I Want You to be a Defender in the War On Healthcare

If you have not commented or posted before – I NEED YOUR BRAINS!!!

A suggestion was made to me by one of the HuffPost editors.  Wrap up the series of Articles on Conservative Arguments for Healthcare.  His reason, a very good one, is that people have a hard time with series of articles. 

I originally thought about writing a single post, but I think it is just as dangerous to put something out that is 14 stories tall that no one reads.  We have shorter attention spans.  This doesn’t mean we are dumbing down.  I just think it means we, as a whole, are processing differently.  Making a reader’s eyes glaze does nothing for anybody.

Besides, I have seen some great comments to the posts and enjoy incorporating and condensing the arguments.  (If you leave a good comment, i'll steal your material for a later response.)  One big post doesn’t allow for growth.

That is why I serialized.  However, I wrote 4 parts so far with not a lot of comments. 

I need a big hand.  (I already have very large feet...)

I kicked out the idea of a Federalist Papers for Healthcare and that didn’t catch fire, but here is a middle ground.  With the indulgence of the editors of HuffPost, I hope that you guys can place this in a spot where people can see this for an appropriate period of time.  We need some HuffPost Eyeballs.  I would like to involve the HuffPost community to create a more interactive blog.

As you read this, I would like you, the reader, to get involved here.  We are all trying to get this thing passed. 

We are in a fight not just for Healthcare, but for our country and what being an American is.

We see the clips of angry people attacking our leaders with slogans and half baked ideas.  We also talk to those around us who don’t see things the same way.  At least I hope that we are not at that level of intensity where we would reject someone because of a position they have arrived at from their life experience.  We need to listen and formulate then respond.

I am asking for an interactive blog that that we can use as a clearing house for the roadblocks offered to you in response to our healthcare arguments.

When we get somebody saying the illegals should get nothing, what are some good responses.  I am not looking for boilerplate responses here, but a method of thought that can be used to diffuse their position.  You pick the type of responses that suit you. 

I want you battle tested with the best possible responses to the “War on Healthcare”.  We are the defenders of health.  We need to set the rules here.

And even if you don’t have a good response to a question posed to you, put it up here.  let all of us kick it around.

This first post or two will be gathering and refining our communities’ ideas (pronounced idears if you are from Philly.)  The next post or 2 will be about all our experiences using these idears in the field (on the net, with a neighbor, etc.).  The last post will be a summary, but not a rule book.

I want an intelligent community of people who can clone themselves and find their own personal voices in this debate.  I’d like to use this section of the post as a touchstone or reference area for our Health Defense Department.

I’d like to format it something like:

Argument: Illegals should get nothing, no healthcare, box ‘em up and send them back from where they came.

Responses

1. We are paying anyway when they show up at the ER.
2. Being a recovering Catholic, I believe in the Gospel stories of the Good Samaritan as well as Matthew 25 where we are compelled to help those who are sick (do you want to be a sheep or a goat?).  Can you show me the passages where Jesus is checking the green cards?
3. If we can at least acknowledge the illegals among us, we can get them paying taxes and they can share the burden.

You don't need to use all or any of these idears.  Find the ones that fit your voice the best.  It will better arm us for the arguements to come. 

Mr. President, Republicans are Sensing Victory, Because You Won't Fight

In the middle of August, I got one shot off to the president saying that I am getting ticked off that he is negotiating with people who want to do him in. If President Obama’s knees buckle on Wednesday night, it will have more dire ramifications than just this health bill.

I don’t know if a letter like this gets to him or somebody in the room helping with the speech, but I can hope.

Mr. President,

We need to see your teeth Wednesday night. I want to know that there is some steel behind the cool façade. This summer the message has been taken from you. You need to take it back, strongly.

I want the low growl that says we are going to get this done. I want to hear an attitude that says, “Any Democrat stepping out of line at this point is done. Not because I say so, but because every person who worked for me last year will be ticked off. Do you seriously think any volunteer will work for you next year if this opportunity is squandered?”

Look straight at the Congress and continue with, “You were sent here to do a job. So am I. Many of you are here because of me. You were swept into office because of change. Those of you Democrats who have multiple terms benefited from last year’s campaign. You are to put it on the line and get the public option done.” (Although, I would rather you go for the whole enchilada and say single payer here.)

