George Lakoff makes a good point here —
Health means life. If you get a major illness or injury and cannot get it treated adequately, you could die. And tens of thousands do.
Health means freedom. If you have a serious illness or injury and cannot get it treated, your freedom will be limited in many ways. Your physical freedom: you may no longer have the freedom to move around. Your economic freedom: you may not be able to work or your medical bills may impoverish you. Your emotional freedom: you will not be free to live a happy life.
Too many of us have, to one extent or another, bought into the libertarian fallacy that only government interferes with “freedom.” Probably nothing (next to being dead) reduces personal freedom more than an impaired brain or body. After that comes poverty, which reduces your choices and dictates you spend your time doing whatever you have to do to survive.
The most egregious example of non-freedom in American history, the institution of slavery, was not conducted by government. It was protected by government, but only because slave-owning citizens demanded that their “property rights” be protected.
“It’s All About Freedom”
That’s right and if you liberals have your way we dimwitted teabaggers won’t have the freedom to die from preventable illnesses. You dam liberals always want the government to go on about helping people, when you know the real purpose of government is to insure that the wealth in this country stays in the hands of the “right” people.
Freedom? Let me tell you my story about freedom.
I’m going to be 52 years old next Tuesday, 3/2.
I may as well be 82.
I was an athlete for most of my life, In High School, I lettering in 3 sports – football, wrestling and track. I also played, and was very good at, baseball (I had an “All County” player ahead of me and decided to do track, ’cause of the cute girls running in ’70’s short-shorts…).
I got hurt a few times. Twice, they were serious. Once with my ankle, and once with my shoulder. The ankle injurey, which seemed minor at the time, was actully worse than the shoulder where I broke my collar-bone in wrestling and tore my rotator cuff.
I took up tennis in my late teens, and was really good at that, too.
Today, because of old injuries (back in the day, if the bone wasn’t sticking out, it was a “sprain,” they taped you up, an you were expected to play in the next game), I can’t walk more than 50 feet without a brace, which really doesn’t do much good). I was told the ankle was mildly spraigned. The ankle injury was much more serious than I was told. I broke my ankle, which didn’t set corrrectly, and tore ligaments, which eventually ruptured, leaving me in need of major surgery, which most podiatric doctors don’t want to do because of my relatively young age, and the fact that they have to fuse a large part of my lower right leg. So, I’m left with living with the pain.
All of this is, now, a pre-existing condition. Without some form of universal care, I’ll NEVER be able to go on vacations where you walk. Hell, I can’t even take a job in NY City because of the walking involved.
My world has shrunk. My car has almost 150.000 miles on it, so I can’t take a job too far away. I can’t walk, almost at all, so I’m limited to jobs that are seated – not too many in my area.
So, personal freedom? DON’T make me laugh. It is, what it is…
So far, I may have intellectual personal freedom, but as for physical freedom, I’m anchored to where I am because of my right ankle, and the left hip which doesn’t let me sleep some nights because of the pain of supporting the other side of my body.I pray that something real comes out of health care reform. That gives me hope.
Outside of that, I’m stuck where I am. 52 feelling like I’m 82.
But I remain optimistic!
Anyone know of reputable work-at-home jobes which aren’t a rip-off and where I could make more that my $8.50 and hour for 30 hours of telemarketing – the worst job I’ ever had, at a pay that’s actually the worst I’ve had since I was 17.
It was snowing last night, and I had a great dream. I was running and walking in new-fallen snow for miles, something I did EVERY time we had a really good storm. God, I miss that. It was the best dream in ages…
I”m trying to keep the faith. But I need a few signs Oh Lord! Make that, I need at least one sign. OK I dont “need” it, but how about showing me one anyway… 🙂
Call your representatives. AND PASS THE DAMN BILL!!!
It seems to me the mob has no clue what freedom means. They confuse it with the symbols of freedom: stars and stripes, eagles, and what not. And for a great many of them, “freedom” means the freedom to be a born-again and the power to have the government establish their particular religious beliefs and subsidize them with my tax dollars while punishing anyone with different beliefs. When Junior was in the White House (I refuse to say “when he was president”), notice how he always used the word “freedom” in the context of born-again religion: “freedom to praise Jesus” etc.
