Dim future for health care for all

No! Sadly, I don’t believe it’s dying. I believe a long-term, fair to all and comprehensive reformation is already dead, at least for this generation, for a number of reasons.

It is not just Rush Limbaugh and his policy of personal destruction of the president and the Fox News Network’s stable of "bully mouths.”

Add to that, the great accumulation of wealth available to major corporations, particularly the insurance industry, securing its power to continue controlling pricing and procedures by calling into the battle very expensive negative advertising.

Fold in the "politics of fear,” so ably exploited and executed by Karl Rove and the Bush administration and the inherent resistance to change in the human psyche, stoked by alleged specters of socialism, communism, Nazism, statism, fascism and every other ism their fertile minds are capable of conjuring up, as well as, the fictional governmental "death panels,” and you will come to realize that the elected national government of the United States may no longer principal in the sovereignty of the land, no matter how large its electoral mandate has been.

What remains clear is that a number in the insurance industry, independent HMOs and pharmaceutical companies, the radical conservatives, the Republican Party, generally, and the "bullymouths” have no intention of proposing some alternative plans to reduce this inhumane inequity and inequality but aim, only, for the personal destruction of the president, the frustration of the elected majorities in Congress and the preservation of a status quo that does not benefit even those whom they have persuaded to act against their own best interests.

The saddest thing is those poor unfortunates, those left out in the cold by the machinations of the affluent vested interests and the politically motivated conservative "bully mouths,” have no voice in their own future and must accept what dregs of medical care are left for them, if any.

What’s in it for me? Absolutely, nothing! Every corporation I ever worked for was highly moral, fair and provided excellent benefits. I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

But in my view, "what’s in it for me,” should not be the only thing the United States is all about, especially when it holds itself, principally, a Judeo-Christian nation. I reject the culture of greed descendent from Ronald Reagan and his Reaganomics of "trickle down” suffering and bubble-up wealth. If some at the bottom of the economic ladder are suffering, if the private sector cannot provide relief, it is incumbent upon the government, of whatever party, to look after its own people.

Bringing Obama down should not trump compassion. The conservatives may win this economic skirmish, again, but, also, they will be adding to their ongoing loss of the moral high ground.

So, no, sorry! I do not believe there will be an effective cost controlling, coverage guaranteeing and universal coverage legislation in this "fear obsessed” nation at this time, or any other time in the near future, as long as the industry has the big bucks to head it off and as long as there is no "fairness doctrine” to blunt the hatred, the fear-inducing, the anti-government myths and the bleatings of those ruthless conservative talk show hosts.

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After writing the above, I heard that Senator Ted Kennedy had passed away. He had called health care reform "the cause of his life” and he looked forward to being there when a president signed such a bill.

He once wrote about that in a very moving essay. He told of how, when his back was broken in an airplane crash, he lay in bed for months realizing that his family’s great wealth covered all the hundreds of thousands of dollars of costs and wondered how those less fortunate in wealth and privilege or without health coverage could have survived that experience.

He told also, in another column, how much he learned about the hospital world during his son, Edward, Jr.’s, struggle with cancer and how, in the waiting rooms, he was finding out how many families there were being financially devastated and how many parents had lost jobs for taking time off to tend to their medically suffering family members.

It is in the crucible of such experiences that life’s attitudes are forged. Anyone who knows the history of Joe Kennedy’s family, knows that all four boys were, originally, spoiled rotten by the wealth, but, among them, Bobbie and Ted were molded into humane greatness by tragedies. Ted, especially, needed to overcome Chappaquiddick, alcoholism and his family’s tradition of woman chasing and bedding, of which Jack was the master exponent.

My attitudes were not personal tragedies at all, but were forged during the days of the Great Depression, observing how Franklin Roosevelt needed to battle and cut his way through the heartless opposition of that day to salvage the lives of the hungry, the homeless and the dispossessed. Try explaining that to those who came later and look upon that era as evil bureaucratic governmental intrusion into the economy and the lives of its citizens and cling to the fantasy that the private economy can handle it all.

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We, and the National Rifle Association, need to remember that the event at our own local high school, Hillsdale, could have been a major human catastrophe if the young, disaffected ex-student had possession of firearms. A 2-foot sword and a chain saw would be like toys by comparison and he would have not have gone too far before being brought down by students and teachers. If there had been guns, the hero teacher who tackled him could have been a dead "would-be” hero and there is no telling how far the slaughter could have extended if he had come equipped with firearms.

Our community "lucked out” on that one.

Keith Kreitman has been a Foster City resident for 22 years. He is retired with degrees in political science and journalism and advanced studies in law. He is the host of "Focus on the Arts” on Peninsula TV, Channel 26. His column appears in the weekend edition.