THE SYSTOCRAT PAPERS

Fellow Systocrats:

As most of you are aware, on Monday night Obama became the first sitting president to make an appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman."  It has since been suggested to me that Obama should NOT do talk shows, late night tv, etc., as it is undignified and otherwise inappropriate for a president to appear in such a casual forum.  Furthermore, the argument goes, it's wrong to pander to the "lowest common denominator" (or "LCD") i.e. those that don't take the necessary measures to keep themselves informed.

I've given this issue some thought, and I completely disagree.  In fact, I think we should be doing everything we can to reach out to the LCD before they take us all down with them.

Why is the uninformed LCD class so dangerous?  Just look at the numbers on health care.  A Gallup poll dated September 8, 2009 indicates that 72 percent of Republicans want their elected representative in Congress to vote against health care reform and concludes that overall, more Americans are opposed to health care reform (39%) than for it (37%).

Similarly, an August NBC/WSJ telephone survey reveals that while an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that some measure of health care reform is necessary, at the beginning of the survey, more Americans (42%) than not (36%) felt that Obama's plan for health care reform was a bad idea.  A few questions later, the interviewer sets forth Obama's plan in more detail - explaining, for example, that the plan requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions - and then asks the question again.  The second time around, we see a dramatic shift in the numbers - 53% in favor of Obama's plan and 43% opposed. 

As I've previously stated, a health care bill that provides consumer protections and includes a non-mandatory, self-sustaining public option is a no-brainer.  So, how is it that so many Americans are opposed to it, even after the basics of the plan are laid out for them?  Who makes up this 43%?   While I'm sure there are some thinking Americans out there who oppose reform on reasoned, logical grounds, especially given the fact that the matter is largely in the hands of a bunch of self-interested political hacks in D.C., I'm guessing that lots of other people just don't understand that health care reform is generally in their best interests. 

I'm also guessing that the LCD class is largely responsible for placing Dubya in the White House for two terms (or at least for rendering these elections close enough to steal) despite the fact that the Bush administration did absolutely nothing for the vast majority of Americans.   As Thomas Frank notes, conservatives have been very successful in winning over working class Americans with a feigned interest in social concerns like Christian fundamentalism, gun rights, etc. while simultaneously screwing these same people over with their fiscal policies. 

And now the LCD ranks are swelling with people who believe the nonsensical propaganda of the health insurance lobby about the proposed health care plan.  According to the August NBC-WSJ poll quoted above, a significant number of Americans believe that the following scenarios will actually come to pass:

- 55% of Americans believe that health care reform will give coverage to illegal immigrants;

- 54% believe that health care reform will lead to a government takeover of the health care system;

- 50% believe that taxpayer dollars will be used to fund abortions; and

- 45% believe that "death panels" will make decisions about when to stop providing medical care to the elderly.  

What could possibly be the cause of such ignorance among our compatriots?  I refuse to believe that these people are idiots who are incapable of grasping the finer points of health care reform.  Instead, I think that most of us are too busy trying to keep our heads above water to spend the necessary time ferreting out the truth amid all the misinformation out there. 

Moreover, when busy people turn on the tube after a hard day's work, many of them are not going to seek out more bad news on the cable news channels.  Instead, it's all about entertainment, escapism.  Late night television.  Sitcoms.  Sports.  Fox News.  Nothing serious . . .

Since the LCD won't go in search of the truth, we need to bring the truth to the LCD.  From this perspective, Obama's appearance on Letterman Monday night looks like genius.  In fact, I think that in order to ensure that he gets his message out to the LCD, he ought to appear on the following programs regularly:

1. Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Bill O'Reilly/Lou Dobbs.  The surest and most direct way to reach LCD nation.  Plus, Obama has already faced down O'Reilly, and I'd love to see Dobbs insist to Obama's face that the proposed health care reform bill WILL provide coverage to illegal immigrants.  For all his bluster, I don't think Dobbs has the stones. 

2. Any reality talent show - American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, etc.  His best bet is to be a guest judge.  Brother can't dance, and I'm pretty sure he can't sing worth a damn either.  

3. The View.  Let's be sure to seat him right next to Elizabeth Hasselback when she returns from maternity leave . . . .

4.  Grey's Anatomy: Here's the plot.  Obama experiences significant head trauma in a horrible car accident and lands in the GA emergency room.  He eventually comes to and seems fine, but all he can talk about is his plan for health care reform.  The cast members can drop in and out and drop random remarks about how badly the current system sucks . . . 

5.  Desperate Housewives: Obama approaches one of the housewives and asks if they'd like to hear about the details of his health care plan.  Mistaking this line for a come-on, the Housewife du jour takes Obama home (in the middle of the afternoon, of course) changes into something more comfortable and settles down on the couch to hear Obama's pitch.  Eventually she'll get frustrated cause he won't do anything but blather on about health care reform. 

