08/03/09

Health Care v. Health Scare

“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot in 1922, but that distinction could soon belong
to August after the health insurance industry concludes its campaign to smother health
care reform in the United States.

During the traditional five-week Congressional recess from early August until early September,
waves of Swift Boat-style ads will attempt to sell the idea that fixing our broken
health care system is too expensive, too complicated and somehow un-American.
The insurance industry will spend millions in the effort, but the real battle will be fought in
the viral world of the Internet, where rumors, half-truths and outright lies will rivet the public’s
attention with outrageous claims about secret horrors hidden deep in the proposed legislation.
Among the urban myths already circulating is the claim that the government will force senior
citizens to undergo counseling to encourage suicide as an alternative to expensive procedures.
This notion is being aggressively promoted on talk radio, where much of the scare
campaign will take place.

In addition to government-sponsored euthanasia, the campaign will include dire warnings
about health care rationing, higher taxes and of course, socialism. But there will be no mention
of how the current system allows insurance companies to deny coverage for preexisting
conditions or how millions of American families are regularly forced to choose between
food and medicine.

Perhaps the most outrageous claim that will be made during the August recess is the idea
that giant health insurance companies are not ruthless profiteers, but scrappy underdogs,
valiantly struggling to deliver quality health care to a deserving and grateful nation.
Speaking truth to power is a hallmark of union activists. In the days ahead, every member
should contact their lawmakers, by phone, by mail or in person and demand an end to the
chokehold that health insurance companies have had on this nation for too long.