Amen!

Our founding fathers expressed intense opinions and engaged in the meat grinder of the legislative process. Out of that came principles by which we’ve lived for over two centuries. If we believe in our democracy and want it to survive, we must agree to the terms of the deal. Ignoring Constitutional dictates and the rule of law only invite chaos, anarchy and collapse.

You say “An ethical society insists that all people be treated with respect…that everyone’s entitled to their opinion, even if we think it’s stupid.”

The intense debate today isn’t about the imperfection in the realm of political policy. It is about the virus of self righteousness by those who would pursue radical socialist reforms. This is not a compromise America can afford if it is to survive.

You say “We must be willing to compromise: give a little to get a little.” How far would you go?

Congress compromises all the time. One good example is compromising American labor.

Consider former (disgraced and convicted) Microsoft K-Street lobbyist Jack Abramoff who directed $100 million in political payola between 1995 and 2000, promoting the marketing hype of a gap in labor supply relative to demand. The talent shortage argument was intended for one purpose only: to enable Microsoft and ultimately other employers with a government-sponsored corporate welfare program of employer-friendly changes to H-1B visa legislation that enabled excessive importation of foreign labor. In 2002, Nobel economics laureate Milton Friedman correctly identified the 1990 H-1B visa program as a “government subsidy” because it allows employers access to imported, highly skilled labor at below-market wages. This and later policies created a work force glut resulting in lower wages and increased unemployment for U.S. born labor/talent.

American scholar, Cal Tech Vice Provost David Goodstein pointed out that the American taxpayer is forced to support extremely expensive research universities whose main purpose is to train students from abroad who will stay here and take jobs that could have gone to Americans or go home and take our knowledge and technology with them. At Rochester Institute of Technology, Ron Hira has studied the dark side of the H-1B program. He wrote an article “Immigrants Learn Jobs, Take Them Back Home.“ The professor of public policy at Rochester notes that the top applicants for visas are outsourcing companies such as Wipro Technologies of India and Bermuda-based Accenture. The companies bring recruits in from, say, India to learn about American business. After three years here, the workers go home better able to interact with their U.S. customers.

It is obvious to any clear-thinking person that our legal immigration policy is bought and paid for by large, well-funded special interests that do not serve the interests of the majority of American citizens. There is no debate forming these policies; only corruption of elected officials. Do you suggest this as ethical compromise?

And what about former support of ACCORN? I wrote about the vile nature of this organization’s programs supporting home loans to illegal aliens over two years ago, well before the financial collapse. Now we find the criminal behavior of this enterprise supported by our tax dollars goes ever so much deeper: voter fraud, support of human trafficking to promote child prostitution, and so much more. Our politicians, all the way to the President, tried to bury this story for months. Should we compromise here too, supporting this conspiracy with another $5 billion in taxpayer funding?

Turning a blind eye to enforcing immigration laws has other even more serious consequences. According to congressional testimony, some estimates suggest more than 60,000 American citizens have lost their lives at the hand of illegal immigrants since September 11, 2001. Go back further in time and the number is much larger. Moreover, gangs have expanded exponentially, infesting our cities, towns, and schools where only 30 years ago there was no problem whatsoever. Prisons are overflowing with an illegal cohort. Drugs coming across an open border are poisoning our children and adults. Two things would have prevented nearly all of these very real tragedies: real border security and enforcement of existing employment labor laws. It’s that simple.

You will find no common ground or acceptable solutions while our politicians continue to “give a little to get a little” simply to ensure reelection. The only thing that will curb this madness and chaos is citizen activism in the town square. Sadly, right now is a time in which everyone, and I mean the average American citizen, loses.

I don't mean to be pejorative, but compromise and respect must have some context. It's time to put down the Kool-Aid.

Amen, except.....

What do you do when you are reasonably certain that one side is being dishonest, playing with numbers, deceiving, etc. in a quest for power? What do you do when the numbers offered by the other side just don't add up? And you know they know it?