6.  Any of the following: NFL game (didn't he give a short speech at halftime last year); important NASCAR event; MLB playoff game.  Maybe Obama should film a health care PSA that looks like a beer commercial and run that during the games.  "Hi.  Would YOU like to be less filling and taste great?  Check out my healthcare plan . . . "

7. Any music awards show - the VMAs, CMAs, etc.  Got to be some LCD cats watching those.  If nothing else, Kanye will be there, and lord knows that somebody needs to talk some sense to that guy!! 

Posted by Tom Douglas at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dear Jimmy:

Hey man!! Long time no see!!  How's the peanut farm?  

So . . . just got wind of your remarks at a town hall the other night.  Some of the opposition to Obama and his proposed reforms is racially motivated?  Really?  We had no idea - thanks for letting us know.  While we're on the subject, please allow me to thank you for building the lunatic fringe a much bigger platform to hurl their bullshit from.  Yeah.  Thanks for that too, Jim.

I understand that there are two schools of thought here.  On the one hand, it's great to bring these things to light, renounce them publicly.  And there certainly has been quite a bit going on lately.  I can't say I necessarily disagree with Maureen Dowd when she opines that Joe Wilson, he of "Sons of the Confederacy" fame, might as well have called Obama "boy" when accusing him of being a liar this week.   Like you, I was watching when Wilson's mouth betrayed his brain on national television, and I was gratified by the collective groan of disgust that could be heard from end to end of this country.  The House voted to censure him too. Completely appropriate, I'd say.

On the other hand, the same folks that opposed health care reform in the 90s sure gave the Clintons a hard time too - called them all sorts of nasty names, etc.  While I'm sure there are some genuine feelings of racial animosity against our President down in Dixie and elsewhere, I'm also certain that there are some shrewd people who are using Obama's race as a tool to stir things up.

But Jim . . . c'mon, buddy.  Did you really think that by calling these racists out, they'd rethink their position?  "Gee, Jimmy Carter thinks we're racists.  I feel really bad about this."  Sheepish looks all around. "Guess we'd better cut that shit out, eh?"

Not a chance.  Instead, our radical friends are using your conveniently timed comments to distract the nation from the real issue at hand.  Rush Limbaugh encouraged his listeners to have an "open conversation about race" on Tuesday.  The cable news cycle this evening was dominated by a discussion of your remarks and the role of race in politics generally.  Chris Matthews reported tonight that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs answered 18 questions today dealing with race. 

Don't get me wrong, Jim.  I agree that racism is still a serious problem in this country.  Just ask Tashawnea Hill, an Army reservist who, earlier this month, was mercilessly beaten by a white thug yelling racial epithets outside of a Cracker Barrel in Georgia while her 7 year old daughter looked on in shock and disbelief.  And it's no secret that the number of hate groups in the U.S. has increased dramatically since 2000. 

But now we're talking about race instead of health care.  Who does that benefit, I wonder?  Certainly not those of us who would like to see meaningful health care reform in our lifetimes. 

To be fair, I suppose your remarks could inspire rational, reasonable people in this country to rise up and stand together against the reckless hate that has infected our political discourse lately.  Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of African American studies at Princeton University and a leading commentator on race relations in the U.S., "congratulated Mr Carter, saying he had once again "demonstrated the power of interracial solidarity against racism", and had "carefully, powerfully, and accurately pointed out that racism is currently motivating some Americans' opposition to President Obama". 

All very positive stuff.  Meanwhile, we're still being distracted from health care reform by the race issue. 

The problem here is that I think most of us are already aware of people out on the fringes of society who will never approve of Obama because of his race.  More specifically, racism, i.e. "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race" is wholly irrational - there is no evidence whatsoever to support this view.  People who hold tightly to racist views are not likely to be swayed by rational arguments.  I'm not sure I've ever heard of a situation where a racist was persuaded away from their irrational beliefs by the reasoning of another. 

In my experience, the best way to counter racism is to put people in different groups together and let them see for themselves that all people are fundamentally the same, regardless of race or color, and that, given the same chance, we're all equally capable.  In recent years, our society has become more integrated, and I think there is no better barometer of our increased tolerance for each other than the very fact of Obama's election.  Certainly he wasn't elected because he's black - he was elected because American voters felt that he was best suited for the job. 

Let me sum things up here, Jim.  Racists are crazy and not likely to be coaxed away from their irrational views, even if you, me and everybody else with a heart and a brain speaks out against them.  As a former President, your voice carries a long way in these parts.  While I do think it's important to speak out against racism, I'd also appreciate it if you'd use that bullhorn of yours a little more carefully in the future. 

Let's not allow the issue of race, which didn't prevent Obama's election in the first place, distract us from other issues of equal importance, like health care reform. 

Sincerely,

TD

Posted by Tom Douglas at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Fellow Systocrats:

Health care reform is a simple matter of common sense, nothing more.  Given the fact that our health care system is undeniably broken, and given the plan outlined by President Obama in his speech on Wednesday night, any American that still opposes health care reform is either in bed with private health insurance companies, simply not paying attention, confused by all the misleading rhetoric out there, or just a plain old garden variety idiot. 

