How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
The House of Representatives passed its health care reform bill by a chillingly close margin Saturday night. Now the ball is in the Senate's court, where the uphill battle will be much steeper. A nationalized system of medicine, paid for by a graduated tax system that would lower costs and insure all Americans — while decreasing the federal deficit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — seems like an easy sell in a country where nearly 46 million go uninsured. But conservative members of Congress have managed to whip up a fervor against any reform of health care. "They want to control you; they want to control your children, your parents, your doctor, your nurse," talk-radio host Mark Levin fulminated at the "Congressional House Call" protest on Nov. 5, sponsored by the group Americans for Prosperity.
This is the root of the argument against health care reform in America: Health care corporations are against the measure because government involvement in their field would translate into fewer profits for themselves. In order to protect their interests they have to convince (or rather, deceive) the public into believing that their interests are the people's interests. And they do this by catering to our basest emotion: fear. Fear of falsities like "death panels," as well as fear of abstract notions like the encroachment of "socialism," "Marxism" or "communism." Fear of a loss of individual rights to privacy and choice (when in fact the public option is just that — an option).
The government, on the other hand, does not concern itself with profits, and ideally, neither would the people who run it. But it is no secret (thanks to campaign disclosure forms) that those who lead us are not entirely beholden to us. The campaigns of Congress members are sponsored by many different lobbying interests, including health care companies. I will look at one senator in particular here: Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
Lieberman has been the one member of the Democratic caucus who has promised to filibuster a vote on a health care bill with a public option. He drew criticism in an article from Monday's Boston Globe for receiving "about $800,000 since 2000 from insurance industry sources." The article also notes: " ... industry-affiliated political action committees have given more generously to his campaign fund than those from any other sector." And Globe correspondent Sasha Issenberg writes, " ... insurance interests [are] more densely packed in Connecticut than any other state."
The largest of these medical industry donors is Purdue Pharma, more infamously known as the producers of OxyContin. Since 1989, Lieberman has accepted $150,100 from that company, according to opensecrets.org. Purdue Pharma is a prime example of corporate interests and people's interests rarely aligning. In 2007, Purdue Pharma was found guilty of intentionally downplaying the addictive qualities of OxyContin, as well as fabricating market campaigns and scientific studies. David Haddox, then in charge of risk management for the company, poo-pooed the plight of the thousands unintentionally hooked on the drug who had to undergo a traumatic withdrawal process. Haddox described them as merely being "pseudo-addicted" in a 2003 conference on addiction at Columbia University. Purdue Pharma was profiting not from curing their customers of their ailment, but from getting them addicted to their product.
Unfortunately, money talks, and it talks loudly. Let's just hope that the truth talks louder.
