ON HEALTH-CARE
Healthcare is a Human Right: Insurance Company Profits Make us Sick,(515)282-4781
“The Quality of Mercy Is Not Capital Gain”
Transcribed in its entirety from an article by Mona Shaw in the Dec.2009 quarterly issue of via pacis {The Peace
Road} newspaper of the Des Moines, Iowa Catholic Worker Community
“The problem is that genocide and crimes against humanity can’t be stopped with incremental change. How do
we decide who still dies?”
“But he isn’t wearing anything”. From: “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen
“Perception is reality. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. We don’t have time for the facts. We’re going to do it
the way people think it’s best to do it.”
“My boss wasn’t kidding. I had just presented him with the research I had prepared that proved a plan he wanted
me to implement would cost the department more, not save funds, as he had previously announced to his
faculty. He was up for faculty review. The “plan” was popular among the faculty. If he implemented it, he would
be viewed as responsive to their ideas. Educating them would be time-consuming, confusing, and might be
misunderstood. I complied with his directive, of course, because I, too, wanted to keep my job. The facts bore
out. The plan cost more money, but rather than concede the plan was the problem, we invented another excuse
for the outcome and then spent more funds addressing the “problem” we had invented.
“The term “genocide” didn’t exist before 1944. It is a very specific term, coined by the U.N. and refers to violent
crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out
in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of
individuals.
“On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the United Nations approved the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes “genocide” as an
international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish”. It defines genocide as:
“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
[c] Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole
or in part:
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
“It is important to note in this definition (see letter “c”) that negligence that leads to loss of life qualifies as
genocide as well as direct slaughter of the targeted group.
“There is a related term of relevance, namely “Crime Against Humanity”. A Crime against Humanity consists of
certain acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian
population, in pursuit of a state or organizational objective.
“Still, there is often scholarly quibbling about whether it is one or the other when massive death in a specific
population is driven more by political expediency than by hatred of the group. The number of deaths to qualify
as genocide is also a quibble, but generally a million deaths hit the mark. Deaths due to lack of access to
healthcare will reach that mark, if we start counting them this year, by about 2015.
“Some historians maintain it is still genocide if a group is targeted out of political ambition rather than a
constructed hatred of the group or a comprehensive intent to eliminate all members of the targeted group.
[Certainly, Tom Kuna holds that abortion, human-embryonic stem-cell “harvesting”, and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
constitute genocide against whole generations out of the “political ambition” of most Democrats and some
Republicans. And the healthcare bill as it seems to be emerging from Dem/Rep negotiations, which is actually a
massive subsidy to the coffers of private insurance firms force on the public by “law”, will perpetuate the current
genocide of our out-dated (WW II vintage) “health insurance”schemes, as will be seen by the rest of Mona Shaw’
s article].E.g. the actions of Joseph Stalin leading to the deaths of about seven million Ukrainians is considered
genocide by some scholars and not by others. In 1932-33 the former leader of the Soviet Union caused a
famine in the Ukraine because the people there were seeking independence.
“The difference of opinion also persists when considering the slower elimination of about fifty million Native
Americans following the European invasion of North America in the fifteenth century, since the objective wasn’t
necessarily to kill all native people but to occupy and appropriate their land.
“Even more controversial has been the claim the U.S. response to AIDS/HIV in the1980's was genocide.
Proponents of defining it as genocide point to the fact that more than 20,000 gay men had died before there was
any state response to the epidemic and that a response only was triggered when a significant number of
members of the dominant culture (heterosexual people)were infected by the virus. In fact [protestant
fundamentalist] leaders like Jerry Falwell fiercely resisted any response to the epidemic calling it “God’s way of
weeding his garden”{Despite Y’shuallah Ha-MasiiH’s [Jesus the Christ’s] teaching to keep the “wheat and the
weeds together till the day of judgement” (Matthew 13:29)}. And, while Falwell’s comment seems more
outrageous today, at that time it was considered a simple difference of opinion to which Falwell was entitled.
“The change in how remarks like this are viewed is relevant toward how genocide is defined. That is, massive
loss of life among a targeted group is more apt to be deemed genocide years, if not centuries after the incident
even though it was not at the time.
“In any case, the primary prerequisite test to qualify as genocide must include that “dehumanization” of the
targeted group has taken place. To begin the claim of genocide it must be established there have been
methodical and intentional schemes to cast members of the targeted group as less human or less worthy of
survival than members of the dominant culture.
