23-Death panels Part 2

23-Death panels, advanced directives, a dream, and a miracle

by Jaxon Cohen

Part 2: The Affordable Care Act

As “Obama Care” takes effect and I enter my seventh year without my father, I feel it is time to share the story of his death, occurring a few months more than a year before this lifelong Republican had the chance to vote for his first Democratic presidential candidate: Barry Obama. Pa changed a lot in his last few years. He died before he was able to cast his vote. Voting for either party for the first time in a presidential election, in 2008 I cast his vote for him.

When the healthcare law was being written, those who wished to defeat the bill used the term 'Death Panel' to scare constituents over the issue of government-run healthcare. Talk of bureaucrats deciding that grandma had lived long enough was so misleading as to be comical. Now, the opposition no longer uses specifics to argue for an end to Obama Care. As with other details of the law like 'Death Panels' (aka: physician assisted advanced directives), the public may not like the abstract image of the whole but overwhelmingly supports the individual concepts therein. The following blog-posts are about how the innovation Republicans label as 'Death Panels' would have helped me escort my father into death without a hitch because in the end there was only one hitch: the law.

ACA is not the first insurance program set up by the government. The concept of insurance is to spread risk. The smallest pool of contributors means the largest risk to each, while the largest pool means the smallest risk. Speaking strictly theoretically, the US government is the perfect vehicle for insurance because America is its pool and its board is elected by the vote of the citizenry – democratic management of national risk; ultimate consumer control.

There is a reason Medicare's overhead is a fraction of its commercial counterparts. If profits are not considered then premiums pay claims, less overhead. Thus, insurance is perfected, theoretically speaking. Insurance suffers in quality to the degree it is exposed to the market. Let the market fight over the gadgets and processes of effective healthcare innovation. If we want to become the strongest, healthiest, most sane example of a functioning democracy and capitalistic marketplace, we must first have those characteristics defined by the common-man. To do this, private, for-profit institutions and organizations of every kind, including lobbyist, campaign financing, and even the party system itself must be removed from the sector. Human dignity is beyond politics and the profit of a healthy population is without measure.

Speaking of politics, consider the beneficiaries of the party system. Gridlock creates more personal wealth each year than any other, single avenue. This process might not produce the liquidity of a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but guess where the most prolific billionaire crucible of creation lies? The Beltway. The silencing of the masses means mass profits for interested parties. This doesn't have to be. If we reconsider the concept of Federal representation, we might redefine the People's voice. We have the technical means to update the Constitutional interpretation of this voice. We have Twitter, Google, and Facebook – forces that have toppled more than one dictator.

Through the Internet, we can know more about a candidate than the broad strokes, paid for by your local advocate. As the participatory voice gathers in number, our government will necessarily reflect the individual more efficiently. It's just math: greater sample size means greater resolution. One day, we could even replace the House with the legitimate representation of the people. How? Via the Internet, all the people can fit in a single room and argue an outcome – talk about an engaged voter, imagine if we were all members of Congress. I question the validity the party system. Imagine a world where we vote for the vision of a human being, not the vast, sponsored, myopic ideologies of a concerned collective. Imagine a government populated with individuals. Of course, radical change like this requires ubiquitous participation. Vote. I do. Why? Because it's the one poll that counts.

Is this is a Constitutional alteration or is it a renovation, a revolution of reconfiguration, integrating the forward, the future? Democracy is the expression of the people, not the result of the market or even a sacred document. Tech has the potential to level the playing field. At their best, governments protect individual rights and express the people's innovation of will; at their worst, they are the nexus between the institutionalized corruption of the crushing masses and the private greed of the profiting few.

FICA, FDIC, SSI, COBRA, Medicare, Medicaid, Flood Insurance, NASA, NTSB, Unemployment Insurance, OSHA, FDA, EPA … the Pentagon. The list of government programs insuring the future of these United States is long and intricate, kind of like our species. Successes breed success. Each agency has its own POV, its own turf because each has its own beneficiaries. Not this time. Like all the others, we all contribute. Unlike all the others, we'll all benefit, according to our means. Obama Care terrifies Republicans because of its most basic implication: healthcare (both physical and mental) for all. The Elephants only aim is to crush the Donkey. That becomes difficult when the stubborn idea is the health of the populous. Imagine what a structural focus on mental health will mean to this cascading accumulation of individualized terrorism, splattering across our screens.

What do actions like endless filibusters, a government shutdown, a sequester, and mindless budget battles say about a party who has no other argument except that they opposes the success of the other? Whatever one might think of the law, a 'Death Panel' would have been key to my father and I that last day of his life. Before healthcare reform, not everyone was as fortunate as us. Even seasoned lawyers like my father make mistakes and not everyone gets a miracle in the end.