Good point, Barbara. In the 1860s the US population was about 33 million, the number of slaves near 1 million. The size of the ‘ slave problem’ was 3% of the US population. In the Civil war over 600,000 Americans died in the struggle which freed the slaves. To put that number to scale -that’s how many Americans died in WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam- COMBINED. For the benefit of 3% of the population – none of them bankers.
From the most recent Census numbers, 46 million Americans are without health insurance. That’s not 3% of the US population – it’s 15%. According to a Harvard study, 45,000 will die each year from that group – BECAUSE they don’t have access to health care.
Ahhh, I hear a troll protest. It’s not a fair comparison. The slaves had no choice and any American can buy insurance if they want medical coverage.
If you have a pre-existing condition, you probably can’t get insurance. If your employer doesn’t offer a plan, things aren’t much better. The median (average) annual family income is $50,000 -the average family health insurance plan (annual) is 13,000 or 26% of thier combined income. That’s the measure at the ‘median’ – the middle. Half the population makes LESS! But for the ‘median’ family, it’s like making a second mortgage payment, and no more of a ‘choice’ than the slaves had.
At the rate of 45,000 per year, it will take only 13 years to rack up a death toll equal to that of the Civil War. While I conceed that men of good conscience can disagree about HOW to alleviate this carnage, I am in contempt of those Republicans who find it acceptable and defensable. Hell is too fine a place for people who can deny & ignore suffering on such a scale.
Freedom Really?
http://www.uncledad.org/uploads/life_on_the_brink.mp3
Doug, very interesting comment, thank you. It’s notable that we lost just over 58,000 who died in the name of freedom during the 10 years of the Viet Nam war, and we built a very moving memorial memorial to them on the national mall. How are we going to remember the 45,000 that will die this year alone from a lack of health care? (queue sound of crickets on a quiet night) I guess it doesn’t matter so much if they are dying for the freedom of huge profits for Big Health Care.
A few odds and ends:
Wikipedia lists the number of slaves counted in the 1860 census as 3,953,760, so if this is reliable, the percentage was even higher than cited previously. I recall James Burk commenting in one of his documentaries that the life expectancy of a slave after capture was seven years. He was primarily talking about West Indian plantations, but it more clearly portrays the abomination that slavery was.
I recently read the text of a speech by Jefferson Davis in which he asserts that people cannot be held down and denied their liberty and freedom. The description was of the citizens of the Confederacy, not the slaves they owned. Does that remind you of anything contemporary?
I just came back from a trip to Dominica, which is one of the Windward Islands. It lies between Martinique and Guadaloupe. It is largely undeveloped, but also unspoiled. It is not a wealthy island, quite third world. The people are intelligent, friendly and very healthy. I have heard a few claims about their longevity, but I have not double checked, so let me just say they outlive us. They have free healthcare from birth to age 18 years and from 60 years on. In between, they are expected to buy medical insurance, but, I encountered a few examples of cooperative, community programs to make this affordable. In short, their approach is far to the left of the American approach, and it seems very successful, despite limited resources.
I am going through a kind of reverse culture shock, seeing people here in NC who seem comparatively unhealthy. This galls me because in my life before the farm, I worked for twenty years providing services to people with severe disabilities. I have seen a lot of lives destroyed, bankruptcies being just part of the bargain. It doesn’t have to be that way, obviously, our priorities are screwed up. God Bless Dominica!
Thanks Doug. I recently read that even before the revolution some Regulators were protesting slavery saying it prevented Americans from getting jobs. The mind set then and now is the same. Either we make democracy a system the people can use effectively or it will continue to be sold as a pacifier for the masses who seem always ready to buy propaganda. Already the wealth at the top probably resembles the divide in the south before the civil war with a similar mind-set.
goatherd – I checked and stand corrected. Thank You. Not my first error – the safe money is that it’s not going to be my last. I would rather be corrected by a friend – if you think I am mistaken in my facts, please speak up. Overall, it doesn’t change my argument except to suggest hat the *size* of the problems – slavery and health care are about the same relative size. The social severity is comparable – unless you find 45,000 deaths every year for the lack of health care to be acceptable.
In today’s political climate, everything has to be argued by a balance sheet. In the 1860s slavery was denounced as a moral outrage. Now you have to prove in a cost analysis that the indirect costs of an uninsured group is driving up the costs of the insured. Fixing health care is going to be cost effective – partiuclarly compared to not fixing it – but I wish some of our leaders (political and religious) could work up some moral outrage. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ affected if not caused the Civil War. It saddens me that such a voice does not exist today.