“A case can be made – and likely will be made at some point in the future – that the contemporary practice of
healthcare in the United States, if allowed to persist unstopped, is genocide. As many as 100,000 people die
annually because they cannot afford healthcare. About half die because they cannot afford to have health
insurance, and the other half die because their health insurance provider will not pay for the care they need to
survive. The apartheid of healthcare access in America is glaringly obvious. The healthcare one receives in
the US depends on the healthcare one can afford. The wealthy have no fear whatsoever that they will receive
the best health available. The targeted group includes those who cannot afford the healthcare they need to
survive. Comprised primarily of the working poor, the size of the targeted group is increasingly exponentially and
proportionately to the greed and political ambition of those who benefit from insurance company profits.
“These deaths are not caused by a lack of fiscal or natural resources. Everyone in the nation could have access
to healthcare for less cost to taxpayers if corporate profit was eliminated from the equation, and few
knowledgeable people deny this. These deaths persist because corporations wield more national power than
those whose lives were lost.
“None of the incarnations of legislation seriously considered by the 111th Congress ever seriously considered
ending a significant portion, let alone all, of these deaths, though it was entirely within the scope and resources
of Congress to do so. Indeed those lives that will still be sacrificed to the god of profiteering were never
acknowledged nor mourned nor even given a moment of silence when Nancy Pelosi cheered at the passage of
HR3962 even though she knew this legislation would effectively still allow many to die.
“Even though legislation had been introduced and reintroduced since 2003 (HR676) that would have covered
everyone by eliminating insurance profiteering, this legislation was not only not taken up, it was blocked from
even mere discussion by the Speaker of the House and the White House at every turn. Even the president said
at one point, regarding healthcare reform summits, “Everything is on the table. Well, everything but HR676.”
“Why was HR676 blacked out?” This is a salient question and adds evidence that allowing thousands to die was
an intentional act by the State. Undoubtedly the motivation by the State and the Health Insurance Industry which
essentially owns and controls the State, was to avoid what they knew would be a public outcry for HR 676 if the
public learned the bill’s merits.
“Merely asking this question, however, not only pricked the ire of the State, a.k.a.,the corporate control to which
it yielded, but also vexed those whom one would assume would have been natural allies.
“Healthcare forums sponsored by “progressive” Democrats didn’t merely exclude HR 676 from their line-up.
Across the country, they banned and even had arrested activists who tried to expose the cover-up.
“We’re all for HR676,” progressive Democrats sometimes claimed, “but there’s not the political will to pass it now.”
“When pressed, some, like Iowa State Senator Jack hatch, admitted at an Iowa healthcare forum last March (at
which the keynote speaker was Blue Cross Blue Shield representative and former Iowa Governor Robert Ray)
that “political will”was not lack of public support, which by most polls was overwhelming for such a bill. “Political
will” was the lack of support of healthcare corporations who bankrolled too many Democratic election bids.
“Or, as U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said at an AARP healthcare forum in late summer, “Just because most
Americans want something doesn’t mean Congress will do it.”
“Partisan loyalty took precedence over human life. And many political progressive groups whose prestige and/or
paychecks required party loyalty capitulated. Groups like Move-On.Org, Health Care for America Now (HCAN)
and HCAN’s Iowa affiliate Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN) advocated any legislation that Nancy Pelosi said to
support.
“For example despite the fact that ICAN had distributed petitions since March for a “Public Option” that would
give Americans the ability to drop their private insurance if they so chose, their party loyalty did not waver when
they issued invitations to two events with the purpose of thanking U.S. Congressman Leonard Boswell for his
voting for HR 3962. They did this even though HR 3962 didn’t merely fall short but was completely contrary to
what they had promised the thousands who signed their petitions that legislation they supported should include.
“HR 3962, in fact, rendered Americans with not more, but less choice, than they’d had before. Rather than being
able to drop expensive private health insurance for a “public option,” Americans would now be required by law to
keep paying those premiums. Further, those who had opted to stay uninsured rather than pay high private
insurance premiums would not be forced by law to buy private insurance whether they wanted to or not.