“The entire country is looking at us. We have the votes. If you fail this mission, they will look at the Democratic Party and rightfully say, ‘There is no discipline there to get anything done. We have pie-in-the-sky ideas, but no backbone to see it to a reality.’”

We need to stick together. If the Republicans want to continue with their current strategy, then fine. Mr. President, you can’t control them. Hell, they can’t control themselves. You are teaching pigs to sing. Everybody is getting more and more irritated.

That irritation will result in apathy greater than what existed in the middle part of this decade when the Republicans took complete control of this country and ran it into a ditch.

Cool ain’t gonna cut it now.

There are times for changes in timbre and tone. It doesn’t have to be forever, one night will do. We, the people who got you there, need to know it is in there. After all the garbage that has been thrown at you, yes, you are allowed to get mad. You need to get mad on the behalf of those who can’t speak or buy their very own Congresspeople.

Michael Dukakis lost his bid to sit where you are now because he didn’t get mad at the right time. He tried to seriously answer a foolish question and got laughed out of the debate. You have, thankfully, gotten much further than him.

You have the numbers. You still have our hope. We need to know you can bring the hammers. Now is the time for hope to become reality.

The alternative is unthinkable.

Conservative Argument for Healthcare Reform: Part 4: Pop Torts

After attending the Sestak-Toomey debate in Allentown this week I struck up a conversation with one of the people who questioned the two senate candidates during the forum. This person was a 60-something doctor of oncology. His perspective was how much we need tort reform because malpractice insurance rates are killing his ability to make a profit. Forget that off-the-wall settlements are representing about one half of one percent of the cost of doing business; he is concerned that the unintended effects of a free-wheeling jury system forces doctors into unneeded tests, or defensive medicine.

There should not be obscene judgments to people who, in his mind, can’t use them. Part of his argument to me was a case where a crack baby from Philly needed surgery to fix a leak in her heart. During the surgery they needed to place equipment on her one of her two arteries on the baby’s arm. Because she is a crack baby many parts of the child did not develop normally. When they placed the equipment on the arm it caused complication such that the arm needed to be amputated. Somebody got a lawyer and sued and won a judgment of $150 million. Many times greater, in the doctor’s mind, that that girl could use or deserves.

He is also concerned about the future of the types of people going into medicine. By this he means that the malpractice rates are so exorbitant it would not be profitable to be a doctor anymore. His assistants joined the conversation outside the forum with the tack of lower standards would allow unqualified people into the field. There was veiled racism involved in this charge and it was at this point I said I would need to leave.

During the conversation the doctor and his assistants talked a blue streak. I couldn’t refute anything because they sucked half the oxygen out of the Lehigh Valley.

I’ll do my refuting here.

Let’s look at the defensive medicine argument for a moment. Anytime somebody gets symptoms there is a method to fixing them. A regimen is formed over time, over the millions of people who get treatment. As an idea works, it is incorporated into the process. If an idea doesn’t work it is discarded. Defensive medicine, as I am seeing it now, is the coming together of the experience from over time and methods that are essentially be handed down by a form of common law (from outside the medical system – and you know how easy it is to say to some doctors there is another way of doing things…).

This form of common law is the lawsuit. People who have been harmed by the omission of a test are able to go to court and make the case that the test they missed should be part of the regimen. The uncomfortable part of this for the doctor and his insurance carrier is the big punitive settlement.

The punitive settlement will get the attention of the other doctors, who say, “I have a patient with X symptom, if I don’t do test Y to rule something in or out, I may have a problem later.” Believe it or not this is Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work. The marketplace is dictating to the doctor – do this or else. You could almost look at the punitive damages as kind of an ongoing education system.

Another facet of the big settlement is the safety valve function. There is nowhere else in the system that allows for redress or prevention of a bad doctor. I asked the oncologist how many of his brethren in the Lehigh Valley were bounced out or at least reprimanded? The blue streak immediately fired in another direction.

There is no effective weed out process evident to the public once somebody gets an MD. It is like looking at the thin blue line in another profession. The only redress is the big buck settlement. You can complain about the lawyers all you want, but they are the natural counter-balance to an out-of-control doctor. It is kind of the next step up in the economic predatory food chain. We are still looking for the predator that will ace the lawyer.

