Malice in Wonderland

As we gaze this week at the wonderland we call Congress, it might amaze us that Congress actually shut down the federal government over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Rep. John Culberson of Texas grinned like a Cheshire Cat as he explained it this way in an outlandish interview on CNN, “we do not want the federal government socializing health care as they have in England and in France.”

This is socialized medicine?  Really?

He wasn’t content to leave it there, adding a new “sacred” right to the Constitution to explain further his position.

“The right to be left alone as Americans is probably our most important right.”

As the Mad Hatter would say, “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat is the same as I eat what I see.’” 

But Representative Culberson was on a roll.  Literally.  This was two days after he was reported to have shouted “let’s roll!” as House Republicans concluded a caucus in which they re-affirmed their intent to shut down the government if Obamacare weren’t defunded. 

He explained that he was invoking the memory of the 9/11 heroes who brought down the airplane in Pennsylvania that was headed to Washington.  Was the irony lost on Representative Culberson?  That plane was in all probability heading toward the Capitol, and the heroes who brought it down may not only have kept our government open that day, they may have saved Representative Culberson’s life, and the lives of many of his colleagues.

Meanwhile, as Representative Culberson – a House member since 2000 – was giving his interview, some really bad things were happening to Americans hoping for an end to the economic quagmire he helped to create.

The Dow was shedding 129 points in anticipation of the shutdown.  In the last week, U.S. companies lost about $200 billion in value – more than the combined value of every company in Poland.

And we have had to suffer through all this because giving a $6000 tax credit to families earning $50,000 per year who purchase their own private health insurance is too “socialist” for Culberson.

I believe in our government.  I believe it is there to protect our actual rights (not ones Representative Culberson invents) and to work toward the common good.

And I am bothered because there is no charity in Representative Culberson’s view, only malice.

Toward the people who are helped most by Obamamcare – people with serious mental illnesses and other chronic conditions, lower-income workers, and uninsured people, for sure.

And toward the President on a disturbingly personal level, too – because this shutdown is not really about debt or deficit either.

Does anyone really think that if Ronald Reagan – not Barack Obama – were to be magically transported down a rabbit hole to the presidency today, then Representative Culberson would be saying the same things?

Five years into Reagan’s presidency, our national debt, which would triple during his term, was up over 100 percent – more than it has grown during Obama’s presidency.  Our federal deficit had grown from $74 billion to over $212 billion.

Medicaid was being transformed from a mostly long term care program for elders to a safety net health insurance program for families.  By 1988, eligibility was increased to 185% of poverty for pregnant women and children and even more for some through the Katie Beckett waiver.  These are far more generous than the 138% of poverty level Obamacare established for adults with chronic conditions.

Before he left office, piled on top of all that debt, Reagan even proposed the bare outlines of much of what became the Affordable Care Act.

He asked Congress to include catastrophic insurance, limiting out-of-pocket costs to $2,000, for every American covered by Medicare – along with a $60 a year increase in premium to pay for it.  He proposed a federal/state partnership to promote the formation of state-based risk pools to provide insurance for those who could not obtain it.  He called on states to mandate enhanced employer-based health insurance coverage.  And in his February 1987 radio address calling for all of these things, he said that the federal government should work with the private sector to promote public education about the choices and options available.

Representative Culberson was serving his first term in the Texas House of Representatives in 1987.  Do you imagine he – one of only two sponsors of legislation to put Ronald Reagan’s image on the $10 bill- favored a government shutdown to prevent Reagan’s “socialized health care?”

Paul Gionfriddo via email: gionfriddopaul@gmail.com.  Twitter: @pgionfriddo.  Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.gionfriddo.  LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/paulgionfriddo/