Reply #28: Get to the core of the problem, unearth it, and push it. That is not idealism.

[rug]

The fundamental issue of a society providing health care for its occupants is not that hard to grasp and at its core holds broad support.

To not recognize the dishonesty and dissembling of the opponents to this core value is willful blindness.

To frame it as an insurance problem is to ignore the problem itself.

To engage in a discussion on those terms with those opponents is an exercise in mutual cynicism, a charade.

No, the necessity of health care is not a matter of discussion, it's a matter of counting heads and calling out bullshit.

The disgrace of this legislation is that it emerged from a popular movement that recognized the common value and need for real access to health care and the leaders of that popular movement, amazingly, had its hands on the levers of government. Rather than pull those levers, rather than lead and marshall that movement, those in power chose to give the opposition power it did not have and engaged in discussion of nonsense with forces that could not otherwise withstand the urgency and necessity of the core issue: society must secure the health of its members.

The rhetoric was detached from reality.