HEALTHCARE PLAN BLUES: An Interview

  

 

Sunday, November 29, 2009. Special to the Dresden Mills Gazette. By Wesli Court, Blues Reporter.

DMG. At the moment I am standing in front of the candy counter of the Dresden Texaco and Take-Out in Dresden, Maine, having a conversation with Republican Senator Gloria Monday. Good morning, Senator Monday.

GM. Good morning.

DMG. The Democrat-controlled Senate recently voted to send to the floor of the United States Senate for debate a health care bill that was crafted by the Democrats. As a Republican senator from Bluestate, how do you feel about that?

GM. As you know, I voted with all the other members of my Republican Party against sending that bill to the floor.

DMG. Why was that?

GM. Although I feel that the health care system desperately needs to be reformed, I was against the bill’s containing a Public Option provision.

DMG. What is wrong with the Public Option?

GM. It will lead inevitably to Socialism in our Republic.

DMG. How so?

GM. It will create a system in which the government will weigh in with a heavy hand on our citizens’ rights to choose their own health care, and it will tell our doctors and medical practitioners how much they can charge for their services.

DMG. Aren’t you ignoring the word “option” in the bill? Citizens will keep their right to have the health insurance program of their own choosing, if they already have one.

GM. I don’t feel it is ever a good idea to have the Government involved in health care. People will eventually drop their private insurance coverage in favor of the Public Option.

DMG. Doesn’t that imply the private companies would be providing worse care, like deciding if a person covered by their policies has a “pre-existing medical condition” that they don’t want to pay for, or like choosing to drop a person’s coverage arbitrarily?

GM. Oh, I don’t think so. Government health plans are likely to be much worse than private ones, tied up in red tape, run by committees that decide who should live or die.

DMG. Excuse me, Senator, but Senior Citizens are all covered by a “Public Option,” Medicare. Doesn’t Medicare do a decent job?

GM. Medicare is beset by problems, like fraud and waste.

DMG. “Fraud” is a crime. That’s really not a part of the plan, is it? That requires investigation by law enforcement agencies. Are you suggesting that the Government is being remiss in not enforcing laws against medical fraud?

GM. That may very well be the case.

DMG. Perhaps the Congress should appropriate more money for law enforcement?

GM. That is a different subject than the one we were discussing.

DMG. That’s true. To get back to the idea of the “Public Option,” aren’t all members of the Armed Forces — the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard — all covered by a Government health care system? Not to mention veterans of all the services, who are covered by the U. S. Veterans Administraton.

GM. Yes, they are, but there’s a very good reason for that system.

DMG. Although it’s run by the Government, the USVA hospitals are both efficient and effective, aren’t they?

GM. In general, yes, but again, they had better be. Our service men and women deserve the best care available. But that’s not the kind of “Public Option” I was talking about.

DMG. Well, how about the “Public Option” that the U. S. Congress is covered by? Do you find that you personally receive decent health care?

GM. Er, ah…, uh, well, yes, of course.

DMG. And how about the health care option that covers ALL government workers? All Civil Service employees, employees of the Postal Service, and the various “public options” that cover State, County, and Local government employees?

GM. I am against specialty options for American citizens.

DMG. You mean like Medicaid that helps the very poor?

GM. No, no….

DMG. Isn’t it true, Senator Monday, that the “Public Option” included in the current Senate bill would apply only to those people who are covered by no health care plan at all? In other words, a relatively small segment of the population who are falling through the cracks of the current “system” of health care?

GM. Um. Well. Perhaps….

DMG. And isn’t it true that the bill also contains provisions for those states — primarily Republican Red States, one would assume — that would have another kind of option: the option to “opt out” of the coverage outlined in the bill if they wished?

GM. Well, yes, but….

DMG. Thank you, Senator Gloria Monday, Republican of Bluestate. You have been most helpful. I’m sure the readers of the Dresden Mills Gazette will find your remarks enlightening.

REMARKS

Well, Wesli,

You certainly nailed that interview! How can that dodo ever show her face in public again?

But wasn't Senator Monday implicated in the recent, notorious Seven-Day Escort Ring scandal involving the Washington call-girl known as Ruby Tuesday? Their boss was the sinister and secretive Mr. Friday, who ran the operation from a fortified island in the South Pacific.

Rhina Espaillat

 

You're making me Thursday. Good thing I have a cup of coffee in my hand.

Wesli

 

Love It, Lew.

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving & post-tryptophan days.

Moira Egan

 

Lew,

Thanks for sending the hilariously pathetic interview.  The responses, I mean, not the interview questions, which are terrific.

Clarinda Harriss 

  

Lew,

Didn’t you just interview this woman? (click on link:)

Understanding Our Hollow "Centrists"

Dennis Morton

  

Thanks, Lew. 

It's about time Someone gave Anyone the straight dope on the option. It's 

possible no one can persuade a Monday, though — the week's most recalcitrant day-- 

 
Ruth Harrison

It infuriates me that so many people are so purblind. EVERYBODY knows about the Public Options we already have. They're just determined to be stupid, apparently. I could hardly believe it when I saw all those old people who are clearly on Medicare waving signs AGAINST the "public option." And how politicians can actually get up in front of a camera and act like THEY are not on the Public Option themselves boggles the imagination. They must have gonads of brass if male and ???? if female. It requires tremendous amounts of cynicism on everyone's part. Lew

Yes.  The pretense at not grasping a truth which is straightforward and plain — it's shoddy indeed.  But that has been the nature of the Reps the past three decades or so, and by now it's an accepted technique — pretend something else is true if you do not like the truth before you.  You've got it — it's determined stupidity.

Am I wrong, or has it become more pronounced of late? 

Maybe I'm just old and crotchety ...

Ruth

 

No, you're correct, but probably we're both as old and crotchety as those morons waving those stupid placards.

Lew

 

Thanks, Lew. Enjoyed reading the Wesli Court interview!

Don Kimball