Sarah Palin And (Evil) Universal Health Care

Okay, now Sarah Palin has weighed in on the question of health care reform. “It’s evil,” she says. The whole notion of having a law that provides 37 million uninsured America with adequate medical care is simply “evil”.
Why? Because, she claims, there is a provision written into Obama’s proposal that will require euthanasia for elderly Americans and children like her Down’s Syndrome baby. So she joins a host of conservatives screaming NO to the very notion of insuring the uninsured.
Let’s stop the nonsense. That is precisely what she’s doing: saying NO to the idea of universal health care. If she were seriously concerned about a legal death threat against her child, that is easily enough handled. Obama’s health care bill certainly would not be the first to come with a proviso that certain types of activities/behaviors would be prohibited under the act.
So you just militate for an amendment guaranteeing that no such proviso—euthanasia—may be provided or paid for under the bill. But you don’t hear Palin or any of her more rabid compatriots calling for that, do you?
Incidentally, no one who has read the bill carefully can come up with any such stipulation. The bill would copy a Medicare provision (which no one has yet called “evil”) in that it would pay for hospice care and end of life counseling (on a strictly volunteer basis).
There’s far more to Palin’s stance and pronouncements than her fear for her baby’s life (it’s hard to believe even she’s that dumb). In fact, the cynical side of me doubts that this professed concern is a serious part of it at all.
Remember, she just resigned from the governorship of Alaska two weeks ago. There is the strong suggestion that she did it so she could raise money for a possible presidential campaign three years from now. “BusinessWeeks” cover story this week raises a very interesting point.
The cover headline says, “Health Reform Why insurers are winning”. I’m going to quote quite a bit of the first paragraph of that story: “As the health reform fight shifts [from Washington to the hustings] much more of the battle than most people realize is already over.
“The likely victors are insurance giants such as United Health Group, Aetna and WellPoint.” These companies have so redefined “the terms of the reform debate … that no matter what specifics emerge [in this fall’s bill] the insurance industry will emerge more profitable.”
Get that? If the bill fails, they remain at record profit levels. If it passes, they go on to continuing profits. Who loses? That’s a silly question, isn’t it? Either way, by raising horrid suspicions about the very notion of universal coverage—or single payer coverage—the industry wins.
Wouldn’t it be fun to know how much insurance company money has been funneled to spokeswomen like Sarah Palin? Or just promised—for years down the road when she’s actually in a campaign and voters will have forgotten about today’s statement.
So, thanks to people like Palin, you’ll have a health bill—if you get anything at all—run by the same people that are raising your premiums, doing nothing to reign in insane costs, and—yes—rationing health care as they do now.
Yes, there WILL BE “rationing”. For the same reason people buy fewer cars and take fewer vacations during a recession—NO MONEY. That’s the most effective rationing of all. People like Sarah Palin and her fellow conservatives are guaranteeing it.
There may someday soon not be enough money to keep all Down’s syndrome babies alive. People like Sarah Palin will have made it so. (Don’t tell me universal health care will kill your baby! Your fevered opposition to it may well do the trick. And tell me you’re not being paid off.)
Universal health care with a single payer—the same one that pays your Medicare or the Medicaid that keeps your elderly parents cared for in a nursing facility, Uncle Sam—would have the broad enough base and the clout to cut medical costs.
Cutting costs will mean that the evil day when sheer lack of funds forces us to ration health care will be delayed much longer. The notions Palin is militating against are the very ones that can prevent what she says she fears. Even she has to be bright enough to realize this.
I remember back when I left Federal Government employ in 1968—the highest paying private industry job I was offered came from the American Petroleum Institute. What did they want me to do? Go around the US speaking and writing against air pollution controls.
It hurt to turn down the money, but my stomach wouldn’t quite let me do it.
I hope that someday, as she looks down at her own baby—and thinks of all the other parents of Down’s syndrome babies—former governor Palin’s stomach suddenly reacts against what she is doing. Losing the money—and even the votes—will hurt, but she will have done her kid a huge favor.