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Mulling over President Obama's speech
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Mulling over President Obama's speech
Remember when it was easy to know where you stood?
That's how I feel, anyway. For the last few years, I wouldn't have had much trouble picking out which bumper sticker was for me, and I suspect the same was true for many Americans.
You were for invading Iraq, or you were against it. You were pro-choice or pro-life. You thought the Republicans were criminals for protecting the rich from taxes; or you thought the Democrats were a bunch of pinkos out to take away your God-given right to get rich yourself somehow.
And — by election time, at least — you were for Obama, or you weren't.
Now, the Big Issue is health care: and it's a lot trickier.
Are you pro "public option?" What does that even mean? Is President Obama even pro-public option, or what? (He named it last night, to much applause, only to quickly say he was open to alternative ideas – including, presumably, no public option.)
Do you insist that any health care plan passed by Congress be deficit-neutral? If so, why? Aren't we getting something for our investment? And what exactly was your fiscally tough stance on the last eight years of military action in Iraq?
By insisting that all Americans carry mandatory minimum insurance, is Obama forcing big government on you? Or is he protecting your wallet from the costs associated with people who who wind up getting their health care at the emergency room?
Personally, I don't know where I stand on plenty of these and other questions, because frankly, I don't know how to weigh various consequences against each other. And I know I'm not alone. But behind these very complicated questions are a few more fundamental ones that are, perhaps, a little easier for most of us to answer.
Should the government make sure that no American is left without any protection if he or she gets sick? Should the government force insurance companies to stop rejecting/dropping consumers with pre-existing conditions? Should we, as Americans, help pay something to make sure fellow Americans have basic protection from physical calamity?
For me, the most important word in this debate isn't cost (which appeared at least 25 times in the president's speech, by my count), but a world that appeared only once, and which had to be delivered by a dead man.
It came when Obama quoted from a posthumous letter by the late Senator Ted Kennedy: "What we face ... is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."
A moral issue.
Before we can start figuring out whether a collection of health care co-ops is preferable to a public option, or whether tort reform (my head spins at the very sound of such phrases) needs to be part of the package, I think we need to ask ourselves whether this is, in fact, a moral issue.
Because if it is — if the real question here is whether it is right that Americans might not be able to get care when they need it — well, at least that's a start.
I think it is a moral issue. I say so because I have friends who are uninsured, friends who were dealt unfortunate and expensive diseases — and because the American dream is one of "liberty and justice for all."
When we profit in America, we profit from each other, and we benefit from the opportunity that our collective society creates. I think justice dictates that we take care of each other, too.
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