Reply #180: Whoa

[OETKB]

You happen to be right, but it will only sell among the converted. There has to be a way to sell what you are proposing to those who still linger with a "cold war" mentality. They do not accept any collective approach to our problems. As soon as this is mentioned, you are a communist. What needs to be pointed out as you have so ably done is that their life is being dictated to, by a faceless entity that takes no personal responsibity for the services they offer(An HMO is not a person). Worse it is being motivated by making profit rather than delivering a product everyone needs at reasonable cost and quality. I am a member of PNHP, an organization trying to educate the public on single-payer health plan(<pnhp.org>), but basically it has been catch as catch can. There is no unified action plan to pull constituencies together to put pressure on state or federal legislatures. This organization was recently responsible for the study on bankrupcy due to health costs as a major factor(50%). It has generated little immediate traction.

Maybe it is time to call a spade a spade. Our corporations and their tied in institutions(large insurance companies) are the communists. They dictate who, what, and where we use the services they offer, not the other way around, coming from the public. There is insufficient influence from the general public. We are poorly organized. Our problem is we do not want to become what we abhor and so we head off in a million or more directios rejecting what we need. So we are in a building phase. We must recognize those parts of our society that lend themselves to governmental payment with proper oversight and preservation of independence of those working and receiving services in the system. We must compromise, but work in the framework that we want to improve our individual and collective survival. This is a mean trick. I haven't yet seen any popular movement that is trying to pull this off.

I also find that we are lacking the proper leadership or we tend to eat our young because they are not the perfection we seek. If someone is intelligent, experienced, willing to listen, and understands our society rises and falls on our mutual survival, they should get our support. We can argue nuance later. In Vermont Dr. Debbie Richter(a member of PNHP0) and Cornelius Hogan(a Republican businessman) have joined forces to try to bring a single-payer plan to that state. They are beginning to have some success. DUers in that state, if so inclined, can lend their support. I live in Massacchsetts and universal health care is in the legislature. The bill we support is S755 and we certainly could use help in bringing this to reality. Mass DUers can contact their reps and senators in the state legislature <mass.gov>.

Mr. Kerry lost because he did not articulate this societal sense well. He did not come across as someone who would be a leader for all the people. Killing terrorists better than the other guy, using the same systems that are causing our problems, and not reaching out to disenfranchised citizens in language they could understand made the last contest too close. Even if it was stolen, again, it should not have been that narrow a victory considering what the other side was offering. We need to communicate more effectively that our economics and societal rules should be directed towards everyone's improved survival, not a chosen few.

I, myself, was thinking of bringing the message of universal health care to an evengelical group calling it "The devil in the details" using the Mark Twain device to get people to realize they are being silently manipulated in the wrong direction. If I am successful I will write about it here again. We have to start reaching out somewhere. It means all of us who want change will have to become activists by talking to those who are out of power but sadly believe their pot of gold is just around the corner in our present system. Wish me luck.