“Affordability” would no longer be determined by the budgetary needs of families but by the State with the
determination heavily administered by private health insurance companies. Additionally, rather than helping “all”,
the bill’s authors admitted HR 3962 would still leave twenty million people without access to healthcare, an
estimate it is reasonable to believe will be far less than reality. (The Senate bill is even worse and will not –
because it cannot – improve this.)
“When this betrayal was pointed out, ICAN conceded in an e-mail that, “While we may wish that the house bill
provided even more relief, it currently includes provisions that will make real improvements in the lives of
Americans that may compare with the passage of Medicare and Social Security.”
“How the word “may” was intended in this statement is hard to know. Suffice it to say that ICAN did not, because
it could not, specify what these “real improvements” were. Certainly, the faulty analogy made between HR3962
and the Medicare and Social Security Acts quickly falls apart under even superficial scrutiny, if for no other
reason than that neither of the latter two acts required Americans to enroll in either program, let alone forced
them to be consumers of any private industry. What was clearer in this statement the implication that to “wish”
for something more, i.e. to save those lives that would be lost under this legislation, was idealist and even
frivolous, like wanting more frosting on an already delicious cake.
“When all else failed, Democrats pulled out their most tired clichés and canards. Phrases like “politics is the art of
compromise” and “crafting legislation is like watching sausage made” were regurgitated ad nauseam as if they
had justifiable meaning. “Incremental change” morphed into an ethic that was held higher than committing what
could morally if not legally be described as the negligent homicide of thousands. The problem is that genocide
and crimes against humanity can’t be stopped with incremental change. How do we decide who still dies?
“Perhaps the most cynical scam pulled on the American public was that there ever was real struggle for the
passage of HR3962. The evidence for this was apparent from the beginning when Senators Max Baucus (D-
Montana) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) were name chairs of the Finance Committee forums on healthcare
reform. Both are among the top 3 Senate recipients of campaign contributions from health insurance
companies. The obvious conflict of interest in this was not par-ticularly challenged by many “progressives”who
remained inclined to give the new administration “a chance”. Consequently, the bulk of the legislation crafted in
the House and the Senate was written by health insurance industry staff, making sure every provision ultimately
included a strong financial benefit for the companies they represented. The predestined and accomplished goal
was that anything that happened was to be a windfall for the insurance companies.
“Meanwhile, a faux public battle was waged with a handful of “tea-baggers” (the instigating ones likely hired by
private insurance) and given ridiculously overblown coverage by national news media that was undoubtedly
catapulting to the millions it received from the health insurance industry in advertizing revenues. (Not
coincidentally, the hundreds to thousands who demonstrated and rallied for HR 676 – including the more than
200 arrested at these actions – were never given a moment of air-time by national media. Concurrently,
Organizing for America 9OFA), Obama’s grass roots group, staged events to “stand up to big insurance” by
supporting the Obama Plan, while behind the scenes the White House was arm-twisting reluctant legislators to
give-into health insurance company demands. What was portrayed as a “win-lose” struggle for the American
People was never more than a win-win game for private insurance, with insurance company executives chortling
all the way to the bank, knowing they would make out like the bandits they are either way. In the end House
Representatives mostly voted according to their roles in this theatrical performance. It should not be considered
a coincidence that the outcome that most financially benefitted private insurance was the one that won.
“Another pocket of resistance to espousing all of this came from anarchists and even a few Catholic Workers
who worried, among other worries, that HR 676 gave too much power to the State. Even though HR 676
significantly diminished State power over access to health care (in that the only State involvement was to
appropriate funds to pay medical bills) compared to the current practice and that both had far less State
intrusion than the legislation the 111th Congress advanced, they balked at being perceived to support any
legislation offered by the State. The suggestion that US healthcare practices were inextricably tied to war
(because war funding and healthcare corporations themselves are inextricable)was met with particular
skepticism, as if how people were killed and where they were killed for corporate profit made them any less dead.
These concerns remain inchoate and beg further discussion and questions. How can one call for Congress to
use war spending for healthcare and resist legislation that does that? Can anarchists sometimes step aside from
fundamentalist ideology when a State act saves life and liberty – such as the Emancipation Proclamation, the
Martin Luther King-driven Civil Rights Act, or the enfranchisement of women?
