Asking For Change: Intensive Repair

Asking For Change: an occasional series on what should change in the U.S. under a new president, why it should change, and how we all can make it happen.

Obamathon Man's relatives happen to have many contacts in the Denver metro area, and yesterday we all went to lunch with one of them. While I'm not at liberty to divulge much more about this individual as it may produce unintended consequences, he is employed by an organization involved with the health care system. I figured he might be able to help clue me in on the state of health care in the US. When I asked him about it, the first thing he told me was, "Everyone knows the system is messed up."

A quick search online reveals some scary stats about US health care. For instance, health care spending in the US is 4.3 times what the government spends on defense. Worse, the US has 46 million people without insurance. That's 13 million more than the population of Canada, which ironically is rated higher than the US in health care. As this individual explained to me, the problem is basically that there is a wide range of people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but don't have insurance or are underinsured.

I asked him if he had any news about what Obama and his pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, were planning to do. He assured me that he was no political insider, but said his best guess was that they would try to streamline costs in general. Obama's official website does include an outline of his health plan, the bulk of which is focused on "[making] health insurance work for people and businesses, not just insurance and drug companies"; however there are other proposals like reducing costs for foreign medicine imports. Also, WebMD has done their own write-up on Obama's health plan - it's a bit more level-headed.

I asked him about his own take on what should be done to improve health care. While he had many sophisticated and nuanced ideas that I wasn't able to fully understand, he said one thing that really resonated with me: "The structure of for-profit insurance companies is contradictory to a system which would promote general health and well being. It could even be called morally questionable." I couldn't help but agree. Theoretically, insurance companies are motivated to collect as much money from their patrons while providing the least coverage in order to maximize profit. But shouldn't the motive be to provide as much coverage as possible? Should we be willing to accept deaths for dollars?

I had been crafting a comparison which I submitted to this individual. Afterward, he said, "That's an interesting analogy", which I took to mean he approved of it officially. Suppose someone breaks into your house and steals a number of your possessions. If you are wealthy, you can hire a private detective to find the thief. But no matter who you are, you are entitled to call the police and have them investigate the case. Municipal security is a service provided by the government and funded by taxpayers, and yet all but the furthest on the Right suggest that it be privatized. Justice is one of the fundamental principles of our society, and we view it as a right, not a privilege. Likewise, we need to make health care a right, not a privilege.

The rich will always have a larger number of health care options. As in the scenario above, wealthier citizens have a larger number of security options as well, the same applies to education, and even fire prevention. This is not a bad thing, and people rarely object to this. But expanded options for wealthier individuals should not come at the expense of the basic rights of everyone. Admittedly, I lack the experience or research time to make more specific recommendations about health care - although some of the websites I've linked to are excellent resources if you would like to do research yourself. But this much I know: America needs to stop looking at health care as a commodity or a privilege, and start looking at it as a right. Only then will our first aid cease to be second rate.

Asking for Change: Imitating Life

Asking For Change: an occasional series on what should change in the U.S. under a new president, why it should change, and how we all can make it happen.

Obamathon Man and his associate spent yesterday afternoon being cultural at the Denver Art Museum. The building itself is a work of art, that is to say, unusual and not really intended to look pretty. The museum is comprised of two buildings which are four and six stories tall, and the most notable feature of the whole place was that there was a children's play center on nearly every floor. Perhaps they wanted to let mommy and daddy admire the paintings without the little ones slobbering on the ancient Qing Dynasty figurines. Just as well.

After 10 floors of art, we were arted out. We were thinking too hard. Art imitates life, because it presents all kinds of problems and no solution. There you are in the museum, staring at an old tractor plow with a giant skull on it, wondering whether it represents the inevitable subjugation of the agrarian proletariat, the dangers of farm life, or just the artist's fondness for plows and skulls. You turn to your fellow museum patrons, hoping that they might mutter something amongst themselves that makes the whole thing make sense, but they look at at it with the same vacant stare as you. Upon leaving the museum, we were ready for something easily explainable, like lunch.

But we were happy to have visited, especially since it was free. Even though some in our family don't like the design of the building, and even the two of us wouldn't go out of our way to defend it, I'm much happier that it's there instead of some anonymous office building. Office buildings exist to house offices, to provide a workplace for workers, who work to make money for themselves and enrich their corporate bosses, who also work for themselves but also to enrich the economy, so we're told. It's easy to understand. Maybe the reason I'm happy the art museum is there is that it's an acknowledgment that the height of human endeavor is more than making things easy to understand. Maybe the tractor plow and skull convey something that would not come across through a news article or scholarly essay.

I'm not saying we should teach art because it might make you smarter. Nor am I suggesting an increase in NEA funding - though I don't think their funding should be decreased either. What I would like to see is a society who looks at the art and doesn't try to reduce it into literary terms. Ars gratia artis, art for art's sake. That's the best interpretation of the skull plow I have to offer.

Asking For Change: Problem or Solution?

Instead of presenting some cheesy "New Year's Resolution" post, Obamathon Man unveils to the general populace a new series. Asking For Change: an occasional series on what should change in the U.S. under a new president, why it should change, and how we all can make it happen.

One of the defining moments in late 20th century American politics was the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan. Reagan was, of course, the first and most famous of a new breed of politician, the actor-slash-politician. Reagan had all the charm of a used car salesman, and during his presidency he sold the country on the idea that "the government is the problem", an idea which has persisted ever since.

But is the government the really the problem? Certainly there have been plenty of governments that were (and are) problematic, to their citizens and to the world. Would it then be best to get rid of governments? Somalia effectively has no government, and that has also presented problems for both citizens of Somalia and other countries as well.

The truth is, it is naive to bullheadedly operate on the mantra that "government is the problem", just as it is naive to think government is the solution; it can be a part of either. For the past several decades, we have thought that services were good because they were public or private, depending on our ideology. We need to move beyond that. Run schools, roads, utilities, and hospitals in such a way as to get the best results, whether that means publicly or privately. On the campaign trail, Obama said, "We don't need bigger government or smaller government, we need better government." America needs to realize that public and private works are not ends in themselves - human well being and freedom are. Real change will be freeing ourselves from our ideological barriers and working to make things better.