Repulicans vs. Health Care Reform

I’ve just come across a blog post on Frank Luntz’s talking points designed to help Republicans fight meaningful health care reform.

Luntz warns that “if the dynamic becomes ‘President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,’ then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless.’” The trouble is, it already is useless. Because rather than challenging the tenets of American reform proposals, Luntz establishes a straw man argument against a non-existent health plan.

What Luntz argues against, of course, is a single-payer health care system. For the record, I’m totally in favor of single payer. I spent six years in the UK living quite happily with the NHS, for all its flaws. Yes, I once had to wait for a non-emergency procedure. No, this did not cause me pain or distress. The following things about single payer health care are fantastic: (1) primary care is awesome, I never had to wait more than 48 hours to see a doctor if I was sick. That’s right. Imagine not having to make the choice between the emergency room and having to wait a week to see your doctor. (2) emergency care. Similarly awesome. And I never had to worry about paying my bill. (3) Prescriptions. Cheap as chips. And free birth control. (4) And hey, this is the kicker: I never had to make the decision between financial security and health care. Ever. It didn’t cross my mind. This is what Republicans talk about when they refer to the ‘Washington takeover of healthcare’: never having to be afraid of getting sick.

Anyway. This is not what Obama is proposing, either. Obama is proposing a tremendously middle of the road approach that doesn’t resemble single payer at all. But Republicans and their friends in the HMO industry don’t even want you to have that. Repubs want you to continue suffering, you unwashed uninsured, because they’re ideologically opposed to health care that works. And their friends in the industry will continue to capitalize on your pain and make money hand over fist.