By Jennie Hatch
Over the past few weeks I have been discouraged, disappointed, frustrated, and sometimes terrified by the coverage of town hall health care debates across the country. The misinformation and mob baiting by the right has gotten out of control. It’s enough to want to make me put down my carefully-laid activist plans for Copenhagen and go work for Healthcare for America Now.
I say that only partially as someone whose future health and financial security quite literally depends on reforming the health care system. The other part of me—the climate activist—is freaking out for an entirely different reason. Six months ago, everyone wanted to reform the health care system. It was one of Obama’s most popular issues—so popular that he was willing to make a promise that we would have health care reform by the end of the year. Now, one of Obama’s top issues has caused his approval ratings to sink, has inspired nasty comparisons to Hitler, and is ground zero for those who want to ruin Obama’s agenda.
Some of that of course is a failure in messaging by democratic leaders. However some of it is more insidious and discouraging for us. Remember, this is an issue that was not nearly as controversial as climate change. Sure, the way that heath care would be reformed was still up for debate, but the if of health care reform was not on anyone’s radar. Heath care’s rocky path this summer should be a warning to us climate activists. The way the health care debate is going is bad for people working on climate change for at least two reasons, and I think we need to focus some of our energy on the health care debate if we want to continue making strides on climate change.
First, the health care debate is bad for us because it takes people’s attention away from climate change. The more time and energy that is spent on ignorant arguments about death panels, the less media coverage, grassroots support, and politicians’ energy will be directed towards climate change. I don’t care whether you think climate change is a more pressing and immediate issue. Most people (or at least the media thinks that most people) are looking out for themselves and their families first. That means health care is going to be nearly impossible to compete with until the situation has calmed down and something is done. We can’t ignore the health care debate and expect to get any media on climate change.
Second, and most importantly, it leaves us with less political capital to move a (lets be honest) less-popular progressive issue. The truth is if we want climate change solutions to keep growing and spreading and being accepted more broadly, we need representatives and a president who can feel confident in pushing the envelope on the issue. The scariest part of this health care “debate” is not the debate on health care, it is the goal of many mobsters to stall Obama’s agenda and progressive political momentum.
If they succeed in shutting down health care momentum, and if half the country is pissed at Obama and our reps about health care, how on earth are we going to move popular opinion on climate change? Shutting down health care could realistically mean shutting down the progressive agenda for this year, which includes climate change. Right now our opportunity for climate change action is hung up on the health care debate. It seemed the stars and the congress were aligned to get something done this year. Let’s not squander it by narrowly focusing on our own issue.
We need to remember that the allies we have in D.C. need allies in their citizen base. We have a political strategy and we need to remember that that strategy includes dealing with other related issues as well. Obama was inspiring last fall for bringing people together and demonstrating an amazing show of grassroots support, which made his agenda seem almost impervious to naysayers. We were actually going to get a climate change bill! And we still can. However our agenda is inextricably linked with others, and some of our energy might be best spent keeping that momentum going, regardless of the issue.
This does not at all mean I am dropping my work on climate change. It’s still my top issue. But you damn well better believe I’ll be writing my representatives and volunteering a couple of my canvassing hours to talking about health care. I care too much about climate change not to.
I’ve been thinking the same thing recently. With the economic crisis as well. If the stimulus isn’t big enough and TARP ends up just being a giveaway to Wall Street how will we ever convince folks that it just wansn’t progressive ENOUGH? To the regular republican desensitized person it was FDR style action. Progressives of all creeds need to rally around each issue because as you said, they are all inexorably linked.
If our Congress critters are incapable of addressing human-caused degradation of the Earth’s atmosphere that threatens life on the planet as we know it, which includes their sorry butts, then how could we expect them to care about the uninsured when they have health care coverage?
Very good points, well put.
One more thing I would add: If climate change is not addressed, expect our health care costs to spiral out of control even more… between the simple fact that we will be burning air-polluting fossil fuels (one of the leading causes of preventable death) and the fact that we will be faced with an onslaught of more virulent disease (malaria, cholera, dengue, to name a few) as well as disaster-related casualties, we are in for BIG trouble. They say healthcare is too expensive. Just wait till climate change bites…
Health care also needs to be resolved as doing nothing will mean health care costs will simply escalate and leave no resources for anything else (climate or otherwise).
You’re right that healthcare could derail climate change legislation, and we should support health care succeeding, but I disagree on a few points.
Health care might be higher on the list of people’s concerns because they know more about it and it’s more immediate to them, but clean energy/green jobs/energy independence polls just about better than everything else out there, including health care(even before the health care ruckus). It doesn’t divide the left and the right as sharply and doesn’t cause a rebellion. Additionally, climate is easier in this era because it doesn’t carry with it the same deficit spending argument that conservatives can use on health care reform.
We were able to pass a climate bill out of the House without this kind of madness, and if the Obama Administration and Congress had been smart, they would’ve used that momentum and taken it to the Senate immediately. Finished climate before healthcare. Now, there’s the very scary possibility health care could derail the rest of the progressive agenda.
My sentiments exactly. I’m terrified that if we fail on health care then the entire Obama change agenda, including climate, will fall apart. We need to win this fight to keeping up the momentum for a progressive agenda or the entrenched interests and conservatives will have won (by hook and by crook) even though they lost the election. And we won’t have a prayer of stopping global warming and climate disasters.
You are wrong in your underlying premise that climate change legislation will be received more readily by the conservatives or Republicans, than your health care legislation. The conservatives will not accept any legislation on climate change policy as set forth currently in the Kyoto Treaty. Any treaty that removes all future finacial responsibility of climate change impact from devolping economies in the Asian and African countries; any policy that requires US taxpayers to support structures of competitve development and societal restructuring outside of the US, and subverts individual and key states rights’ issues of consumption here in the US, to a UN or umbrella organization will be categorically opposed. From my perspective, conservatives, regardless of political leanings, are quite well informed about the healthcare bills and the climate change bill. There is great momentum to halt the movement of climate change legislation, and this momentum is peering closely at the wording of the health care bills for tie-ins to climate change legislation.
Some of the concerns I have about the House healthcare bill (I haven’t had a chance to read the Senate bill yet, but have read some comparison pieces from the left and the right) include: Take for instance the section that “freezes” all medical subsidies to the handicap, until further investigation into treatment strategies can be determined; the section that includes ownership of a gun as an unhealthy habit, and requires that corporations that opt for gov’t care help their employees understand that they have to abide by the rules, or the company pays additional surcharges for these employees who maintain their 2nd amendment right; the section that allows the gov’t to examine our bank accounts and determine if we should pay more depending on our assets, not our income; the section that requires all persons to get health coverage, or pay fines with the eventual threat of jail; the section that requires all foreign companies to pay into our health care system if they employ Americans overseas; the section that requires all Americans to pay into our health care system even if they don’t reside in the US, and can’t use the system; the section that allows the UN to establish punitive consequences for domestic violence in America, subverting US citizens’ state and federal rights to a fair trial.
Conservatives can embrace sound health care insurance for all American citizens quite easily, but it must be maintained in the legislative language that individuals have the freedom to choose or not; and the freedom to buy health coverage from any plans offered regardless of state of residency; and that there will be protections for religious objectors; and that those who buy insurance for protection against financial ruin (for this is all health insurance can do, it can not buy a guarantee of future good health)will receive the treatments that are asked for by the patient and recommended by the patient’s personal doctor; and if I were a senior, that no taxes would be placed on perscription medicine, or medical devices. I also believe there should be supplemental plans offered to expand coverage for those who have the ability and wish to invest, without punitive consequences.