President Obama addresses Congress on health care, 9/9/09
President Obama addressed both houses of Congress tonight in a speech intended to boost support for his health care proposals. If you expected him to state that he’d heard the voices of the opposition and is willing to consider alternatives, you were sorely disappointed. Here is the complete text of the speech. From NYTimes.com.
In it, he implies that fierce opposition to the plan stems mainly from people bent on stopping reform in any incarnation for their own greedy and/or evil purposes. Others are either ignorant, mislead, paranoid idealogues or some combination of the above.
The reason the health care debate has been so intense is that it goes to a very fundamental issue. At the foundation of the argument is whether or not it is the proper role of government to take direct responsibility for the health and welfare of its citizens. Proponents believe it is. Opponents believe it is not. When proponents start with that premise and envision the future it will bring, they see Utopia. When opponents do the same, they see disaster.
When the President tugs at our heart strings and appeals for compassion in the form of support for his plan, it’s not touching, it’s insulting. It’s insulting because it assumes that a reasonable, compassionate, thinking adult can’t possibly be against a caretaker government. Of course if you believe a caretaker government will lead to widespread misery, supporting one wouldn’t be very compassionate, would it?
Both sides of the issue believe they are right. Both cannot be right. There are undecideds and “don’t knows” but there is no middle ground. So, where do we go from here? We could start by taking on the fundamental issue instead of dressing it up as health care reform and dancing around it. This is about collectivism versus individualism. If you have confidence in your convictions, call them by their name and let’s have the debate.
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