Opinion: When the Barack Obama man stops by selling healthcare reform
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A not-so-hypothetical scenario these days:
(Doorbell) ‘Hello. You don’t have a vicious dog, do you? I’m selling healthcare reform on your street and I want to tell you a little about it.’
‘Well, we already have healthcare insurance at work and we’re really quite happy with it.’
‘Ah, yes, but you might not have it for long because costs are spiraling out of control and...’
‘You know what? When did costs ever go down? I paid 27.9 cents a gallon for gas to the prom and $2,400 for a full year of private college.’
‘Yes, but 47 million Americans don’t have health insurance and...’
‘Well, I’m sorry for them. Truly. But right now our family is more worried about the economy and keeping our own paychecks. How’s that job jolt stimulus thing coming along that was so urgent last winter? Because we haven’t seen...’
‘That’s another issue completely. This summer I’m selling healthcare reform. We don’t have all the particulars from Nancy Pelosi and Max Baucus yet, but I can guarantee you the reforms won’t add another dime to the federal deficit.’
‘Yeah, right, and the Cubs are gonna win the World Series.’
‘They are? Even with Reed Johnson out for a month?’
‘No, don’t worry. I was wondering how you spend billions more that you don’t....
...have without adding to the deficit?’
‘We’re going to have lots of savings and tax rich people more.’
‘Seems like today’s rich people are tomorrow’s middle class.’
‘You don’t mind if others pay more taxes, do you?’
‘You know, my dinner’s getting cold. Good luck to you.’
(Doorbell). ‘I forgot to tell you we’re in a pretty big hurry to get this healthcare reform business done and I was hoping...’
‘Why? Your party’s controlled Congress for three years now. You even attended a few sessions, in fact.’
‘Well, it’s almost August.’
‘And?’
‘And I was hoping you’d....’
‘No. And so what if it’s almost August? Are we running out of months too?’
‘Ha! Good one. Well, it’s getting close to 2010 and I promised one wing of my party to get out of Guantanamo and Iraq and end ‘Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell’ and that’s all harder than I thought, so national healthcare reforms are a way of...’
‘Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it? I promised myself I’d eat a hot dinner. Goodnight.’
(Telephone rings) ‘Hi, one more thing. I was wondering if you’d write and phone your member of Congress and tell them we need healthcare reform right away and we need a government option?’
‘We like the private healthcare insurance we have.’
‘And you can keep it. Same plan. Same doctor. Same everything. The subsidized government insurance only keeps private insurance companies honest by charging less. You can keep your private plan same as now.’
‘Well, I can keep it. But why would my employer keep it if he can dump us all into a cheaper government plan?’
‘And we’ll be able to digitize all your medical records and move them electronically anywhere and...’
‘Why is that a good thing? The only ones who need to see them now are me and my doctor.’
‘And we have all these uninsured people who...Sorry, you’re breaking up. I’ll call back tomorrow.’
(E-mail ping) ‘Thank you for your support in last year’s campaign to bring real change to America that didn’t know it needed quite so much change quite so quickly. I’m going to be holding another national news conference tonight to talk only about healthcare reform -- and maybe a little about beer.
‘And tomorrow, I’ll be on a 90-minute televised town hall talking about the exact same things over and over with regular God-toting, gun-fearing people just like you. I hope you’ll click here for free instructions on organizing your own healthcare reform viewing parties where you and your friends can learn about these important reforms that will change our lives in profound ways we don’t really have time to plan for now.’
(Telephone rings) ‘Look, I’m sick of hearing your sales pitch about...’
‘I’m calling from a national polling firm. We’re measuring how Americans feel about healthcare insurance reform and the person selling it. Do you already have healthcare insurance?’
‘Yes, we do.’
‘And would you say you are unhappy with your current healthcare insurance, somewhat unhappy or greatly unhappy?’
‘Uh, we’re actually very happy with it.’
‘That’s an invalid answer. Next question: Do you think Democrats in Congress should obey their president quickly, somewhat quickly or really quickly?
‘What kind of poll is this?’
‘Have you recently talked with a healthcare insurance reform salesman?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Would you say that healthcare insurance reform salesman was very helpful in repeating the same argument over and over again, somewhat helpful in repeating that argument or extremely overexposed on this issue during these nice summer days and ought to give everyone a change to believe in by going on his own vacation early?’
-- Andrew Malcolm
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