“Still, the influence of Catholic Workers was ubiquitous in the resistance to Congressional lies regarding
healthcare reform. Nearly every organized action included a current or former Catholic Worker. The first
resistance action before a health insurance company was organized by the Des Moines Catholic Worker
community and led to the arrest of nine at Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield in Des Moines. Hundreds followed
their lead and 183 were arrested at sit-ins at other insurance companies throughout the nation. Those arrested
included Sam Pullen, a member of the Center for the Working Poor Catholic Worker Community in Los Angeles.
Sam’s witness included refusing bail, remaining in jail, and a hunger strike to draw attention to those who suffer
and die because they are denied healthcare.
“Their efforts were not completely in vain and pushed two amendments toward consideration that would have at
least ameliorated the viciousness of HR 3962. One, an amendment put forward by Anthony Weiner of New York
replaced the entire bill with a single-payer provision. While certainly doomed to fail, the amendment would at
least have identified with some surety which House Representatives really did support HR676 and which did
not.. This “is you is or is you ain’t my baby” hope was stripped by none other than President Obama himself,
who personally strong-armed Weiner into dropping the amendment late on the night before the vote.
“Capitalism is most insidiously evil when it commodifies and restricts access to resources human beings need in
order to survive. Accomplishing this first requires diminishing and dehumanizing those who will not or cannot
comply. Human beings are reduced to their value as consumers, financial contributors or investors. Human
beings that cannot provide capital gain – the poor and unemployed or under-employed or those who decline to
be cannon fodder in wars for profit, [the pre-born, the aged and the infirm]– capitalism considers not worth
saving. They are in fact a barrier to profit growth and so, the dominant culture, or the culture that dominates (the
wealthy, corporate owners and shareholders) inflict conditions that allow them to die. Rather than shown
compassion, the dying and suffering are blamed for the conditions over which they have no power and are
shamed as lazy, irresponsible or unpatriotic.
“Perception is not reality. Reality is reality. Pretending something is other than it is doesn’t position us to change
what it is. Still, when the word “genocide” is used in connection with healthcare, some take umbrage, as if
somehow suggesting an atrocity in these intentional deaths somehow diminishes lives lost in other atrocities
“It may be this umbrage that is the best evidence for such consideration. It is the lack of intense populist outrage
that proves our collective dehumanization of those who will die. The seamless accomplishment of this by itself
stands as justification for investigating healthcare practice in the U.S. as pending genocide. History has certainly
and repeatedly shown powers and populace choosing to ignore or minimize acts of genocide at their nascence.
And history has shamed us later when we know the massive body count could have been much less if we’d not
called early critics “reactionary” or “extremist”. It only gets serious when its our child, parent, spouse or friend.
“This column is a prologue begging for such consideration. Perhaps this time we can interrupt the mounting body
count before such an ascription is undeniable. The longer we delay this rather than demand an end to our
ghoulish national practice in healthcare, an ever-increasing share of us will be added to the targeted group of
disposable humanity.
“The Empire does not need a wardrobe adjustment. The Empire is naked and naked with the shame of this
inhumanity to man. Those of us who care must, at the very least, call it what it is.”
Tom Kuna, the contender for US Senator from Illinois, backs a universal single-payer, universal health-care plan
paid out of general revenues, while still inviting private insurers to offer supplementary coverage. This has
proven always and everywhere to be the most cost-effective way to get the best healthcare for the most people.
The reason neither Democrats nor Republicans openly espouse this (except for Ted Kennedy, who always
wanted Medicare for all – which even some Tea Party partisans espouse) is that the private insurance industry is
a major player in the stock market, lending stability and capital gains to the corporate elite. So Mona is quite
correct that the reason healthcare is such a mess is the long-term greed of the corporate elite. At least we
Republicans don’t want the corporate elite feeding at the public’s expense, as HR 3962 would. My Republican
Congressman, John Shimkus, had made a motion on sub-committee to provide the public the same health-care
plan as Congress has, which is essentially a publicly-funded single-payer system. The Chairman, Democrat
Henry Waxman, ruled it out of order. It appears more and more that the Democrats represent the big corporate
elite allied with big labor, and the Republicans represent the competitive Maine Street business community. Now,
if we can only get the Republicans to also represent rank and file workers with 20-4-40 Plus EICs, and universal,
single-payer health insurance with optional private supplementary health insurance, we’ll be the majority party
again, representing Maine Street, both blue and white collar, and not Wall Street, as the Democrats do, pulling
the wool over they eyes of most labor unionists.