That brings me to the last part of this argument, brought in by his back-up band. The argument went along the lines of; ‘because there isn’t as much money to be made in healthcare you won’t get the best and brightest. God help you if you will someday be treated by one of THOSE people who were let into the medical schools with lower standards.’

This part of the conversation led me to think about what these folks think of as best and brightest. I am willing to bet there are a lot of people out there who could not go to medical school because of economic issues. They are wonderful healers, but not talented with a checkbook. Put them in a lab and they are wizards, put them with a stock portfolio and they are 4 feet sticking up in the air. My doctor is a really nice guy, but it really doesn’t matter to me what my doctor’s stock portfolio looks like, unless he has a good tip. I want to know that he can troubleshoot my problems and come up with solutions. My customers don’t care about my car payments, can I fix their computer?

I am not saying here all doctors are greedy and need reigning in, but it does make you wonder when you realize a doctor actually intentionally set the Octomom saga into motion. If the exorbitant dollars some of these people are getting dried up, would there be so many optional plastic surgeons, botox clinics or viagara ads? Would those resources actually go to helping those who really need medical care? Yes, it is the invisible hand working towards having these things, but it doesn’t jibe.

If a doctor is in medicine for the money first, please do the rest of us a favor and go into another part of the marketplace, we need the economic development and you have the brains. We need people dedicated to healing like poets are dedicated words.

The conversation also made me think about my wife, who has a doctorate. She doesn’t get the big bucks this guy is talking about. It made me think of the really, really dedicated people who work at the rehab center my wife works at, or the other professors she has taught with. I don’t see these as people who are out for the buck first. I see these as people, many truly free-spirits, who have dedicated their professional lives to the betterment of their fellow human being. For that, they are all better than me.

Yeah, everybody bitches and moans about the bucks they get or the resources allocated to do the job at hand. But that is everywhere and in every profession. Maybe it is time some of these doctors got on the level with the rest of us.

Conservative Argument for Healthcare Reform: Part 3: St. Matthew and his friends are on our side. I like our odds.

You a Christian? I am a Christian. I am a recovering Catholic. Have you checked out the Gospels lately? Many conservatives know how to meld religion and politics very well. I like it when one of our guys turns the tables.

As I prepared these articles I didn’t expect the passing of Teddy Kennedy. Like a whole lot of bloggers, I put a piece out stating a slightly different facet of his passing.

What I really didn’t expect was how the Gospel reading at his funeral was a sharp stick in the eye of the Congresspeople sitting in the pews.

For those who aren’t Catholic, the Mass is divided into the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Liturgy of the Word has a number of set prayers wrapped around some variables; an Old Testament Reading, followed by a Psalm, followed by a reading from the New Testament from the Acts of the Apostles thru Revelation, to a Gospel Proclamation, to a reading from the Gospel (a selection from one of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) to a homily (a reflection by the priest of what was read).

The Liturgy of the Eucharist is essentially dinnertime (after all the reading and homilying); the priest prepares a dinner where the main course is actually Jesus Christ’s body and blood. Don’t make fun of this, this is my faith and I believe this part of my religion. I would never take a shot at what you believe.

The Christ I believe in is a tough guy. He has no problem calling out those in charge of the society for their high morals on ritual, but no room for the poor. He is the guy flipping out on the merchants’ tables in the Temple because there needs to be honor in God’s home. He calls out the rich, stating that it will be easier for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than to get to heaven. (The Eye of the Needle was a very narrow entrance to Jerusalem, not impossible, but extremely uncomfortable.) The Christ I believe in will call out an unproductive fig tree. Not a guy you want to cross (no pun intended).

The funeral’s New Testament reading from Romans was a great setup for the Gospel, “If God is with us who can be against us.” Catholics believe the Gospels are the actual words of Christ and therefore God. The passage reinforces what is to come.

The Gospel reading was Matthew 25:31-46. Kennedy picked out a really cool passage. He knew who would be attending his funeral; those on his side of the healthcare debate and those opposing it. The passage talks about Judgment Day and how we are to be defined by our actions. At the end of the day you are either a sheep or a goat. Sheep go to heaven and goats --- well you can read the passage yourself.