I agree whole-heartedly with your brief essay, but it presumes that all people act in accordance with goodwill. If that were true, there wouldn't be so many politicians in prison.

Well said, Michael!

You have left off some reasons to not support this legislation: 1) I am a CEO of a healthcare provider and make a fortune at the current system. 2) The reasons given for how this will not raise debt are BS. 3) I am an illegal alien and it won't cover me.

Reform:

I noticed that all the questions in your poll call the proposed plan reform. Reform means: "To change for the better."

I disagree that the current proposal is, in fact, a change for the better. That is in fact what is at debate. The leaders you say we should support should be listening to their constituents and not just pushing through their ideas and agendas. Instead, they should indeed be looking at what is best for the United States as a whole.

In regards to "respect, humility and compromise," beautifully stated, Michael. And we need to be sure we do not compromise the health and quality of life of the elderly, sick or disabled, which the socialized reform would do. So we cannot remain silent and accept acts/laws of inhumanity.

While the democratic process is churning through the various proposals, there is absolutely nothing wrong with expressing our views to our representatives. Showing some emotion is similarly acceptable. Of course violence and mayhem have no place in the process. But, for example, calling a Congressman or Senator a hypocrite because he exempts himself from the proposed regulations is quite acceptable.

So many expressed their anger at the last president over his policies. Hooray for them -- they used freedom of speech to state their point and have their view known. Now many are doing the same at the current president and representatives over the current debate. Hooray for them -- they too are using the same freedoms to have their views known. Wave your signs, express disagreement with views at town halls, send letters to the editors, to the President, to your members of Congress. Join the debate.

In the end, there is almost a 100% certainty everyone will find something to dislike in the outcome. At that point it is not time to stop expressing your views and accept it. In the US, the democratic process continues. You can petition your representatives to change the program, you can go to court if you feel the program enacted violates the Constitution, you can work against those who passed it, you can contribute to advocacy groups who espouse your view. In short, in this country we can participate at any time and in many ways without having to resort to violence and without having to accept the status quo. Of course civility is required in any respectful discourse, but expressing your view and your emotions is part of the process.

"What’s bigger than the healthcare debate? Whether we want and believe in democracy."

My question is why the need to believe in anything? Democracy is merely a political theory like any other theories of its kind. Based on all the alternatives that have been presented to humankind in the post-modern era (namely autocracy, theocracy, oligarchy to name a few), this seemed to be the best option. Surprisingly, even before this theory went through the test of time, the number of believers grew exponentially. People started talking about importing and exporting democracy at any cost. So strong has been its impact that it has been elevated to the point of infallibility only comparable to how people treat the Bible, Quran or Torah. The democratic zealots cite a famous Latin phrase “Vox populi vox dei,” which literally means “voice of the people is the voice of god." Perhaps it's easier to believe in an ideology than to use one’s argumentative mind and analytical abilities to critique it until it has been proven to be stable beyond any reasonable doubt. I don’t think democracy has not passed this acid test. If one looks at the entire original sentence in Latin to understand what Alcuin of York, an astute scholar of his time, truly meant when he wrote this to King Charlemagne in 798, it goes as:

"Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit."

"And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness."

What this means clearly is that democracy is nothing but an official way of legitimizing any form of mob mentality. Painfully so, it guarantees that if a sufficiently large number of people pool together and demand something, irrespective of the nature of the demand, democracy guarantees its deliverance. Let’s remember that Adolf Hitler did not come to power through a military coup but through a legitimate democratic process. All the countries in the world today that are proud of their democratic system have failed miserably in delivering what they had promised to its subjects. Still those countries follow it religiously because it is the only way for the incompetent (if not corrupt) politicians to hold onto their positions of control and power. Democracy, at the end of the day, has become a numbers game. For every conscious and knowledgeable person, you need to find two ignorant (currently the number is well above 1,000) people.

