So, health-blogger, why so silent?

For the few, the proud, the patient who actually still read this blog, you may be wondering: How on earth could a blogger who claims to blog about healthcare from the layperson's point of view be so quiet over this last month or two or three, while health care was the hottest topic in the country?

I guess to answer that I'd have to ask you: Do you actually believe most of the debate was actually about health care?And health care for regular people?

Because I don't.

• I believe it's about political parties vying for dominance
• I believe it's about the Republicans thinking they have to squash anything that makes Obama look effective
• I believe it's about the Democrats wanting to look like something is getting done, anything
• I believe it's about for-profit insurance companies being absolutely the worst thing to happen to health care in the last half-century, but no one having the balls to say so...much less do something about it
• I believe it's about instigating fear and misinformation on the one hand
• I believe it's about giving in to fear and not combatting misinformation on the other

Frank Rich's column this weekend, The Rage is Not About Health Care, says this is all about white people being scared of losing their majority-status and their power. That Obama's health care plan is just the first big initiative and thus the recipient of all this fear and rage and unacceptably violent rhetoric. He paints the entire anti-Obama cadre with the racist brush.

I think that might be too simplistic. The way I see it there are some folks who are scared of losing their power, yes. But I am much more inclined to believe they cynically figured out who might be the most vulnerable to their tactics of stoking fear and loathing, and went with that path of least resistance. Are folks like Palin and Limbaugh and Boehner and the rest personally racist? Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't really matter; it's not really why they're pursuing this path.

And what gets lost in all of this jockeying and violent rhetoric and compromise is any kind of rational and yes, bi-partisan, health care discussion. Rich points out that much of the bill that just passed is rooted in Republican proposals, and that just supports what I have long believed: Cynicism wins here, not true belief. I don't believe that all those Congresspeople voted their hearts, do you?

Now, let's see it in action. Come November if the entire country has crumbled under the thumb of fascistic, communistic, socialism, I think the Democrats are going to come out fine. No worse than any majority party during mid-term elections, at any rate. And then we will have rewarded namby-pamby-ness.

So, you see, it's a good thing I wasn't blogging health care during this whole, long, depressing national "debate". Because nobody else was really debating health care either. Hopefully this will all come down, and I'll get re-inspired to talk about health care and everyday ordinary people again soon.

Comments

[AMH in Ohio]

I couldn't agree more - this is all about political posturing and creating pools of voters through one way or another. Bipartisanship does not seem to exist any longer.

[Randall]

when will all this political posturing be brushed aside and the welfare of the people or of the majority be taken into consideration? I am still hoping for the day that health care be really taken care of and not just used for one's own agenda.