Healthcare is a Human Right: Insurance Company Profits Make us Sick,(515)282-4781
“The Quality of Mercy Is Not Capital Gain”
Transcribed in its entirety from an article by Mona Shaw in the Dec.2009 quarterly issue of via pacis {The Peace
Road} newspaper of the Des Moines, Iowa Catholic Worker Community
“The problem is that genocide and crimes against humanity can’t be stopped with incremental change. How do
we decide who still dies?”
“But he isn’t wearing anything”. From: “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen
“Perception is reality. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. We don’t have time for the facts. We’re going to do it
the way people think it’s best to do it.”
“My boss wasn’t kidding. I had just presented him with the research I had prepared that proved a plan he wanted
me to implement would cost the department more, not save funds, as he had previously announced to his
faculty. He was up for faculty review. The “plan” was popular among the faculty. If he implemented it, he would
be viewed as responsive to their ideas. Educating them would be time-consuming, confusing, and might be
misunderstood. I complied with his directive, of course, because I, too, wanted to keep my job. The facts bore
out. The plan cost more money, but rather than concede the plan was the problem, we invented another excuse
for the outcome and then spent more funds addressing the “problem” we had invented.
“The term “genocide” didn’t exist before 1944. It is a very specific term, coined by the U.N. and refers to violent
crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out
in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of
individuals.
“On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the United Nations approved the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes “genocide” as an
international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish”. It defines genocide as:
“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
[c] Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole
or in part:
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
“It is important to note in this definition (see letter “c”) that negligence that leads to loss of life qualifies as
genocide as well as direct slaughter of the targeted group.
“There is a related term of relevance, namely “Crime Against Humanity”. A Crime against Humanity consists of
certain acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian
population, in pursuit of a state or organizational objective.
“Still, there is often scholarly quibbling about whether it is one or the other when massive death in a specific
population is driven more by political expediency than by hatred of the group. The number of deaths to qualify
as genocide is also a quibble, but generally a million deaths hit the mark. Deaths due to lack of access to
healthcare will reach that mark, if we start counting them this year, by about 2015.
“Some historians maintain it is still genocide if a group is targeted out of political ambition rather than a
constructed hatred of the group or a comprehensive intent to eliminate all members of the targeted group.
[Certainly, Tom Kuna holds that abortion, human-embryonic stem-cell “harvesting”, and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
constitute genocide against whole generations out of the “political ambition” of most Democrats and some
Republicans. And the healthcare bill as it seems to be emerging from Dem/Rep negotiations, which is actually a
massive subsidy to the coffers of private insurance firms force on the public by “law”, will perpetuate the current
genocide of our out-dated (WW II vintage) “health insurance”schemes, as will be seen by the rest of Mona Shaw’
s article].E.g. the actions of Joseph Stalin leading to the deaths of about seven million Ukrainians is considered
genocide by some scholars and not by others. In 1932-33 the former leader of the Soviet Union caused a
famine in the Ukraine because the people there were seeking independence.
“The difference of opinion also persists when considering the slower elimination of about fifty million Native
Americans following the European invasion of North America in the fifteenth century, since the objective wasn’t
necessarily to kill all native people but to occupy and appropriate their land.
“Even more controversial has been the claim the U.S. response to AIDS/HIV in the1980's was genocide.
Proponents of defining it as genocide point to the fact that more than 20,000 gay men had died before there was
any state response to the epidemic and that a response only was triggered when a significant number of
members of the dominant culture (heterosexual people)were infected by the virus. In fact [protestant
fundamentalist] leaders like Jerry Falwell fiercely resisted any response to the epidemic calling it “God’s way of
weeding his garden”{Despite Y’shuallah Ha-MasiiH’s [Jesus the Christ’s] teaching to keep the “wheat and the
weeds together till the day of judgement” (Matthew 13:29)}. And, while Falwell’s comment seems more
outrageous today, at that time it was considered a simple difference of opinion to which Falwell was entitled.
“The change in how remarks like this are viewed is relevant toward how genocide is defined. That is, massive
loss of life among a targeted group is more apt to be deemed genocide years, if not centuries after the incident
even though it was not at the time.
“In any case, the primary prerequisite test to qualify as genocide must include that “dehumanization” of the
targeted group has taken place. To begin the claim of genocide it must be established there have been
methodical and intentional schemes to cast members of the targeted group as less human or less worthy of
survival than members of the dominant culture.