Also, it has sadly become hostage to specific groups (sometimes demographics) acting as special interest groups against one another, which results in stalemates that run for decades while people endlessly suffer and wither away. In the USA, in terms of the economy, large corporations are snatching jobs away from the American people and shipping them overseas in the name of free trade and global business. This is the ugliest form of economic polarization where these greedy corporations strive to increase their profit margins, fill their coffers while forcing the American people to go hungry, sick and untreated. In terms of healthcare, the doctors and allied healthcare professionals, the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical corporations have formed the true axis of evil to hold this country hostage to a helpless situation of rising healthcare costs, increasing incompetence and mediocrity, falling coverage and last but certainly not least, frightening stories of ghastly treatments of unprivileged patients. Last but not least, at the core of all these problems, is uncontrollable (and illegal) influx of people from all over the world, not only through the southern border. Even if it means we cannot sustain a welfare society with unlimited number of people consuming (and depleting) a finite and limited amount of resources, the Hispanic community and the ‘Internationalists’ will never argue to control it. The government will never argue to control it. After all, more people need new and rich feeding grounds for vote-hungry politicians as long as it is people like me who are paying for the extra burden. Have we become so jaded that we are ready to bleed to death in order to appear charitable? Democracy has let these practices sustain and flourish.

Perhaps it is time to break the vicious cycle and rethink the subtlety of its limitations and inabilities. It is democracy that is supposed to protect and uphold the rights of the people and not the other way where we commit our unconditional allegiance to it. Democracy for people, not people for democracy.

Does anyone recall the Health Fair that took place in downtown Los Angeles recently? People lined up starting in the middle of the night for a chance to see a doctor or dentist because they could not afford to do so otherwise. The organization that goes around treating people was created to do this in third world countries. They discovered that their services were desperately needed in the USA because what they are seeing in this country is equivalent to what they see in third world countries.

It turned out that many of the people at the Health Fair have insurance, but the deductibles are so high they cannot afford to seek medical attention anyway. Others have medical insurance but no dental coverage. Do you know how expensive it is to have any type of major dental work? I am going to need a crown and it will cost over $1,000!

Do you realize that if you lose your job and do not have another one that enables you to obtain coverage through a group, once your COBRA runs out (18 months) you may not be able to get insurance at all or, if you can, it will easily cost you $2,000 per month and require that you pay a $5,000+ deductible before it kicks in? What average working-class or middle-class American can pay that exorbitant amount?

Assuming you can afford this, once you get really sick the insurance company will try to find a preexisting condition so they can deny coverage and cancel your policy. Or else they will simply claim you knew you were sick and that is why you got the insurance in the first place.

The people who oppose access to healthcare for everyone remind me of Ebenezer Scrooge before he is visited by the ghosts.

Is this how they propose to solve the problem of overpopulation?

Ray, great post. I would only add, since democracy is but a concept, it is the people who will defend it if it is to survive.

Michael, you said “to transcend the chaos and conflict that prevent us from solving problems, we must be willing to compromise: give a little to get a little.”

It appears you are referring to current public response as “the chaos and conflict” that is preventing us from solving problems. Indeed I hope that’s not what you mean, but if it is you are wrong. The chaos is in unacceptable public policy that serves special interests. Policy can be wrong. ACORN and Congressman Frank pushed public policy that forced banks to ignore sound lending principles and practices. That was wrong. The political pressure to lend money to unworthy creditors resulted in acceptable political lending policies and practices that were far from ideal in providing a sound housing solution. The policy and resulting practices led to the sub-prime bomb and a resultant global financial catastrophe. Instead of some winners and some losers, everyone lost; well, everyone except those like Frank who continue to hold power and most of the financial executive architects who’ve moved on to new schemes. Hopefully, the spotlight that is exposing ACORN and its myriad enterprises will extend to those in Congress who have supported the promotion of their idealized policy solutions.