The sharp stick in the eye to those sitting there is the challenge of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and CARING FOR THE SICK. Christ goes into what happens if you do as He says and what happens if you don’t. Teddy Kennedy knew what was doing with that passage by saying to those opposing healthcare, you are doing so at risk to your own soul.

If you are a conservative who shields yourself with your Bible, He is calling you out. He (and you can replace He with either Kennedy or Christ here) is saying in clear and no uncertain terms you are to care for the sick. That means all of the sick, not just some of the sick, not just the ones who were born here, or who have a green card. We are talking all the pre-conditioned, unemployed, unemployable, unenjoyable, poor, stinkin’, sweatin’ sick.

There is nothing wrong with quoting Matthew as we make our arguments to get healthcare for everyone.

If they don’t come around, they can enjoy their time with the goats.

<<<<<<<<<<<<

Goat alert - added after original posting!!!!

At a Healthcare Forum in Philly, you know the City of Brotherly Love, Joe Sestak was on stage with about 5 - 6 other Congresspeople. He is questioned about tort reform. The example he uses is a 6 year old quadriplegic being capped at 250,000 for life. He cannot even get the words out before being drowned out by the boos of the mostly conservative crowd.

This is exactly what I am taking about. We need to hold the moral fire to these people's feet.

>>>>>>>>>>>>



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Conservative Argument for Healthcare Reform: Part 2:What is the size glove of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand?

Domestic protection is one area where the marketplace can work really well. It used to be called the mafia. (A protected neighborhood can be one of the safest places on the planet.) When the providers of these goods and services started competing, watch out. You could make a bunch of movies about it.

But we needed some checks and balances since the legal remedies provided by the mafia weren’t always appealable or appealing. So we beefed up our court system and allowed local police forces do that sort of work. Government steps in…

In many peoples’ minds capitalism and conservativism are the same thing. I won’t quibble too much here unless you want to have some fun in the comments.

The basic idea for this stuff is Adam Smith, the guy with the Invisible Hand (he was a lousy third baseman) setting market prices everywhere. How many times do we hear ‘let the market decide everything’? What is failed to be noted in general discourse is the roles of government in this system. The government needs to pick up the slack where the markets can’t cut it. In other words, the government has to do the things that are not otherwise profitable (glaring exception – mafia.). Things like the roads work, infrastructure, and national defense should fall into this category.

The government needs to create an environment where everybody can make a buck.

What about healthcare?

The insurance actuaries know that sick people or old people are not profitable. Cut ‘em loose and we compete in the marketplace. Get the invisible hand lifting our profits!

This is one spot where the government already steps in. Medicaid and Medicare are part of the safety net here. This is a proper use of the government creating an environment for the rest of society to make a buck.

The insurance actuaries also know they make money using the economy of scale. We get a large enough bunch of people, take enough money from each, stick it in a bucket, and pay for the health needs from that. As long as everybody doesn’t get sick at once, we can reinvest and make a nice profit. Everybody is happy. This only works if the group covered is of a large enough size. Kind of like a ponzi scheme.

Nice neat groups to cover people are naturally formed at the workplace. If you work for a company of a large enough size, you are golden. We don’t need government here.

What we have seen over the last couple decades is a hole in the capitalism game. It is not profitable for an insurance company to offer a small employer any products. The ponzi scheme won’t work because you can’t get a big enough wad of cash to stick in the bucket. So, no company offers it at a workable price. It isn’t worth the hassle.

The government has not stepped in here. It is an area where the marketplace cannot get the invisible hand down low enough to for the consumer to grab the product. Kind of like Shaq holding a ball over Ben Stein’s head and making him jump up and down for it.

To keep an environment for business to make money the government needs to step in and cover this hole. Small businesses have a tough enough time getting off the ground on a good day. Keeping a small businessperson’s family insured is a 4 ton weight on their ankle.

Every conservative hawks the capitalist system and cries that they are for the small business guy. The government needs to step in and get Medicaid for small business. We need the government to create the environment where small business can make a buck.

Just like Adam Smith would have wanted it.