Kate Heffernan

The health care debate is toxic, revealing a lot about us as a nation. And it feels embarrassing — like the whole world can see our underpants. Or hear us fighting in the kitchen. First, most of us can’t describe accurately the details of the health care reform now under debate. That makes us look stupid or too busy to care. Second, most of us can’t describe accurately the health care or insurance we currently have, so that makes us look kind of stupid, too, or lazy. Some of us don’t care about people who don’t have health insurance, so that makes us seem unsympathetic or super lucky. Most of us don’t understand that we’re already paying for people who don’t have health care — which makes us too busy to care, in denial or merely rich. Some of us — a lot of us — already receive health care under some form of government plan, but don’t believe in health care under some form of government plan. That makes us hypocritical or selfish. In some camps, I hear that makes us patriotic. A lot of us are a combination of these things: too busy, lazy, a bit stupid perhaps, lucky, unsympathetic, in-denial, really rich, hypocritical, selfish … and patriotic.

The Health Care Debate Is Making Me Sick (via azspot)

(via dalasverdugo)

I agree that the whole thing is a total emabarassment but I think the most emabarassing part is that it’s taken us this long to talk about it in the first place.