I had a lot of enthusiasm in high school. Every day it seemed like something new and awesome would happen. Every week there would be some kick ass new album coming out, and it was the Clinton era, so every time you turned on the news you got the sense that there was nothing going on that was more worrisome than Bill's penis, so things must be going pretty well with the world.
This feeling of enthusiasm lasted for a little while into my first few university years, but after a while, I noticed that things slowly began to suck. I used to watch MuchMusic all the time, but then Sook-Yin Lee left, and it lost a lot of its cool. Not too long after George Stroumboloupolos was also gobbled up by the CBC, leaving the station to be hosted by whatever emo-looking dumpster babies they could scrounge up.
The transgressive subersiveness of the 90s was gone. Not that things were really all that subversive, but it seems like you could see things in the broadcast media that you just don't see anymore. You'd never see anything on CBC even close to as bizarre as Kids in the Hall, for example. You don't see any mainstream musicians scaring conservatives like Marilyn Manson anymore. The scariest thing you could hear on the radio in the 21st century is Eminem! A scrawny kid with an ALF t-shirt! And the only thing people found scary about him is that he used the word fag and hung out with black people.
I realized some time ago that a lot of my aspirations since high school have been aimed at recapturing that feeling of enthusiasm that awesome things were happening in art and politics. I still can't decide whether it's just me, and I've just lost my spirit, or whether it's because things really are just not as great as they used to be.
I guess there are some interesting things happening on the margins. Artists and political commentators who couldn't get a voice back then now can. David Firth, for instance, who even in the 90s could never have gotten access to the media is thriving as an artist, and doing amazing and important work. I guess what's missing is a certain feeling of momentum. Although things kinda collapsed and everything went to shit when Bush was elected (and not all because he was elected, it was just that a lot of depressing things happened around that same time), there was a feeling that so many cool things were happening in the mid to late 90s, at least from my perspective, that there was going to be some major turnaround in Western culture. There was optimism. Now all of the most vibrant artistic minds seem to think that things are inevitably doomed, and rather than fighting, seem to be acting more as MCs hosting the Gong Show that is the decline of contemporary culture.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Basics of Obamacare
Few people would be surprised to hear that the majority of those who scream the loudest about health care reform in the United States seem to know the least about it. When these people express their fears they speak in platitudes and slogans, almost all of which are either non-sensical or have little to do with what Obama is actually proposing. Those on the right do not have nearly enough of a reason to be afraid as they think they do, and those on the left shouldn't raise their hopes to high. "Obamacare" is actually a very modest proposal. It's nothing like the kind of health care system we have in Canada. In fact, if such a program were proposed by a Canadian politician, it would be considered radically conservative and unjust. While it is still arguably a significant improvement over the current American system, it is still far from a single payer system no matter how much Fox News would like to scare people into thinking it is.
What Is Actually Being Proposed
What is actually being proposed is not universal health care. It is not a system in which the government covers all of everyone's health care costs with taxpayers' money as is done in Canada. What we will see is something like a non-profit, government-run HMO, and it will be optional. In many ways it will be run just like any other health insurance company. People will have to make regular payments like they would any other insurance coverage. The important difference is that these payments will be supported by government funds and be much more affordable than what the regular HMOs are offering. They'll also provide greater coverage and have fewer restrictions based on things like pre-existing conditions.
This system has significant advantages for those who find it difficult to find health care. Lower payments will allow more people access to coverage. Fewer people will end up bankrupted by medical bills. The economic advantages are a bit more ambiguous. It could be less expensive than the current system. Right now, there is a program for people who cannot afford coverage. It's called Medicaid, and like the program Obama is proposing, you have to pay into it. The only catch is you have to be a senior citizen. The public option would expand this to the entire population.
There are a couple of reasons why conservatives are so afraid of this. The first is that this very well could end up costing more than what the government currently spends on health care. The second reason, and the one you hear the most about, is that this will put the private health insurance companies out of business, leaving everyone with no choice but to buy their insurance from the government. There are good reasons to be skeptical of this second assertion. As Obama himself has argued, having a government run post office has not put FedEx and UPS out of business. Indeed, even in Canada we still have private HMOs providing coverage for things that are not covered by our national plan. Ironically, those who supposedly have the most faith in the ingenuity of the free market system seem to have the least confidence that they will be able to compete with a publicly administered program, especially one that they claim is going to be so poorly run.
In order to pay for this program, some of the funding from Medicare (upwards of $500 billion), will be transferred to the public option, and the Republicans are trying to scare people by saying that this will mean that seniors will lose their coverage. Interestingly enough, the Republicans opposed the adoption of Medicare when it first passed, and now their styling themselves as its loyal defenders. In the surreal, double-thinking bizarro world that is the Republican mind, the program is horrible, and never should have been implemented, while at the same time it must be protected from those evil Democrats (who actually want to expand Medicare to the general population, not restrict it).
