Down with the Sickness, by Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia – Pop Art… and Chris #31

July 7, 2009 Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia 3 Comments

Dear Art & Chris,
As you know we stand upon the precipice of great change in this country. I speak, of course, of my brave stand against a public option for health care. A public option would be a government-run insurance program that would be non-profit and open to anyone. By my estimate this would cost 70 trajillion per year forever. My fellow democrats may be upset with my pledge to vote against cloture for this vote. Can you guys help me convince them of the soundness of my decision?

-Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

Senator,
Your state has an alarming 23% of its population without health insurance. A shocking number of these people would benefit from meaningful health care reform that included a public option. Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist has said that a health care plan with a public option would cost one trillion dollars over the next ten years. We know that sounds like a lot of money but it pales in comparison with the Bush tax cut. You voted for that back in 2001. That cost 1.8 trillion dollars. Instead of providing health care to the poor and sick you decided to put money back, for the most part, into the pockets of the rich. You’re really a fiscally prudent saint.

You aren’t really interested in serving your constituents are you? This would seem to be about serving your campaign contributors. You received 1.6 million dollars from health care and insurance interests in your last campaign. Health insurers who would have to give up a lot of their profits to compete with a public option and, you know, actually provide decent care to people for once. No one’s talking about putting all of the insurers out of business but it would prevent them from just cherry picking and maximizing profits so that the greater good could thrive. Perhaps in your next campaign you could instead take money from people who have the interests of your constituents more at heart. Some examples include Al Qaeda, Grisham-novel antagonists, and Gulf hurricanes.

We’re not even saying you should be compelled to vote for this. When this gets to the floor if you, in your heart of hearts, can’t support then you shouldn’t vote for it. What you should not do is help along the Republican filibuster. You are a Democrat; this is a cornerstone issue for the Democratic President. You should support cloture. This is why the left never accomplishes anything. We were told that 60 votes would finally do it. Now we have 60 votes and we’re told that we still have to do things the way of the right. If Mitch McConnell had 60 votes we would be forcing homosexuals to eat aborted fetuses as part of sex education and government surveillance cameras would film all this. Not all 60 Republicans would have voted for the bill but it damn sure would have gotten to the floor. People didn’t push the “D” lever in the voting booth because they didn’t want stuff like this. 69% of people support a public option according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Get your shit together.

In 2007 62.1% of bankruptcies in America were due to medical costs. 75% of those bankrupted had health insurance. How completely, dementedly, fucked is that? We can’t allow our safety nets to have human-sized holes in them. We have to join the rest of the civilized world in recognizing that quality health care is a basic human right. In 200 the World Health Organization ranked us 38th in health care outcomes, immediately after Costa Rica. For that 38th best ranking we pay more than any country on Earth. We tried it the all-private way and it’s failed. Let’s try something new, well not like new, like what Europe and Canada have been doing for some time. Opponents are quick to call this socialism but no one complains about our socialized highway system or our socialized military. It doesn’t seem likely there will be a public uprising against having too much access to health care.