Humility belongs in the halls of Congress and the Administration; not the citizens who’ve put these thieves in office. The opinions on what is good, better, and best does not require us to accept the imperfect political policy that is clearly wrong. Rather, Americans taking to the streets in protest is all that will “encourage our leaders to find humility, common ground and acceptable solutions.” What the country gets otherwise are idealized solutions and regulatory systems that end in chaos and catastrophe.

Had the people not pushed back, a bill drafted in large part by the Apollo Alliance and SEIU would have been signed, sealed and delivered without ever having been fully read or comprehended by a single member of Congress. Our President, and the ultra-liberal court he surrounds himself with are, as I write, pounding the political drum for healthcare reform; their version of what is right. No, these public servants we elect to office must be held in check if we are to maintain any balance in our system of liberties. Does healthcare need to be reformed? You bet it does, but not without deliberate debate and real compromise devoid of special interests. The only interest that should be served is that of the American people. Just as Frank and his liberal cohort should have known that forcing banks to lend to the poor and illegal aliens was imprudent public policy, so too should Obama, Pelosi, Reid and other zealots know that forcing any kind of reform, whether it be in healthcare or energy without reading the text and due diligence, is both unethical and wrong.

Wikipedia says “Congress created the Continental Army and extended the Olive Branch Petition to the crown as an attempt at reconciliation. King George III refused to receive it, issuing instead the Proclamation of Rebellion” -- kind of like Obama and his crew did in the recent joint session preach.

Finally, as my wife pointed out in a discussion at the kitchen table this morning, what if our founding fathers had not said “enough” to King George? Sometimes we must say enough; this is one of those times.

Stephanie, your comments highlight many of the very real problems with healthcare access. The costs are exorbitant, and there aren't enough service providers or facilities, which is only getting worse.

But the solution isn't a government-sponsored plan. Rather, government should put sound interstate commerce policies into place that would open up competition. Congress and the President could easily enact legislation that ensures portability and eliminates preexisting condition problems. Congress and the President could enact policies that would encourage insurers to offer reasonable deductible limits that protected insurance company and consumer downside. The utility industry offers an interesting example of rate structure and access control through public sector regulatory oversight of private sector enterprise.

Think of the current healthcare system in the context of deregulation leading to failed energy trading spawned by Enron. Our lobbyist-controlled politicians, tight with the regulators and an asleep citizenry allowed that to happen. That's what healthcare is like now.

The government's proper roll is to increase funding in healthcare provider education. Doubling the number of doctors, nurses and other practitioners would open up more access, increase competition, and contain costs.

Getting instructors to increase the number of doctors could be done by simply recruiting retiring doctors and nurses into the instructor ranks.

Where government can have a real impact is in setting policy and investing in education. A well-regulated private sector will take care of the rest.

Finally, the problem will never be resolved until immigration policy is enforce. The population of the U.S.A. according to the Census Bureau will increase by another 140 to 160 million people in the next 40 to 50 years and will reach or exceed 1 billion by 2100. Nearly all of this population growth is attributed to immigration. Total current U.S. unfunded liabilities exceed $100 trillion.

The intersection of these two trends spells disaster.

All that is needed to control the population challenge is for Congress to eliminate 14th Amendment privilege giving citizenship to those whose parents enter the country illegally. Hospitals are going broke from this insane practice. Force the politicians and regulators to do that and enforce other existing immigration laws with border control and employer enforcement and the system of healthcare delivery will mend.

I dare say that everybody who has posted thoughts here against legislation to provide universal healthcare aleady has coverage and can afford it. They are the same people who blame illegal aliens for anything they can and call every change a step toward socialism, even if there is no justification. They are saying the same things that were said when Medicare was proposed. I, and most other seniors, love my Medicare. I do not know where I would be without it. Probably would not be here to witness all this divisiveness. We do not have a very good healthcare system and pay more than any other country to get what we have. It needs to be fixed.

