[IMPT NOTE from Traction: This Wed eve, Pres. Obama delivers one of the most important speeches of his administration: a talk on health insurance reform to a joint session of Congress. We've postponed our Socially Responsible Investing workshop and we're headed over to the Pinhook to watch the speech (time TBA). Come early to talk with health care advocates who will help us make sense of this complex issue. RSVP to health@getTraction.org]
Fear is a powerful thing.
Today, on Labor Day, I’m thinking about health care and job insecurity. When my daughter was born 7 years ago, she was 2 months premature and spent over a month in the hospital. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to care for her, make her safe and ensure she could become the smart, beautiful and strong little girl she is today. Because I was insured through my employer at the time, I never paid anything beyond my monthly premiums. Within the last year, however, I’ve lost my job twice — the first time, I lost my group plan, and the second time I lost the ability to pay for individual coverage. I shudder to think what would happen if Chaya had been born this year, or what will happen if she gets seriously ill now.
Over the last few weeks, as I’ve watched the rhetoric on health insurance reform ratchet up and tempers flare higher, I used to wonder why health care would elicit such strong opposition. Doesn’t every other Western democracy already have universal coverage? Don’t we already provide government protection against fire, crime, natural disaster, starvation, invasion, and the like? Shouldn’t this be a no-brainer?
The idea of being able to go it alone successfully in the face of this threat is very appealing and comforting — and demonstrably, dangerously false. The hard truth is that we, all of us, ARE susceptible to the ravages of injury and disease, and no amount of rugged individualism will ever make it otherwise. In fact, as a nation and a species, the only thing that has ever gained us any ground against the bogeyman is our ability to hang together and look out for one another.
I’m scared too. Not that government panels will make life-or-death decisions for us, or that the US government aims to destroy private industry, or that expanding the “welfare state” will result in Stalinist clampdowns on individual liberties, or that reform (as opposed to inaction) will bankrupt the nation — all those fly in the face of available evidence. No, I’m scared that millions of uninsured Americans won’t be able to afford essential care. That those with pre-existing conditions will be excluded. That private insurance companies will maximize profit at the expense of their customers’ health. I’m scared of all of these things because they are happening now.
But to hell with fear. I would rather temporarily lose a principled fight for what we really need — truly better financial and medical outcomes for us all — than achieve only a half-measure now by trying to appease an opposition led by irrational arguments and invested in failure anyway.
Sasha Akhavi
job-seeker, hiker, Tractivist
P.S. Join Traction at the Pinhook this Wednesday evening to watch President Obama speak. RSVP to health@getTraction.org for details as they unfold.
