A Dead Rose By Any Other Name

Let’s try to get this straight…again. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, is primarily a health care concept first proposed by the Conservative Heritage Foundation in 1993 to counter, along with other Conservative initiatives, the health care plan delivered to Congress by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The idea of Obamacare having its origins in Conservative lore is repugnant to Republicans. Their challenges to that history at best persuaded Politifact to rate the Heritage connection as only half-true. Politifact hung the “untrue” portion of that rating on fact that the proposal did not have universal Republican support. Of course, no other proposal did either.

I disagree with Politifact. The argument that the ACA wasn’t a Republican plan may have some legs, but to suggest that the origins were not Conservative is ridiculous.  Talk to Mitt Romney.

The delivery of health care in the US is unique in the modern, developed world. To my mind it was a natural result of how nations around the world recovered from the devastation of World War II. The US was the only major participant in the War to end it without homeland destruction.

Other nations were forced to construct health plans that were centrally controlled in order to serve dislocated and impoverished populations. The clearest example of this was the universal health plan created by the United States for the Japanese people in 1946. It was a plan US Conservatives today would label as Socialist mania. The Japanese, on the other hand, have been quite satisfied ever since.

The US after the War was more concerned with economic growth and finding the people to fuel that growth. People were making money and, frankly, health care wasn’t that expensive. Employers, in order to attract and retain labor, began to offer complete health care as a benefit of employment.  Health care slowly became an industry, and, like all industries, the measure of success was defined by profit.

Flash ahead 60 years and we find (which should be to the surprise of no one) that health care in the US cost multiples more than any other place on earth.  Given the expense, access to health care has been reduced or eliminated for large segments of the population. Yes Houston…we have a problem.

Conservatives however have an additional problem.  As they support and represent those on the receiving end of the multi-trillion dollar transfer of wealth (the health care “providers”) they needed to come up with some kind of plan that would increase access, reduce cost and still deliver satisfactory profits to the providers. By any standard, Obamacare does just that…well, except for the “reduce cost” part.

You see, Republicans and Conservatives generally have an almost religious zeal for Capitalism and supply-side economics. They feel if you give people enough choice the cost will find its naturally low level. They also tentatively accepted the idea of forcing everyone into the pool, i.e. the individual mandate.  The problem, of course, is that health care is a totally inelastic (service) commodity; the demand does not drop no matter how high the price goes up. Further, the choice of provider is generally not impacted by cost. You all know this. When my kid is sick I’m not going to go shopping down to Wal-Mart to see if I can find a doctor on clearance.

The Democrats knew this too, so they bet it all on including one additional factor into their 2010 plan – the Public Option.  This would have been essentially a “buy-in” Medicare, and if enough people chose it, it would have allowed the Federal Government to begin to have central control of pricing services, and likely force private insurers to match those costs.  However, in order to be politically successful the Obama Administration caved in (thank you Joe Lieberman), the Public Option was dropped, and the 1993 Conservative Heritage Foundation plan morphed into law.

So why don’t the Republicans and Conservatives want to keep Obamacare?  Why did the Republican House vote to repeal the law over 60 times? Why don’t they vote to repeal it now?

This is what I believe: I believe the primary thing they want to repeal is the name. Republicans named it Obamacare because they wanted to use it as a political wedge. Now they’re faced with eliminating a plan which is more closely aligned with their moneyed constituency than anything else they could devise. However, they can’t embrace it now. My God…it’s called Obamacare.  They named it. They’ll never get rid of that name unless it’s significantly revamped.  Yes Houston…they have a problem.

Obamacare was a step in the right direction. Access to health care was greatly improved and financial devastation as a result of ill health was curbed.  It was destined to fail in the critical area of cost; however no more than what was occurring prior to its inception.  It needed a back door to centralized control of cost. Even if Conservatives can find a way to change the name or simply take us back to the melee we came from in 2010 the problems will persist.  

Until the electorate begins to vote in their own best interest, and not unwittingly support the big dollars that profit from the obese health care industry, nothing is going to change. The dead rose that is Obamacare will smell just as bad and likely worse, with whatever label they choose to use.

It was American ingenuity that created the Japanese health care system and for me I think Cherry Blossoms smell just fine.

Steve Bannon: America's Joseph Goebbels

Using Nazi Germany to make current day comparisons is essentially a cottage industry within the extreme ends of the political writing community.  It rarely makes much sense.  For all the hate leveled against Obama for his, supposed, liberal-socialist-left leanings there was at least an equal number of portrayals of him as Hitler incarnate.  Actual history is seldom a source for expressing emotions.

Now we have Trump, and once again Hitler “similarities” are trucked out as a means to convey emotions.  The reason is obvious…simplicity.  Trump and Hitler, it says it all in three words. Trump is evil for all the reasons Hitler was evil, or so it might go, just as it was leveled against Obama. For the most part we have become a nation that likes our observations limited to 15 second sound bites or 140 character Tweets.

