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Healthcare and the public option; are Americans finally seeing the light?
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“If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality healthcare, if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical.” - President Barack Obama
Oh, Barack, you and your silly logic. Don't you realize nearly half the country isn't ready for a rational leader?
Despite the right-wing's senseless opposition to a public option in President Obama's healthcare reform plan the majority of the country seems to support such an option. In a recent poll by NBC/Wall Street Journal 76% of respondents said it was either “extremely” or “quite” important to “give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance.”
This seems to suggest, even as Fox News inexplicably dominates the cable pseudo-news channels, that much of the country is finally ignoring a crusade from the right-wing fear machine. Americans may finally be ready to shake off the panic dust tossed at them from above by the wealthy GOP elite, dust they've used for decades to coat an average American's capability for rational discourse in order to terrify them into supporting whatever pro-corporate, anti-worker initiative they've cooked up to make themselves richer while the bottom 40% watch their wages and dreams curdle.
This may just suggest that Americans finally want something that's good for them, and to hell with their predisposition for right-wing panic and propaganda.
And that's not just a good thing, that's a world-changing thing.
Granted, passionate liberals and progressives aren't exactly thrilled by this public option “compromise.” We all know that a universal, single-payer system is within the realm of American possibility, the cost argument is just the red herring. But in the case of healthcare, a system that has been a for-profit, corporate-run institution since its inception, any plan that would at least give the poorest among us access to not just emergency room care but actual doctor's visits and preventive treatments(!) without the fear of losing everything they have when that bill comes, well, that's just about the most inspiring thing a government can do for its citizens.
Because the poor of America have always been the forgotten many. In America there is nothing worse than not being rich. We're taught this every day. Our “Christian Nation” has such an overwhelming thirst for personal wealth that Jesus himself, if he ever does decide to return, may give the United States a dismissive fly-by on his way to worthy parts of the world.
But maybe America is finding its conscience again, if only for this one issue. If 76% of us support a public option for healthcare maybe we're realizing, a little late, that the poor and working-class in this country have gotten the shaft for far too long. Maybe we're finally realizing that even the lower class (because class warfare is all this is) deserves a choice in life; a choice between continuing to slave and die for the top 1% or to have their own glimmer of a chance at health and happiness.
And that's what a public, government-paid healthcare option would be: a choice for the poor. Finally. And no Republican fear-mongering can ever tell you different.
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