“A case can be made – and likely will be made at some point in the future – that the contemporary practice of
healthcare in the United States, if allowed to persist unstopped, is genocide. As many as 100,000 people die
annually because they cannot afford healthcare. About half die because they cannot afford to have health
insurance, and the other half die because their health insurance provider will not pay for the care they need to
survive. The apartheid of healthcare access in America is glaringly obvious. The healthcare one receives in
the US depends on the healthcare one can afford. The wealthy have no fear whatsoever that they will receive
the best health available. The targeted group includes those who cannot afford the healthcare they need to
survive. Comprised primarily of the working poor, the size of the targeted group is increasingly exponentially and
proportionately to the greed and political ambition of those who benefit from insurance company profits.
“These deaths are not caused by a lack of fiscal or natural resources. Everyone in the nation could have access
to healthcare for less cost to taxpayers if corporate profit was eliminated from the equation, and few
knowledgeable people deny this. These deaths persist because corporations wield more national power than
those whose lives were lost.
“None of the incarnations of legislation seriously considered by the 111th Congress ever seriously considered
ending a significant portion, let alone all, of these deaths, though it was entirely within the scope and resources
of Congress to do so. Indeed those lives that will still be sacrificed to the god of profiteering were never
acknowledged nor mourned nor even given a moment of silence when Nancy Pelosi cheered at the passage of
HR3962 even though she knew this legislation would effectively still allow many to die.
“Even though legislation had been introduced and reintroduced since 2003 (HR676) that would have covered
everyone by eliminating insurance profiteering, this legislation was not only not taken up, it was blocked from
even mere discussion by the Speaker of the House and the White House at every turn. Even the president said
at one point, regarding healthcare reform summits, “Everything is on the table. Well, everything but HR676.”
“Why was HR676 blacked out?” This is a salient question and adds evidence that allowing thousands to die was
an intentional act by the State. Undoubtedly the motivation by the State and the Health Insurance Industry which
essentially owns and controls the State, was to avoid what they knew would be a public outcry for HR 676 if the
public learned the bill’s merits.
“Merely asking this question, however, not only pricked the ire of the State, a.k.a.,the corporate control to which
it yielded, but also vexed those whom one would assume would have been natural allies.
“Healthcare forums sponsored by “progressive” Democrats didn’t merely exclude HR 676 from their line-up.
Across the country, they banned and even had arrested activists who tried to expose the cover-up.
“We’re all for HR676,” progressive Democrats sometimes claimed, “but there’s not the political will to pass it now.”
“When pressed, some, like Iowa State Senator Jack hatch, admitted at an Iowa healthcare forum last March (at
which the keynote speaker was Blue Cross Blue Shield representative and former Iowa Governor Robert Ray)
that “political will”was not lack of public support, which by most polls was overwhelming for such a bill. “Political
will” was the lack of support of healthcare corporations who bankrolled too many Democratic election bids.
“Or, as U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said at an AARP healthcare forum in late summer, “Just because most
Americans want something doesn’t mean Congress will do it.”
“Partisan loyalty took precedence over human life. And many political progressive groups whose prestige and/or
paychecks required party loyalty capitulated. Groups like Move-On.Org, Health Care for America Now (HCAN)
and HCAN’s Iowa affiliate Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN) advocated any legislation that Nancy Pelosi said to
support.
“For example despite the fact that ICAN had distributed petitions since March for a “Public Option” that would
give Americans the ability to drop their private insurance if they so chose, their party loyalty did not waver when
they issued invitations to two events with the purpose of thanking U.S. Congressman Leonard Boswell for his
voting for HR 3962. They did this even though HR 3962 didn’t merely fall short but was completely contrary to
what they had promised the thousands who signed their petitions that legislation they supported should include.
“HR 3962, in fact, rendered Americans with not more, but less choice, than they’d had before. Rather than being
able to drop expensive private health insurance for a “public option,” Americans would now be required by law to
keep paying those premiums. Further, those who had opted to stay uninsured rather than pay high private
insurance premiums would not be forced by law to buy private insurance whether they wanted to or not.