As an uninsured disabled person caught in the middle--they say my SSDI ($890 a month) is too much money to get Medicaid and I won't be eligible for Medicare for nearly a year, I am so scared that I will get sick that I sometimes develop symptoms. On top of that, the Republicans caused my disability by putting me in a formaldehyde-laced FEMA trailer after Katrina! Before that I was a fully functional teacher who missed one day of work in 2004-05 for illness even with being in my 50s, overweight, and working in a classroom where the mold made a teacher with allergies sneeze.
I was one tough bird who gave my children piggyback rides.

I have been uninsured before, but I had a fairly decent public hospital available. Where I am now, they delayed my cancer surgery for 5 months and then gave me an infection that lasted for 10 and resulted in more disability. I worked most of the time since 1969 making as much as $56,000 a year. Now that I can't, the government is not there for me. I am really angry at the conservative hypocrites pretending to be pro-life and Christians and not following the walk of the Savior who was radical left. He said to heal the sick and care for the poor.

I am also tired about the bitching about illegal immigrants. They are mostly hardworking people who want a better life in what was the greatest country in the world before the conservatives took over. No one should be illegal unless he or she is shown to have ties to terrorists. Jesus said to welcome strangers.

I am just real tired of the way the conservatives, backed by racists and fake Christian politico/religionists have ruined America. I am a born-again evangelical Christian who is a social-justice liberal (also called a Jimmy Carter Christian) because I have seen so much, having been a child in Birmingham in the 1960s. I know Jesus and I love America and I want it to be free and inclusive of everyone except terrorists--domestic or foreign. I think it is the government's job to use our tax money for things that benefit the people, not unnecessary, subcontracted wars that line the pockets of the president's rich friends while letting other big companies take jobs overseas where they can pay workers $1 an hour.

I read the above comments and think, "Wow. How did so many people miss the point?" Soapbox diatribes, character smears, negative assumptions, scapegoats . . .

Respect, humility, compromise. I like that much better.

I am very disappointed in the lack of character displayed by the editors. Previously I was lectured that my comments were being edited because they were too long, made comments directly to other writers, or addressed topics not directly related to the issue. And it didn't matter that their editing changed not only the context of the comments, but the tone. My complaints that they were singling me out were soundly rejected. Well, from the ramblings above it seems that their actions were indeed selective, i.e., biased against me and my opinions. It's disturbing that an otherwise well-intentioned organization can be so damaged by untrustworthy, dishonest, lying employees. Maybe before Michael tackles the wrongs in the world he should tackle the wrongs in his own backyard.

There should not be compromise with evil. To do so is to become more evil yourself. Democracy has become two wolves and a lamb sitting down to vote on what's for dinner.

Brandon, thanks for your comments. I am merely observing and trying to raise questions. My being right or wrong is redundant. I would be more than happy to be wrong a million times if it gives affordable healthcare to the millions of Americans who currently don't have it.

I am not an expert on political science and even if I was, my opinion of democracy will, in no way, determine whether it will stand out to be the only solution. My question is our blind faith and allegiance to it. As I said, democracy will flourish only when there is a collective and uniform consciousness, ethos and a sense of direction. Right now, hardly in any society in the world, that is true. We are as much divided as we can be and each of us represents a special interest group, namely ourself. Until we socially evolve to the point where we also start thinking about the collective (capitalism encourages never to think about the collective and socialism encourages only to think about the collective ... somehow people fail to mention "also"), democracy will merely be a socio-political theory that has been forcefully imposed upon us, like socialism had/has been in several parts of the world.

Well said, Mr. Ray. Your point is reinforced by Linda and her dinner analogy. She is representative of the reactionary belief that social responsibilty is automatically evil. This belief also forgets the fact that capitalism is an economic system governed by a political one (Democratic Republic), not a political one in and of itself.
You said that we need to think about the collective and the individual. We also need to remember cause and effect - it is well established that helping others also helps ourselves.
We have become so scared of socialism that we are losing our sense of community, compassion, and charity.
That is why I started my own political philosophy. I am now "Socialish."

I wish you had intervened during the tenure of our previous president and said that he deserved our respect!

