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Hey There! It's Yogi, err umm, Yoga Bear

The Health Care Debate Is Making Me Sick

Satirist Brian Unger says the fight going on over health care in the U.S. reveals how sick and twisted the nation is. Coming together on a health care plan might not just give us better access to doctors, he says — it might make us better people.

From Monday's All Things Considered:

The Health Care Debate Is Making Me Sick

by Brian Unger

August 10, 2009

The health care debate is toxic, revealing a lot about us as a nation. And it feels embarrassing — like the whole world can see our underpants. Or hear us fighting in the kitchen.

First, most of us can't describe accurately the details of the health care reform now under debate. That makes us look stupid or too busy to care.

Second, most of us can't describe accurately the health care or insurance we currently have, so that makes us look kind of stupid, too, or lazy.

Some of us don't care about people who don't have health insurance, so that makes us seem unsympathetic or super lucky.

Most of us don't understand that we're already paying for people who don't have health care — which makes us too busy to care, in denial or merely rich.

Some of us — a lot of us — already receive health care under some form of government plan, but don't believe in health care under some form of government plan. That makes us hypocritical or selfish. In some camps, I hear that makes us patriotic.

A lot of us are a combination of these things: too busy, lazy, a bit stupid perhaps, lucky, unsympathetic, in-denial, really rich, hypocritical, selfish ... and patriotic.

We're having an identity crisis when it comes to caring about the nation's health, which makes me think what we really need is psychotherapy. But, sadly, that's not covered under most health plans, if you have one at all.

To many, health care reform is scary, like someone's building a halfway house for criminals right at their doorstep. It's a N.I.M.B.Y. ("Not In My Backyard") issue evolved into a N.O.M.B.O. ("Not On My Back, Obama") issue.

People never change. But policy can, so our health care reformers must get more creative and visionary.

How about a Cash for Clunkers Program? Not for cars, but for older, beat-up people whose bodies have wear and tear, and can't go long distances when they're filled with gas?

Our government is offering us $4,500 to buy a new car. Can it also offer humans incentives — say, a tax break — to join a gym? To quit smoking? Or to buy produce from local farmers? Reward schools that teach kids how to eat right and exercise? You know, kind of like that class we used to offer kids called "gym."

Let's pay people to stay healthy, instead of only paying for them when they get sick. Then maybe our nation will find its compassion, the one true antidote for its health care identity crisis.

"Government is ineffectual, right?"

Borrowed from danthered, who asked that it be passed along:

"This morning I woke to my alarm clock, powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the local water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to an FCC-regulated channel to see what the National Weather Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather will be, using satellites designed, built, and launched into orbit by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast, which has been inspected for safety by the US Department of Agriculture and took my medicine, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

"At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I got into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-certified and -approved automobile, and set out to work on the roads designed and built by the local, state, and national Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase fuel at a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, at a pump certified by the local Bureau of Weights and Measures to have dispensed what it says it did, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I drop my mail in the outbox for the US Postal Service, which can deliver a note anywhere in the country in less than a week, and drop my kids off at the local public school.

"After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of state and local building codes and a fire marshal's inspection, and which has
not been vandalized or plundered of its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log onto the Internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and carp on freerepublic.com about how 'socialism' is bad because the government can't do anything right."

QoTD

"Some see the glass as half full. I prefer to see the glass as half empty, which just means that soon it'll be time to make another drink..."

&mdash Bubbatopia

I'll Drink To That!