“Affordability” would no longer be determined by the budgetary needs of families but by the State with the
determination heavily administered by private health insurance companies. Additionally, rather than helping “all”,
the bill’s authors admitted HR 3962 would still leave twenty million people without access to healthcare, an
estimate it is reasonable to believe will be far less than reality. (The Senate bill is even worse and will not –
because it cannot – improve this.)
“When this betrayal was pointed out, ICAN conceded in an e-mail that, “While we may wish that the house bill
provided even more relief, it currently includes provisions that will make real improvements in the lives of
Americans that may compare with the passage of Medicare and Social Security.”
“How the word “may” was intended in this statement is hard to know. Suffice it to say that ICAN did not, because
it could not, specify what these “real improvements” were. Certainly, the faulty analogy made between HR3962
and the Medicare and Social Security Acts quickly falls apart under even superficial scrutiny, if for no other
reason than that neither of the latter two acts required Americans to enroll in either program, let alone forced
them to be consumers of any private industry. What was clearer in this statement the implication that to “wish”
for something more, i.e. to save those lives that would be lost under this legislation, was idealist and even
frivolous, like wanting more frosting on an already delicious cake.
“When all else failed, Democrats pulled out their most tired clichés and canards. Phrases like “politics is the art of
compromise” and “crafting legislation is like watching sausage made” were regurgitated ad nauseam as if they
had justifiable meaning. “Incremental change” morphed into an ethic that was held higher than committing what
could morally if not legally be described as the negligent homicide of thousands. The problem is that genocide
and crimes against humanity can’t be stopped with incremental change. How do we decide who still dies?
“Perhaps the most cynical scam pulled on the American public was that there ever was real struggle for the
passage of HR3962. The evidence for this was apparent from the beginning when Senators Max Baucus (D-
Montana) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) were name chairs of the Finance Committee forums on healthcare
reform. Both are among the top 3 Senate recipients of campaign contributions from health insurance
companies. The obvious conflict of interest in this was not par-ticularly challenged by many “progressives”who
remained inclined to give the new administration “a chance”. Consequently, the bulk of the legislation crafted in
the House and the Senate was written by health insurance industry staff, making sure every provision ultimately
included a strong financial benefit for the companies they represented. The predestined and accomplished goal
was that anything that happened was to be a windfall for the insurance companies.
“Meanwhile, a faux public battle was waged with a handful of “tea-baggers” (the instigating ones likely hired by
private insurance) and given ridiculously overblown coverage by national news media that was undoubtedly
catapulting to the millions it received from the health insurance industry in advertizing revenues. (Not
coincidentally, the hundreds to thousands who demonstrated and rallied for HR 676 – including the more than
200 arrested at these actions – were never given a moment of air-time by national media. Concurrently,
Organizing for America 9OFA), Obama’s grass roots group, staged events to “stand up to big insurance” by
supporting the Obama Plan, while behind the scenes the White House was arm-twisting reluctant legislators to
give-into health insurance company demands. What was portrayed as a “win-lose” struggle for the American
People was never more than a win-win game for private insurance, with insurance company executives chortling
all the way to the bank, knowing they would make out like the bandits they are either way. In the end House
Representatives mostly voted according to their roles in this theatrical performance. It should not be considered
a coincidence that the outcome that most financially benefitted private insurance was the one that won.
“Another pocket of resistance to espousing all of this came from anarchists and even a few Catholic Workers
who worried, among other worries, that HR 676 gave too much power to the State. Even though HR 676
significantly diminished State power over access to health care (in that the only State involvement was to
appropriate funds to pay medical bills) compared to the current practice and that both had far less State
intrusion than the legislation the 111th Congress advanced, they balked at being perceived to support any
legislation offered by the State. The suggestion that US healthcare practices were inextricably tied to war
(because war funding and healthcare corporations themselves are inextricable)was met with particular
skepticism, as if how people were killed and where they were killed for corporate profit made them any less dead.
These concerns remain inchoate and beg further discussion and questions. How can one call for Congress to
use war spending for healthcare and resist legislation that does that? Can anarchists sometimes step aside from
fundamentalist ideology when a State act saves life and liberty – such as the Emancipation Proclamation, the
Martin Luther King-driven Civil Rights Act, or the enfranchisement of women?
