FLAIT

This is a fax I sent to my Democratic Congressman a couple of weeks ago. It's been slightly revised for this posting.

...At one of your recent town meetings, you said "We have the best health care in the world, we don’t want to mess that up." Are you kidding? First, that’s not true, we don’t have the "best health care in the world." And second, if it is true, only the wealthy, who have the best coverage money can buy, can access it...Those who do not have insurance can not access any health care, let alone the "best in the world."

From that comment and some of the other things you’ve said, I get the impression that you were afraid at these meetings and were out to appease the Republicans that were there. Democrats have been appeasing Republicans for years (see the Iraq war, see warrantless wiretapping, see health care) and all you’ve gotten in return are vicious attacks and nasty, partisan politics. Can’t you stand up for yourself? After all, you do have logic and the facts on your side. And how come Democrats never appease liberals?

In a perfect world, we would have gone to a single-payer system a long time ago.

Unfortunately, President Obama took it off the table in back-room deal with the insurance companies. How nice. Perhaps if it was on the table we could have had an intelligent, honest, mature and practical discussion about health care (although the next time Washington has an intelligent, honest, mature and practical discussion about, well, anything it’ll be the first time).

So instead, we’re stuck with the “employer-based” system which is what got us into this hole; a hole that’s getting deeper every day. That’s why we at least need a "public option" that anyone can buy into at an affordable price. And a real one, not these bogus "co-ops" or "marketplaces" the Democrats are trying to con us with.

When the screaming stops and these crazy Republicans at the town halls finally go home, even they’re going to find medical bills, higher deductibles and higher co-pays waiting for them, assuming they even have insurance. So if you allow the Republicans to kill this, we’re only going to have come back to it five or ten years from now anyway…assuming it hasn’t bankrupted the country by then. So none of this "tinkering around the edges." We need something real and bold. And that’s what a real public option will do.

For the last 50 years, we’ve allowed the "free market" to shape, manage and administer our health care system. And what they've given us is the most asinine, most complicated and most expensive system in the world. So the "free market" had its chance. Now it’s time for, yes, "big government" to step in and clean up the mess.

Granted, trying to reason with the other side is like trying to reason with a hockey puck. But maybe if Democrats explained why we need real health care reform, instead of rolling up into a fetal position like Democrats always do, you could have gotten something done.

Please do not respond with a patronizing form letter because, quite frankly, I don’t want to hear it. Instead, get out of your fetal position, put a darn chip on your shoulder, tell the insurance and drug companies to get lost and stand up to the Republicans…for once.

They’re going to call you a Nazi no matter what you do. So at least show respect for yourself and your Democratic colleagues and react to it as the despicable insult that it is.

Insert: It's despicable to compare anyone to the Nazis, especially afraid-of-their-own-shadow Democrats who've been thoroughly intimidated by the GOP. But if eerie similarities can legitimately be made between the GOP and the Nazis, it's not despicable. It's scary.