee jerk ideological reactions that make reasonable compromises impossible. It is time for us to negotiate with each other in good faith and to set about the difficult task of solving the other very real problems that confront us as a nation!
First published in macsbackporch.foxtail-farms on Mar 17, 2010
I stand by what I wrote, but I'm afraid it was obviously too optimistic. I have also lost mom, and her calm voice.
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