With one side in near hysteria, and the other being disingenuous if not misleading, it's no wonder there is huge confusion on the subject of healthcare reform. However, the whole debate is less complex than it appears. One side is intent upon providing affordable healthcare insurance for 47 million Americans through higher taxes and deficit spending. The other side, who would shoulder a disproportionate share of the expense for universal healthcare and reap fewer of the benefits, are opposed to the plan. Somehow, the concept of actually reducing the cost of healthcare has gotten lost.

It appears that the tort lawyers have successfully defended their turf, the Insurance lobby has positioned themselves nicely to weather the controversy, and cynics might conclude that big Pharma has cut a deal that changed the focus of the debate from healthcare reform to healthcare insurance reform, assuring that the costs of pharmaceutical drugs will continue to be higher in the United States than almost anywhere in the world. The Republicans are desperate to regain their footing and will do just about anything to derail the Obama train, regardless of the consequences. The Democrats are similarly motivated to manufacture a mandate for a broad range of liberal initiatives from votes cast against the conservative, hugely unpopular previous administration and to do so before the fading popularity of the new administration tanks altogether.

There are a whole range of reasonable, pragmatic changes that could be implemented to improve the quality and affordability of healthcare in the United States, but thus far they have gotten overlooked, slandered, and lost in the crossfire of unsubstantiated claims, demonization, and infighting.

1. Encourage retail walk-in healthcare clinics where at modest cost, trained healthcare professionals (ex. RNs) could treat common ailments, recommend over-the-counter remedies, (and limited prescription drugs) and triage more serious ailments.

2. Allow credit unions and/or other (federally insured) financial institutions to offer healthcare savings accounts as a service rather than an employer-based model. These same institutions could offer group insurance policies at a lower cost than individual policies. These might take the form of catastrophic coverage policies to coordinate with the healthcare savings account reimbursements.

3. Consider funding the education of more healthcare professionals -- presumably driving down the cost of routine care -- and perhaps offer a work-study program or internship to offset/repay that tuition.

4. Tort reform. Plaintiffs are certainly due the compensatory damages they are awarded, but where is it written that punitive damages must be awarded to the plaintiffs and their lawyers? Punitive damages are a necessary deterrent, but if they were instead awarded to charitable organizations, the incentive to file spurious lawsuits would be diminished.

5. The pharmaceutical companies need to generate profits to stay in business and continue to provide and develop medicines, but why are they allowed to charge more for those medicines in the United States than elsewhere in the world? A more universal pricing policy would reduce costs for U.S. citizens as well as the U.S. government.

6. Rather than legislating healthcare, the government could draft, publish and support model group healthcare insurance plans, which then could become a standard against which all privately offered policies could be measured. It would then become much easier to comparison-shop the policies as all plans that are in compliance with the model would offer (at least) the same basic coverage. It might even be easier to administer the plans, as specific coverage would be common to all compliant plans. No insurance company, or any other entity, would be obliged or compelled to offer such plans, but those that choose to could offer private insurance plans nationally, expanding each company’s potential customer base and encouraging competition. Such plans could be negotiated, sponsored, endorsed by, or offered through, the S.B.A., banks, credit unions or other organizations. This would result in a co-op that could offer small companies and individuals access to the same healthcare programs (and lower rates) that larger companies enjoy today.

7. Excessive and possibly unnecessary testing procedures are often mentioned as one of the components of spiraling healthcare costs. Healthcare professionals explain that performing these tests is necessary to protect themselves from possible litigation. It may also be that many of these same healthcare professionals have financial interests in the facilities that perform these tests, providing an incentive to proscribe testing procedures that may not be necessary in terms of diagnosis. Greater scrutiny, disclosure, and transparency is required.

If the public option were eliminated, and the penalties associated with pay-to-play removed from the proposals under consideration, we could have a reasonable healthcare reform bill passed by October -- unless the far right and far left are successful in an odd conspiracy to kill healthcare reform altogether.