Health Care: “Don’t Question Their Motives”

“Don’t Question Their Motives”

Really?

It may be that some who wish to gut Federal support for health care genuinely believe that, in spite of all evidence, the “private sector” (meaning for-profit corporations) can do a better job. Perhaps. Not perhaps that profit-based health care is a good idea, but perhaps that some believe so. Yes, perhaps.

Or perhaps some are just ideologically downright agin’ the state. Perhaps. I am myself ideologically against the state, but that doesn’t stop me from supporting democratic socialism in the meantime. As is said, socialism without anarchism is bureaucratic oppression, but anarchism without socialism is kleptocratic tyranny.

Perhaps some of those aiming to shred the bits and pieces of what national health care we already have (Medicaid, Medicare) and fend off single-payer health care in spite of its majority popular support for at least thirty years, perhaps some of those have some rationality beyond their own personal monetary profit, their own stock portfolio, perhaps, but.

But: remember that it is entirely within the self-aggrandizement ethos of capital to have a poor and desperate mass of people. Poverty is what gives money power. For the rich, poverty makes wealth almost as good as having slaves. It is wholly within the logic of capital to have health care only available to an essentially hereditary ruling class.

I mean, duh! How can you make money from people who don’t have any? And if they can’t slave for you anymore at poverty wages, what good are they?

(And such thoughts make it challenging to maintain “loving-kindness” for all beings. Buddhist dogma states that suffering comes from our own delusion from the poisons of greed, malevolence, and confusion, and that by seeing deeply into our own essential nature we can come to true understanding. As a corollary then, that self-righteous, smirking SOB laughing all the way to the bank after stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from working people is a recipient of our prayers for the relief of all beings. . . .

I am not at all sure that the same logic and insight applies to out-of-control machines or institutions, any more than to a fire destroying a house. But maybe some wiser person can enlighten me on that.)

There have always been ways, in every society, for a few individuals to rise above the class of their birth—that is, rags to riches. Statistics show that in 21st century America, despite the exceptions of a few entrepreneurs, children of the poor overwhelmingly stay poor, and children of the rich stay rich. Irrespective of “IQ,” imagination, mental acuity, physical strength, or other native abilities.

Remember that hereditary kings have always been ready to drop their differences and squabbling to band together to put down regicidal republican threats.

There are rumors that the billionaire elite will stop at nothing to maintain their wealth, privilege, and hegemony. Their loyalty to their wealth exceeds their loyalty to any particular ideology, or to any particular country. That is, democracy is okay as long as it doesn’t threaten their status. Free speech is a lovely thing as long as it does not actually threaten their status.

And don’t think that the Constitution is any more sacred to them, if push really came to shove.

***
The Poem:

Being treated for cancer
under Medicare
at a research hospital
in California
is about as good as it gets—
and as close to single-payer health care
as we’re likely to be.

Such beauty here: faces from every continent,
skin of every tint—
in the cafeteria, in the hallways,
patients, staff, visitors,
I walk just to see them:
“They smile at me as I pass,
and I smile back.”
dreaming Whitman,
and containing (a few too many)
multitudes.