Health Care Reform Part 2: Misinformation and a Stormy Political Climate
One of my favorite things about politics is how fast everything changes. When I last posted, just a week ago, Obama’s plan, public option and all, seemed to have a pretty good chance of a being passed relatively easily. Sure, there was some dissent and dissatisfaction, but all signs were pointing in Obama’s direction.
But before long, favor was swinging away from Obama and specifically the public option. Obama stated that he would be open to a compromise without a public option, but even so Republicans were jumping ship left and right. Senator Charles Grassley, who the New York Times singled out as one of six major bipartisan negotiators a couple of weeks ago, is now saying he won’t vote for any reform unless it has wide support from republicans, even if a bill includes everything he wants.
And now, the democrats seem to have decided to ditch the republicans and do it all themselves. On the one hand, this is obviously flying in the face of bipatisanship, which I consider very important. But on the other hand, the democrats will still be forced make their plan moderate enough to satisfy their more conservative democratic colleagues, and that could very well eliminate the public option – something I wouldn’t complain about. Except, if they do decide to ignore the GOP, the dems will also have to placate the most liberal members of congress, many of whom are still clamoring for the public option.
Suffice it to say, it could go any way from here.
But I want to take a minute to write about one reason I think everything is moving so fast. Yeah, politics always moves fast, but in this health care debate we’ve seen a huge range of political climates in a pretty short amount of time.
One culprit of this is, I think, the vast amount of misinformation swirling around this whole issue. I’m not sure where it came from, and I doubt we’ll ever know for sure if any of it was organized by the GOP, but it’s really shocking. Here are some choice quotes I’ve found that really speak for themselves, all from a town hall meeting with Arlen Specter:
“You’re trampling our constitution… You and your cronies in the government do this kind of stuff all the time… One day, God is going to stand before you and he’s going to judge you!”
“This is the Soviet Union, this is Maoist China… The people in this room want their country back.” (Protestors elsewhere called the plan Nazi. High school social studies update: Nazis and Maoists don’t mix.)
“It says plainly right here they want to limit the type of care elderly people get… They are talking about killing people.”
Not only is this kind of stuff utterly ridiculous, it’s also drowning out real information and positive, civilized debate. It wouldn’t be that bad if people who legitimately believed these things expressed their views civilly, but instead most are screaming at or heckling their congresspeople – not to mention burning/hanging them in effigy, in a few extreme cases.
Nancy Pelosi called these disruptions un-American, and while I don’t think I would go that far, I do think that the idea that popular opinion is defined by whoever can shout the loudest is a bad precedent to set.
Whatever happens next in the debate, I hope that the behavior exhibited at these town hall meetings doesn’t become the norm. If you’re angry or passionate about an issue, that’s okay – just express your opinions in a way that lets others do the same.
Photo credit: New York Times
