Public Increasingly Uneasy With Health Care "Reform"
Part One of Two

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Part Two discusses an amazingly tasteless episode of a television program which fortunately did not air. For comments on either part, please write daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Let's begin our end-of-the-week look at health care "reform" with quotes from four stories that appeared in yesterday's USA Today. Collectively, they tell us a great deal about the massive grassroots resistance to proposals that are steeped in (at best) misdirection, and (at worst) out-and-out distortions.

"The White House is now hoping that a viral chain letter will help revive prospects for a health care overhaul. Officials are forwarding an e-mail authored by top Obama adviser David Axelrod and urging recipients to pass it along."
     From "Obama launches e-mail campaign on health care."

"The raucous protests at congressional town-hall-style meetings have succeeded in fueling opposition to proposed health care bills among some Americans, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds -- particularly among the independents who tend to be at the center of political debates. n a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say demonstrations at the hometown sessions have made them more sympathetic to the protesters' views; 21% say they are less sympathetic. Independents by 2-to-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now.
     From "Poll: Health care views take sympathetic tilt."

"The backlash isn't fabricated, and those expressing vocal opposition are not 'un-American,' as Speaker Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer suggested on this page Monday. To the contrary, it is real, and it exists for a single, simple reason: The more the American people learn about the Democrats' health care bill, the less they like it. No one condones the actions of those who disrupt public events. Every citizen should have the opportunity to express his or her views in an orderly and respectful way. But those in Washington who dismiss the frustration of the American people and call it 'manufactured' do so at their own peril."
     From "Americans aren't going to buy health care spin, Mr. President," by House Minority Leader John Boehner.

Our single-issue concern with the various and sundry "reform" proposals has several dimensions. First (at a minimum) that abortion not be made an integral part of any new health care system, bolstered by federal subsidies and mandates that insurance plans cover abortion.

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama

Second (which has received much more attention this past week and is the focus of Part One) that changes not result in future rationing of lifesaving care, or worse.

(A third is something not many would necessarily have anticipated. Because people are vigorously insisting that elected officials address genuine concerns about provisions which might easily result in rationing care, Democrats in Congress might use this grassroots activity to lower the boom on grassroots organizations, such as National Right to Life--something they've wanted to do for years.)

Even my own middle daughter, who is brilliant and much more up to speed on politics than the average college student, was initially snookered by the work of outlets like CNN which trivialize the dangers that are a part of "Section 1233" of one of health-care bill drafted in the House and demonized those who demanded answers. So why are the Joe and Jane Citizens who show up (dismissed by Senate Major Leader Harry Reid as "evil-mongers") very apprehensive?

For starters because they can read. Consider an interview President Obama gave the New York Times a few months back which has garnered a lot of attention on the blogs the last couple of days. One commentator brilliantly summarized what Obama told Times reporter David Leonhardt.

Pro-Abortion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

"So Obama 'suspects' that the legislative process will produce some sort of independent group that can give non-determinative 'guidance' on end-of-life care for the chronically ill, with an eye towards saving money. Just don't call them death panels!"

Even some of those who think the concern is overblown are now conceding (as the Washington Post's Charles Lane did last Saturday) that Section 1233 "is not totally innocuous." As Lane wrote, Section 1233 "addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones. Supporters protest that they're just trying to facilitate choice -- even if patients opt for expensive life-prolonging care. I think they protest too much: If it's all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what's it doing in a measure to 'bend the curve' on health-care costs?" (Emphasis added.)

Indeed! We keep being told that Obama and the Democrats have a way to pay for a massive expansion of health care at the same time that Obama continues to suggest that one place (perhaps the first place) he will look are programs for older Americans, albeit supposedly by just eliminating "waste" within them.

No wonder 69% of Americans "are closely following news accounts of town hall meetings on healthcare reform," according to Gallup, and "34% say the protests make them more sympathetic to the protestors' viewpoints" as compared to 21% who "say the protests make them less sympathetic."

Perhaps most significant, 35% of Independents said the protests made them more sympathetic to the protestors' viewpoints compared to only 15% who told Gallup it made them less sympathetic.

Part Two