American Politics and False Dichotomy
Coming into my inbox
today was a missive from True
Majority , with the subject line, "An
historic day for health care". In it, I was asked to go to a
website and put my name to a statement coming down on the side of
what is, in fact, the Obama health care plan. I am given two
choices, put forward as follows.
Which side are you on?
Are you with us for a guarantee of quality affordable health care for all? We need coverage that meets our families’ health care needs and is affordable, based on a sliding scale. We need government to be an advocate for us and set and enforce the rules so insurance companies put our health care before their profits. We need to be able to keep the health care that we have and have the choice of a public plan so we’re not left at the mercy of the same private insurance companies that have gotten us into this mess. We need quality, affordable care we all can count on.
-OR-
Are you for leaving us on our own to buy private health insurance?Leaving us to fend for ourselves in the complicated private insurance market? Do you want insurance companies to be able to sell bare-bones plans with high deductibles? Do you want to start paying income taxes when your employer pays for health coverage? You don’t want any regulations on private insurance so they can keep denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and raising rates on the sick. And you don’t want any limits on health insurance company premiums or profits or on how much drug companies can charge for prescriptions.
The second alternative is very much the Republican one.
Of course, I don't
support either option, because I support a single-payer, universal
system at the very least.. Further, I support a system that
recognizes and pays for what are called alternative forms of health
care.
This is the classic false dichotomy of American politics, all of which are analogous to the biggest false dichotomy of all, the two-party duopoly that runs this country.
On several levels, this dichotomy is shameful. First, it shows that True Majority, like MoveOn.org, are nothing but arms of the Democratic Party, trying to marshal progressive support for a reactionary, corporate party. Second, this nonsense has much less to do with health care than it does with insurance, which, though not related, is another issue. It is about insurance and paying for it. Many of the sup porters of this effort are unions with their own insurance schemes, which they'd like to perpetuate and get others to pay for. The UAW and other so-called "progressive" unions long opposed universal health care, because they were in the insurance business. As well, nothing is said here about the bloated, convoluted, over-technological health care system, or "health-snare system" which traps people in a never-ending regime of high-tech tests, expensive drugs, and trips to specialists. Few alternatives are ever offered, because all of this is a colossal gravy train for doctors, and hospitals and the buccaneers that run them.
It is also shameful to limit debate by this basest of all rhetorical tricks, defining their own position as the only alternative to an awful one. The rationale is doubtless that this alternative, though not the only one, is the only one with a chance of succeeding. A more honest approach would be to tell the truth that millions of Americans support the single-payer option, and that the major candidates are pushing these plans because they are supported by the medical-insurance establishment and their big money. By keeping other alternatives out of sight (and there are certainly more ideas than these and the single payer plan), the perpetrators of this false dichotomy hope they can keep other alternatives out of mind, so as to ensure that people back their plan and, more importantly, their candidate, in this case, Barack Obama.
Which side am I on? The side of free, fair, and open debate, for one. The side of universal, no-strings-attached health care in as many forms as possible. The side that wants to take profit out of health care. The side that figures that a graduated income tax system is the only sliding scale necessary for fairness.
1 comment(s)
There is a larger argument that can be made from your ideas skillfully
presented above about the perils of the American two party political
system rife with false dichotomies. Voters are forced to choose the
lesser of two evils. The psychology of affiliation drowns out the
nuances of personal beliefs in service to the party's platform crafted
to appeal to the masses. Precious resources are wasted fighting the
other side of the aisle to secure and promote party influence and
power at the expense of true efforts that promote the general wellfare
of the citizens of the United States of American. Isn't this what
George Washington warned us all of in his farewell address? How little
we have learned in two centuries...
Posted by kyamberu on Friday, 2 July 2010, 2101 EDT (-0400)
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