Health Care Is A Partisan Issue

Technorati Tags: health care, health insurance

Whenever I see the words, " ____________ [fill in the blank: war, public education, health care, child abuse, crime, interstate highway building] should not be a partisan issue," my skepticism meter toward whatever follows goes up about 10 notches:

Americans want real progress on healthcare. They want to see healthcare needs and issues addressed in a spirit of partnership, not partisanship. That's means developing bi partisan solutions that reflect the best input and ideas from Congress, the healthcare community, businesses, labor unions, and of course the public.

What is clear is that America wants everyone to work together in a constructive manner. If we do so, major progress is possible.

Since I am one of the 48 million Americans who lacks health insurance, let me be the first to say, Oh YES! That is exactly what comes to mind when I think about my healthcare needs and the healthcare needs of my fellow Americans: "I want to see healthcare needs and issues addressed in a spirit of partnership, not partisanship. We need bipartisan solutions that reflect the best input and ideas from Congress, the healthcare community, businesses, labor unions, and OF COURSE the public."

Not.

Here's what I actually think when I think about healthcare -- which is, oh, maybe 50 times a day -- everytime my knee cracks and I remember I can't afford surgery; or everytime I look at my hand, still swollen and hurting from intervening in a fight between two middle-school students, and remember that my PCP gave me the name of a specialist to see if the hand was still hurting in two weeks, and then remember also that I don't have health insurance, so I can't see the specialist. Also, every time I get a dunning notice for the $800-plus I owe to the emergency ambulance service that took me to the hospital when I fainted on the campus of Lehman College last summer (tripped and fell, which triggered a panic attack, which was aggravated by the heat). I begged the EMTs not to take me to the hospital, because I had no health insurance, but they took me anyway. They said I had no choice in the matter. Oh, and also: Whenever I get another bill from the lab that did the work on the tissue sample taken during my colonoscopy, to rule out colon cancer. I was able to pay the doctor, but no one told me the lab costs would be $900.

Oh, wait, I got sidetracked. Here's what I actually think when I think about healthcare: "This country needs to stop getting its priorities ass backwards. I'm tired of my hard-earned taxes being used to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into a war that was unprovoked and unnecessary and that we now are continuing to fight so we can prop up a much-hated occupation, which is continuing to fuel the violence we use as an excuse to stay there. I want every single person who lives in this country to have access to affordable insurance -- which means totally subsidized if necessary. I want universal, national health care, like every other industrialized, civilized nation in the world gives its citizens."

And Douglas? It IS a partisan issue. Every policy choice that involves allocation of money and that involves the relationship between individuals and government or individuals and societal institutions is political -- hence partisan -- by definition.

Hat tip to Ezra Klein for the link to Schoen's post.

Cross-posted at Shakesville.