"Death Panels"
There have been a few buzz words floating around that opponents of the Democrats' proposed health care reforms like to use. The most whimsical of these is "death panels". Part of the health care reforms, they say, is the mandatory consultation with a panel of doctors who are forced to obey the government, and who will decide whether or not your grandma will have the plug pulled on her or not. In fact, what is being proposed is that the government would pay for consultations with one's doctor, which, for the patients, would be entirely voluntary, in which a person's doctor could discuss with them the options available in the event that they end up like Terri Schiavo. This gives patients the opportunity to put in writing what their wishes are in the event that they become unable to speak for themselves. That this scares conservatives is deliciously ironic considering that, if Terri Schiavo had been offered one of these free consultations, she may very well have said that she wanted to be kept on life support, and her brain-dead carcas would still be alive to this day. Another objection is that doctors are incentivized to have these consultations with their patients, and may pressure them into having the discussion about what they want their palliative care to be, but first of all, the patient can always refuse, and secondly, even if they couldn't, all they would have to do is sit patiently throught their doctor's little speech and say "keep me alive at all cost!" And nobody would have to worry about having the plug pulled on them. In fact, if they were, in fact, forced into these consultations, it's actually less likely that they would be taken off life support against their wishes, then if they had not had the consultation. The only real objection is that, in order to get one of these consultations covered, the doctor must read from a list of options that the patient has, including do-not-resuscitate orders, and the discontinuation of life support in the event he or she ends up as a vegetable.
What Is Actually Being Proposed
What is actually being proposed is not universal health care. It is not a system in which the government covers all of everyone's health care costs with taxpayers' money as is done in Canada. What we will see is something like a non-profit, government-run HMO, and it will be optional. In many ways it will be run just like any other health insurance company. People will have to make regular payments like they would any other insurance coverage. The important difference is that these payments will be supported by government funds and be much more affordable than what the regular HMOs are offering. They'll also provide greater coverage and have fewer restrictions based on things like pre-existing conditions.
This system has significant advantages for those who find it difficult to find health care. Lower payments will allow more people access to coverage. Fewer people will end up bankrupted by medical bills. The economic advantages are a bit more ambiguous. It could be less expensive than the current system. Right now, there is a program for people who cannot afford coverage. It's called Medicaid, and like the program Obama is proposing, you have to pay into it. The only catch is you have to be a senior citizen. The public option would expand this to the entire population.
There are a couple of reasons why conservatives are so afraid of this. The first is that this very well could end up costing more than what the government currently spends on health care. The second reason, and the one you hear the most about, is that this will put the private health insurance companies out of business, leaving everyone with no choice but to buy their insurance from the government. There are good reasons to be skeptical of this second assertion. As Obama himself has argued, having a government run post office has not put FedEx and UPS out of business. Indeed, even in Canada we still have private HMOs providing coverage for things that are not covered by our national plan. Ironically, those who supposedly have the most faith in the ingenuity of the free market system seem to have the least confidence that they will be able to compete with a publicly administered program, especially one that they claim is going to be so poorly run.
In order to pay for this program, some of the funding from Medicare (upwards of $500 billion), will be transferred to the public option, and the Republicans are trying to scare people by saying that this will mean that seniors will lose their coverage. Interestingly enough, the Republicans opposed the adoption of Medicare when it first passed, and now their styling themselves as its loyal defenders. In the surreal, double-thinking bizarro world that is the Republican mind, the program is horrible, and never should have been implemented, while at the same time it must be protected from those evil Democrats (who actually want to expand Medicare to the general population, not restrict it).
"Death Panels"
There have been a few buzz words floating around that opponents of the Democrats' proposed health care reforms like to use. The most whimsical of these is "death panels". Part of the health care reforms, they say, is the mandatory consultation with a panel of doctors who are forced to obey the government, and who will decide whether or not your grandma will have the plug pulled on her or not. In fact, what is being proposed is that the government would pay for consultations with one's doctor, which, for the patients, would be entirely voluntary, in which a person's doctor could discuss with them the options available in the event that they end up like Terri Schiavo. This gives patients the opportunity to put in writing what their wishes are in the event that they become unable to speak for themselves. That this scares conservatives is deliciously ironic considering that, if Terri Schiavo had been offered one of these free consultations, she may very well have said that she wanted to be kept on life support, and her brain-dead carcas would still be alive to this day. Another objection is that doctors are incentivized to have these consultations with their patients, and may pressure them into having the discussion about what they want their palliative care to be, but first of all, the patient can always refuse, and secondly, even if they couldn't, all they would have to do is sit patiently throught their doctor's little speech and say "keep me alive at all cost!" And nobody would have to worry about having the plug pulled on them. In fact, if they were, in fact, forced into these consultations, it's actually less likely that they would be taken off life support against their wishes, then if they had not had the consultation. The only real objection is that, in order to get one of these consultations covered, the doctor must read from a list of options that the patient has, including do-not-resuscitate orders, and the discontinuation of life support in the event he or she ends up as a vegetable.
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