Fleabags

I've had the opportunity to visit a lot of museums in my life--partly a result of my parents' concerted effort at giving their two rambunctious boys some "culture," partly because I'm kind of a geek that way--and while I've gotten to see some pretty impressive stuff, one very small painting has managed to imprint itself on my brain, still vivid after nearly 13 years:

This is William Blake's "Soul of a Flea," or perhaps "Ghost of a Flea": either way, it was in London's Tate Gallery, and was tiny, just a few inches high, which seemed appropriate given that it was, well, the soul of a flea.

I was reminded of it after reading a review of a new movie, "Cold Souls," which purportedly depicts its protagonist's soul as something akin to a chickpea--and an extractable, storable chickpea-like soul at that.

To be honest, I don't care much about the movie (though I do enjoy Paul Giamatti), but I was struck by the reviewer's final summation: "In this attractive, smart-enough, finally un-brave movie Ms. Barthes (the director) peeks at the dark comedy of the soul only to beat a quick, pre-emptive retreat."

Well, if that doesn't describe the current push to overhaul healthcare and health insurance, I don't know what does. It's not that anyone is being a coward, exactly, but our elected officials certainly seem "un-brave" and all too willing to beat too quick a retreat. Can't someone just grow a pair? Mr. President? Rahm? (Well, I think they've both got the cajones, I'm just a little unclear on what the plan is, you see.)

Anyhow, and I know I've been yammering on about this, but what with Brett Favre suddenly apperating into the Vikings' training camp, I'm being forced to return to this theme. (You can read back a few posts to catch my drift.)

Of course, if I'm being honest with myself, I'd have to admit that I don't always have the gall and gumption I'd like to pretend I have. We can all be cowards in our own way, it's just that cowardice can take so many forms. Some of us are cowardly lions, others more like scuttling, devilish fleas. The un-brave are truly legion.

All this reminds me of my favorite passage from the Qur'an, which I'm too lazy to look up at the moment, but goes something like this: "When you see an injustice, change it with your hand. If you cannot do this, change it with your voice. If you cannot do this, change it with your mind." Then follows an admonishment about the weakness of humans, how too often we resort to some kind of mental trickery, condemning what we see within our own thoughts, but too timid to raise an objection or reach out and put a stop to the wrongs we see committed. (And then, the irony of blogging--brave enough to vent, too scared to act, often even too scared to put one's real name on their thoughts.)

The question is, Where do we go from here? One choice or another, something needs to be done.

P.S. Who says one can't relate healthcare reform to football, fleas, testicles, and the Qur'an?

The Wild Rumpus Is Ongoing

At the end of July, I posted a rather lengthy musing on the nuttiness of America as an idea, a celebration of it even, with an appeal to a more generous appreciation for our diversity. A friend offered a thoughtful response, suggesting that there is no one America, and that to love it or hate it is, in effect, a category mistake.

Yesterday, I complained about some of the insanity that has taken over the debate about health-care. These things are related, at least in the sense we are fighting over definitions of "America" and "patriotism" and "civil discourse." When protesters disrupted former President Bush's public events, the right-wing complained that they were subverting America. Now, when protesters disrupt town hall meetings of their elected representatives, the other side is taking up that same call of anti-Americanism.

It's a Wild Rumpus that would make Max proud:

Passing over for the moment the thrill I get at seeing my favorite childhood story brought to the big screen, where do we go from here? When does a Wild Rumpus serve a greater good and when does it destroy or distract from meaningful work?

And I do mean work: one of the beautiful things about Where the Wild Things Are is its seriousness of purpose, its attention to both the fears and strength of children, its recognition that play is a serious business, and that it is part of the work of growing up.

So what does this say about America? Are we naughty children who are on the verge of being sent to our beds without our supper? It's starting to appear that way: as a society, we're behaving with all the self-restraint of spoiled children throwing a tantrum.

I don't mean by this to suggest that dispute and disagreement should be suppressed, far from it. But I do mean that if we want to build a more civil society, we need to start acting with civility towards one another. Max was banished to his room where he embarked on his Wild adventure, only to learn that there was not a permanent home for him in the land of the Wild Things.

Maybe we're on our own journey of self-discovery, and we need this period of child-like fantasia and excess in order to remember the good of a more ordered world. I have hoped that we are a more mature nation than that, but that's me being idealistic. Instead, we seem to revel in the madness, throwing rhetorical bombs, screaming, and running rampant over each other. Maybe we need this, an exorcism of our social monsters, an indulgence of our ids, in order to grow up.

At the very least, let's hope the adults are kind enough to leave a bowl of soup in our rooms when we return to our senses. And that it's still warm.

The Cost of Stupidity

My apologies for what will be a highly wonky discussion today, but I’ve been increasingly concerned about the level of conversation about health-care reform as of late, and it’s tough to further that along without some degree of, well, seriousness.

I’m going to start by attempting to distill a conversation I had with a stranger yesterday, a person who has worked for the American Medical Association for a number of years. This isn’t verbatim, but it gets to the heart of it:

Stranger: I oppose Obama’s Socialized Medicine.

Me: Socialized Medicine? That’s not how I understand the bill currently being put together by Congress, but please, what don’t you like?

Stranger: It would do away with CPTs (Common Procedural Terminology).

Me: What’s that?

Stranger: Doctors use them as codes to get reimbursed from Medicare and insurance companies. The AMA has proprietary rights to them, even though they are required by Congress, and Obama’s Socialized Medicine would take away those rights.

Me: Isn’t the AMA a non-profit? Who do CPTs benefit? And who would be hurt if the rights to them would be taken away?

Stranger: Lots of people. The AMA licenses CPTs, so they’d lose money.

[Sidebar: The licensing for these terms—a bureaucratic device—net the AMA approximately $70 million per year, even though they are supposed to be a “common standard.” I don’t know lots about them, but it seems odd that terminology meant to make health-care efficient becomes a money-making device.]

Stranger: Besides, tell me what’s wrong with people showing up at an emergency room and getting treatment first and only worrying about payment later?

Me: Nothing’s wrong with giving treatment to the sick, ill, and injured! That’s great! But it does have a real cost—can’t we have a more efficient system and still treat people?

Stranger: You’re right, it does cost money, it raises my insurance premiums. It’s like property taxes—I don’t have kids, but through my property taxes I’m paying to educate other peoples' children. I don’t like that, it’s not my choice. I don’t want to pay for that.

Me: But you already are paying to treat other people. Like you said, higher insurance premiums are effectively funding universal care, its just doing it in the most inefficient manner possible. Wouldn’t it be better, like with car insurance, to require that everyone have it so that we can all share the burden and bring down costs?

Stranger: Well, I don’t want to pay for anyone else.

This conversation drove me crazy. Health-care costs are out of control, we are subsidizing a reactionary system through extremely inefficient means, and nobody is happy, but phrases like "socialized medicine" and "Obama is going to kill my grandmother" get thrown around with astounding recklessness.

Americans are paying for universal care already--in the most backwards, inefficient, short-sighted, and just plain stupid manner possible. And our public discourse about all of this has devolved into a truly asinine shouting match. We're hurting America, as Jon Stewart would say, and it isn't pretty.

I won't even pretend to have a great fix for all of this--either health-care reform or the public stupidity--but I'm sure sick of watching it all go down. When a career AMA employee thinks Obama is out to forbid her certain services (another point in the conversation I didn't retell), undermine doctors, and out-right socialize medicine, we have a symptom of a staggering problem. While I can kinda-sorta understand her wanting to preserve her CPT-slice of the pie, I can't understand the disconnect between recognizing that things are broke and that they need to be fixed.

WTF?