Obama was not a Hitler, Trump is not a Hitler, and America is not the Germany of 1932-1939.

The real loss, however, is not the mischaracterization of the United States or its leaders with Nazi Germany.  What we lose is a perspective on how history actually evolved and the genuine lessons available to us as we plod through the making of our own history.

Nazi Germany provided a wealth of information on human interaction because of the dramatic and devastating consequences of the actions taken by that government over a very short period of time.  The more apt characterization would be that of a disease that broke loose from modern social immunities and brought humanity to its knees.

However, just because a Nazi Germany is more than unlikely in an age of trans-global economic interests and potential nuclear warfare, it doesn’t mean that symptoms of the social disease that infected the world in the middle of the last century are not present today. The US has gotten the sniffles and it looks like it’s going to get worse.

Fascism simply defined is the use of ethnically cleansed Nationalism to sustain authoritarian control over an economy consisting primarily of private property (typically managed in the hands of few people or institutions).  It gained popularity in the 20^th century as a reaction to both un-tethered free enterprise (which bore the depression of the 1930s) and liberal social change, which was viewed as a disenfranchisement of Christian Caucasians.

Compared to the 1930s, especially in Europe, we in the US currently live in a time of unprecedented prosperity, as do most Western nations.  Nevertheless, the new President, both before and after his election, has lectured unceasingly about how retched and pitiful conditions are in the US. In my world I have not encountered a single “Make America Great Again” supporter who had any legitimate personal reason to yearn for the past (other than to simply be younger).

The historical lesson to be learned from Nazi Germany (circa 1933-1939) is that using ethnic and nationalistic arrogance to combat trumped up fears (excuse the pun) works, and people like Steve Bannon know it.

Joseph Goebbels was Hitler’s head of the Propaganda Ministry in Nazi Germany and Hitler’s closest advisor, staying with him till they both committed suicide in their famous Berlin bunker in 1945. Highly educated (PhD), he adopted a successful plan to control information regarding Hitler and the internal enemies Hitler used to promote fear (i.e. Jews, homosexuals, atheists, Gypsies, the mentally handicapped, and Slavic people generally).

Whether Goebbels believed any of the hate propaganda he formulated is speculative at best. But no matter, he loved the power and influence it brought. It was self-fulfilling.  Paradoxically, the better life for the average German got, the more the manipulation worked, eventually leading him and Hitler to convert domestic power into military conquest and devastation.

The similarities with Steve Bannon are compelling, even if Bannon only resembles a Jr. Whopper on a Facist menu.

Bannon (63) is reasonably well educated and, after a short stint in the Navy, gained modest success and valuable production experience in the film industry. Early in his 50s he began to produce documentaries directed at Right-Wing ideologues that resonated with the Clinton-haters in the 1990s. In that effort he crossed paths with Andrew Breitbart, a young far-Right Conservative publisher who reportedly (and interestingly) compared Bannon to the talented Nazi propagandist filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.  

Later Bannon (and others) teamed up to create Breitbart .com, a web far-Right “news” site that is now associated with the so-called “alt-Right”. It later included talk radio.  After Breitbart’s premature death, Bannon took over Breitbart,LLC and, with emphasis on conspiracies and anti-“Liberal/Government/non-Christian” topics, extended its appeal. Without going into detail, let’s just say it made for fun conversation around the table at a Skinhead Thanksgiving.

Bannon put increased emphasis on Nationalistic and anti-Islamic rhetoric to increase his “market share” of the Conservative echo chamber. However, he is exceedingly unappealing physically, with a comportment that would fit in nicely with life lived beneath a bridge. He needed a Donald Trump. It is likely he saw an upside to an alliance with Trump whether Trump won the election or not.  You might remember there were active news leaks about a possible Trump Channel after a Trump loss.

Trump’s recent Twitter fit about Bannon pulling his strings is understandable. Hitler would have reacted the same if it had been suggested that Goebbels was running the ship of State.  Narcissists can never accept that kind of submission of their egos.  Still, if a husband only does what his wife whispers to him it begs the question of who is in charge.

Again, we are not living in a failed republic as was Germany in 1934. A majority of us actually hate Trump and it’s more likely than not that number will grow.  Still, history of what occurred during periods that were larger than life should retain value.  They tell us that while Steve Bannon is in place we will continue to see the effort to discredit the media and inflame fears.  Whether it’s terrorism, the Courts, Muslims, gun-grabbing Liberals, villainous voters, or bathroom identity we are in for a whirlwind of disinformation. 

Bannon is going to try to grab this Nation by the Goebbels. I don’t think it’s going to work.