Gunfight at the D.C. Corral

Over the past few days, I've been observing the reactions that have been spurred by the passage of the new healthcare reform bill. Not elite reaction, which is totally predictable, but rather reactions on Facebook and Twitter, which are also somewhat predictable but much more interesting. It gives a nice glimpse into the psyches of people you actually know, in some cases much more clearly than you'd like.

In the interest of full disclosure, I think the new bill is a Good Thing, which is not the same as it being a Perfect Thing. If anything, I'd have liked for it to go farther down the road of single-payer, universal coverage. The irony isn't lost on me that while most critics are accusing Obama of being some kind of secret socialist, I am arguing that he isn't socialist enough.

But it's not the specifics of the bill that interest me. As I said, it's the reactions. As soon as it was announced that the bill had passed, Facebook was deluged--at least amongst my friends--with outrage, vitriol, and scorn, not to mention what seemed like dozens of appearances of the word "comrade." The passage of relatively minor changes to the healthcare system apparently will lead to the imminent collapse of our society. Which seems strange, but I'm clearly out of touch.

The situation leads to several questions. First of all, why are people so opposed to changes in healthcare? Surely they can't believe the system's already perfect, and surely they can't believe the solution is to have LESS government control. I'm sure there are other reasons I'm not aware of, but the cynic in me sees an unbridled contempt for the poor and unemployed, which is bad enough by itself but made worse when so many of the complaints are coming from people who are themselves poor and unemployed. Could it be racism? It's prima facie plausible, but this bill will affect many more whites than it will any other race--although it should be pointed out that several of the people I know who've opposed healthcare are, in fact, admitted racists. It's an unfortunate reality of living in Mississippi, but it's one you learn to live with.

Or perhaps it's that I'm unable to look at it from an economic point of view. For me, providing healthcare for everyone is a moral necessity and can't be viewed from the perspective of dollars and cents. I thought this was a truism, but maybe I'm in the minority on this one. Am I the only one who believes that the closest thing to a real-life "death panel" is an insurance company denying coverage to a patient? To be fair, I didn't see any commenters use the term death panel, though I'm sure quite a bit of their rhetoric came from the same source. There are conflicting reports on what effect it'll have on the economy, but that just doesn't matter to me. There are ways to afford it. Canada affords it. France affords it. Every other industrialized nation affords it. Maybe if we, as a nation, could make healing our sick a higher priority than killing brown-skinned people, we could do it too. (Whoops! There's 2004 Chris coming out.)

Overall, the hysteria--and I don't think it's overreaching to call it that--has just seemed very peculiar to me. I wonder where these people were seven years ago when we started a war (two wars? three? who can keep track?) in a far-off country (countries?) for no real reason. A war that, incidentally, put American lives in a lot more jeopardy than the current healthcare bill. I know it's apples and oranges and times have changed and all that, but still I wonder... if it'd been our Hussein vs. theirs, would the support have been the same? I'll leave it to you to answer.

I like to believe that Americans are less selfish than recent days have made them seem. I like to believe we are a people that takes the injunction to "love thy neighbor" seriously, and as it's really meant. The neighbor is the poor, unemployed slacker, but it is also you and me and all the rest of us. The neighbor is the person you don't know, you aren't comfortable with, you don't understand. If "love thy neighbor" means anything, it includes them too. And for me, at least, loving thy neighbor means helping him in any way I can, even if it means contributing a few of MY hard-earned dollars to the cause to help them see a doctor. I feel no coercion, no tyrannical power forcing me to do this. It comes easily.

After all, I'm sure they'd do the same for me.