| Our household discussion was about a short-term loan that we had to take out to cover necessary dental procedures. Our employer-subsidized health care coverage does not cover any dental care whatsoever, and the dental plan that we purchase outright for a considerable monthly sum has an annual dollar limit that was exceeded by the procedure in question (which was neither elective nor cosmetic in nature), leaving us with a huge bill that was due and payable immediately, hence the loan.
My fuming spouse opined that our health care system (if it can be called that) was a disgrace for an industrialized country such as ours. Eyes and teeth are not considered a part of health care for most people with health insurance; someone apparently decided a while ago that these organs were superfluous and their care was optional.
Then, what hannah said in another diary about ascribing behavior to others struck home, and suddenly Orwell's well-worn concept of doublethink from the novel 1984 clanged back into my brain.
Protagonist Winston Smith describes doublethink thus, in part: "To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it..."
Hm. Sounds familiar somehow.
So, what about the Death Panels?
Well, the real Death Panels want to make sure that the disenfranchised, the poor, the people of color, and anyone else they fear remain cut off from decent health care. These Death Panels want to have health care only for those who can afford to pay, the best money can buy, if you have it. They want the health care insurance industry to turn a profit for their investors by un-enrolling persons with life-threatening "pre-existing conditions", and limiting the care of those who they deign worthy of keeping on their rolls.
Who are the real Death Panels? They are the obstructionist groups that are using doublethink to ascribe evil motives to those who are working hard for health care reform. These obstructionists are the very people who want to decide who will live and who will die by denying access to health care to ALL Americans.
These are the real Death Panels. |
