At Last! Something I proposed long ago has found…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 3:57 PM Permalink

…it's way into the mainstream press and, even though I did not encourage Kristof from the NYT to take this position, let's hope this thing goes viral and can no longer be ignored:

Let Congress Go Without Insurance

Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.

It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?

About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.

Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.

Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.

Of course I don't think this goes far enough. WE ELECTED THESE PEOPLE TO REPRESENT US and if they aren't going to do something good, finally, for the nation and the least among us, let's CANCEL ALL THEIR HEALTHCARE immediately.

We are their putative bosses, but we can't fire them, but if everyone gets together and goes apesh*t viral about health care we can at least stop their super beneficial healthcare.

Most of them are rich. Let 'em pay for their and their families healthcare. I'd guarantee that the first congress-critter whose wife or child came down with cancer or some horribly expensive disease to treat and went broke trying to get that family member proper care WE THE PEOPLE who form this Union would see health care proposed and passed in a flash!

About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.

Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.

Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.

Same idea as mine, roughly, but more elegantly expressed.

MAKE THIS GO MAINSTREAM VIRAL AND FORCE THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR US TO ACTUALLY WORK FOR US and give every American, especially the least among us, people working three or four jobs in a single family that still has to gather aluminum cans weekends and at night to still fail make ends meet.

SEND A COPY OF KRISTOF'S COLUMN TO YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND SENATOR! And BTW:

There was a lag of 19 years after the Nixon plan before another serious try, and a 16-year lag after the Clinton effort of 1993. Another 16-year delay would be accompanied by more than 700,000 unnecessary deaths. That’s more Americans than died in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.

The collapse of health reform would be a political and policy failure, but it would also be a profound moral failure.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks, Mr. Kristof.

Labels: christian hypocrisy, Congress, corporate-ownded meda, disinformation, Fiscal irresponsibility, health care reform, hypocrisy, incompetent leaders