Joe Wilson's outburst during Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress this week capped a long summer of "debate" over health care reform during which a small but determined group of Americans took great pains to demonstrate to the rest of the world just how willfully obtuse they can be.  Admittedly, there is a lot of confusing rhetoric out there - terms like "death panels," "socialized health care" and "rationing" have become part of our collective lexicon, and people have been bandying these terms about with little understanding of what they mean, or even if they are applicable to the proposed reforms.  In addition, there are rumors that health care reform will involve financing abortions and care for illegal immigrants with taxpayer funds.  Notably, Obama took care to specifically refute both of these rumors during his speech to Congress this week. In fact, the plan Obama currently supports is self-sustaining - in his own words, the White House will only endorse a bill that pays for itself, i.e. one that does not increase the federal deficit by so much as a dime.  Let's hope that this remains the case.

In the meantime, the lunatic fringe will continue to try to confuse and confound the American people with outrageous, misleading "facts" and arguments that in most cases have nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with preserving the status quo.  Just so we're clear, the status quo that a tiny minority of Americans are fighting so hard to preserve is a state of affairs where private insurance companies charge as much as possible for health care coverage, while taking every opportunity possible to deny coverage. 

The goal of private health insurers is to maximize profits, regardless of what happens to the consumer.  Even if it means that sick people will die. And make no mistake about it - without health insurance, people do die.  In fact, a recent Treasury Department study notes that the mortality rate for a person without health insurance is 25 times that of a similarly situated person with insurance. 

Let's discuss the status quo in more detail.  The National Coalition on Health Care issued a report in July 2009 which estimates that over the last decade, employer sponsored health care premiums increased by 119% and that employees' share of these costs has risen at a corresponding rate.  According to this report, this increase is 4 times the rate of inflation and wage increases during the same period. 

Not surprisingly, this precipitous rise in health care costs has made it much more difficult for businesses to provide coverage to employees and for employees to afford the coverage themselves. The July 2009 NCHC report includes projections from the Congressional Budget Office indicating that, absent health care reform, the cost of health insurance could increase 100% by 2018, raising the cost for a family of 4 to a whopping $25,000 a year. 

As a predictable result, there are a growing number of business interests who can no longer afford to provide their employees with health insurance, and millions of people in the U.S. who simply cannot afford it, even when times are good.  The Treasury Department study above found that from 1997 to 2006, 48% of "non-elderly" Americans (under 65 years of age) went at least one month without health insurance.  Some other notable findings for non-elderly Americans cited in this study indicate that between 1997 and 2006:

 - 41% of Americans went without health insurance for at least six months;

- 57% of Americans under 21 weren't insured at some point during the this period;

 - 53% of Americans in rural areas go without insurance at some point; and

 - 45% of Americans whose household income averaged between $50,000 and $100,000 (i.e. people firmly in the middle class) were without health care at some point. 

The report goes on to conclude that because the period between 1997 and 2006 was "generally characterized by economic growth and job creation, and that the most recent estimates indicate a positive trend in the number of uninsured Americans, extrapolating our findings into the next decade would likely underestimate the number of Americans who will go without health care insurance absent health care reform." 

This is where the public option comes in.  In the words of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, a nationally based public health care option will have the leverage necessary to negotiate lower prices from health care providers and provide consumers with a more reasonably priced option that is not available on the existing market.  If you want to switch to the public option, you sign up and start paying premiums to the government instead of a private insurance company.  If you don't like the coverage under the public plan, feel free to stroll back across the street and reconnect with the private insurance companies. 

That's the public option in a nutshell - it's not a government takeover and it does not interfere with the "free market."  It simply provides what in theory ought to be a more affordable option. 

Simply put, here's the proposed deal.  If you like your current plan, do nothing.  Of course, your coverage may improve as a result of the proposed reforms, but I think we can all learn to live with that.  For example, part of the White House proposal is a provision that prohibits insurance companies from dropping your coverage for frivolous reasons, or because of a preexisting condition. 

On the other hand, if you are concerned about the rising cost of health care, your best bet is to get behind the public option. In either case, what's not to like?  

If you're still reading, do your fellow citizens a favor.  The next time you hear an outrageous claim about health care reform, ask yourself two questions.  First, take the necessary time to consider whether the claim is accurate. Chances are that it's not.

Second and perhaps more importantly, ask yourself what the person/organization making the claim stands to gain if health care reform is defeated?  The answer to this question is easy - preservation of the status quo, which means the freedom for private insurance companies to keep making enormous profits while more and more Americans are denied access to health care. 

The American people deserve health care that is comprehensive, reliable and affordable.  Let's all use our common sense and urge our elected representatives to improve the status quo now. 

Posted by Tom Douglas at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)