>I believe the opposition is based on three forces -- I have no idea
>which is the most powerful.
>
>1. Distrust of the govt. Do you want the folks who responded to Katrina
>to be responsible for your health care?
>
>2. Racism. Do you want colored people to have the same right to health
>care that you do? If that's the case, how will they learn their place?
>
>3. Fear of higher taxes.
>
>4. Fear that you will be stuck with the assigned doctor and that if it
>turns out to be a bad doctor, you will be screwed.
>
>Joanna
I've heard these. I think there's also the idea that the quality will be lower if it's universal/public. This view emerges even among people who support universal health care because it's morally right but personally believe that their own health care will suffer. This is partly based on the myth that the U.S. has the best health care in the world. As Quentin Young says, yes, it's true for 1% of US health care, we're really good at dealing with emergency trauma surgery due to techniques developed during Vietnam. For the rest we pretty much come out at the bottom of comparable countries in quality. Then the race argument comes in: Well, it's argued, that's because certain oppressed populations are driving down the average. (Subtext: I'm white so I'll get great care.) Eventually the truth dawns, neither whiteness nor U.S. citizenship turns out to be sufficient to extract good care from a deeply corrupt system.
The objection "I don't want to pay for those people" I interpret as not just racism and class snobbery but also going back to the idea that health = morality, a religious position. It has its counterpart in a certain fatalism and self-blame I've heard from some without insurance: Well, if I get sick I guess whatever happens will happen, I didn't prioritize right, I personally failed.
I think the proper response to "I don't want my money going to care for those people" is not, as I've heard some say, "well you already are in the form of emergency room visits," but instead "well, I don't want my money going to make some insurance executive fabulously rich," or "I don't want my money to pay a bonus to some medical professional in a cubicle for denying me care," or "I don't want my money going to lobbying in DC to prevent health care reform," or, "I want my money going to provide health care, not shuffle papers."
B. wrote:
>Yet even when told that, I'm pretty sure most folks
will still have a "facts be damned, I'll believe
whatever I want, so fuck you" attitude. Stubborn
ideological resistance, regardless of facts. I've
seen this too many times myself. "Screw you, I don't
care, I'm believing what I want anyway." That is a
massive roadblock to progress in the US. I personally
can't stand it. Willful ignorance, as the Catholics
said.
This is pretty good evidence that you haven't been out there at flea markets and in front of grocery stores talking to people about health insurance. (And this could really be organizing around anything, a union, the war, etc.) You'll find that people aren't, in general, stupid or willfully ignorant. Lied to, yes. Confused, sure. Scared, sometimes. Uninterested, rarely. Mostly they're very interested and have good instincts about corporate power and insurance company crimes. But you have to talk about it in a clear way that addresses real experiences people have had, not get all abstract and policy-wonkish, otherwise it's our vague abstractions against their vague abstractions and that just doesn't get anywhere. Well, on this issue you might anyway because when you say 'get the insurance companies out...' people grab the pen, 'where do I sign?'
Talking to people after they've seen Sicko, as I and my group have been doing the last 4 weekends at the cinema, has been overwhelming--a crowd forms, we can't get fliers out or sign people up fast enough, generally 20 minutes after the film is out there's still a knot or two of people talking about how crazy the system is and what are the chances of getting something better. Our first two followup meetings have been very well attended. At the one I led, people couldn't wait to get the mic and tell their story of health insurance denials, costs, and obstacles.
Jenny Brown </HTML>