“Still, the influence of Catholic Workers was ubiquitous in the resistance to Congressional lies regarding
healthcare reform. Nearly every organized action included a current or former Catholic Worker. The first
resistance action before a health insurance company was organized by the Des Moines Catholic Worker
community and led to the arrest of nine at Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield in Des Moines. Hundreds followed
their lead and 183 were arrested at sit-ins at other insurance companies throughout the nation. Those arrested
included Sam Pullen, a member of the Center for the Working Poor Catholic Worker Community in Los Angeles.
Sam’s witness included refusing bail, remaining in jail, and a hunger strike to draw attention to those who suffer
and die because they are denied healthcare.
“Their efforts were not completely in vain and pushed two amendments toward consideration that would have at
least ameliorated the viciousness of HR 3962. One, an amendment put forward by Anthony Weiner of New York
replaced the entire bill with a single-payer provision. While certainly doomed to fail, the amendment would at
least have identified with some surety which House Representatives really did support HR676 and which did
not.. This “is you is or is you ain’t my baby” hope was stripped by none other than President Obama himself,
who personally strong-armed Weiner into dropping the amendment late on the night before the vote.
“Capitalism is most insidiously evil when it commodifies and restricts access to resources human beings need in
order to survive. Accomplishing this first requires diminishing and dehumanizing those who will not or cannot
comply. Human beings are reduced to their value as consumers, financial contributors or investors. Human
beings that cannot provide capital gain – the poor and unemployed or under-employed or those who decline to
be cannon fodder in wars for profit, [the pre-born, the aged and the infirm]– capitalism considers not worth
saving. They are in fact a barrier to profit growth and so, the dominant culture, or the culture that dominates (the
wealthy, corporate owners and shareholders) inflict conditions that allow them to die. Rather than shown
compassion, the dying and suffering are blamed for the conditions over which they have no power and are
shamed as lazy, irresponsible or unpatriotic.
“Perception is not reality. Reality is reality. Pretending something is other than it is doesn’t position us to change
what it is. Still, when the word “genocide” is used in connection with healthcare, some take umbrage, as if
somehow suggesting an atrocity in these intentional deaths somehow diminishes lives lost in other atrocities
“It may be this umbrage that is the best evidence for such consideration. It is the lack of intense populist outrage
that proves our collective dehumanization of those who will die. The seamless accomplishment of this by itself
stands as justification for investigating healthcare practice in the U.S. as pending genocide. History has certainly
and repeatedly shown powers and populace choosing to ignore or minimize acts of genocide at their nascence.
And history has shamed us later when we know the massive body count could have been much less if we’d not
called early critics “reactionary” or “extremist”. It only gets serious when its our child, parent, spouse or friend.
“This column is a prologue begging for such consideration. Perhaps this time we can interrupt the mounting body
count before such an ascription is undeniable. The longer we delay this rather than demand an end to our
ghoulish national practice in healthcare, an ever-increasing share of us will be added to the targeted group of
disposable humanity.
“The Empire does not need a wardrobe adjustment. The Empire is naked and naked with the shame of this
inhumanity to man. Those of us who care must, at the very least, call it what it is.”
Tom Kuna, the contender for US Senator from Illinois, backs a universal single-payer, universal health-care plan
paid out of general revenues, while still inviting private insurers to offer supplementary coverage. This has
proven always and everywhere to be the most cost-effective way to get the best healthcare for the most people.
The reason neither Democrats nor Republicans openly espouse this (except for Ted Kennedy, who always
wanted Medicare for all – which even some Tea Party partisans espouse) is that the private insurance industry is
a major player in the stock market, lending stability and capital gains to the corporate elite. So Mona is quite
correct that the reason healthcare is such a mess is the long-term greed of the corporate elite. At least we
Republicans don’t want the corporate elite feeding at the public’s expense, as HR 3962 would. My Republican
Congressman, John Shimkus, had made a motion on sub-committee to provide the public the same health-care
plan as Congress has, which is essentially a publicly-funded single-payer system. The Chairman, Democrat
Henry Waxman, ruled it out of order. It appears more and more that the Democrats represent the big corporate
elite allied with big labor, and the Republicans represent the competitive Maine Street business community. Now,
if we can only get the Republicans to also represent rank and file workers with 20-4-40 Plus EICs, and universal,
single-payer health insurance with optional private supplementary health insurance, we’ll be the majority party
again, representing Maine Street, both blue and white collar, and not Wall Street, as the Democrats do, pulling
the wool over they eyes of most labor unionists.
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