The hardest argument the Obama administration has to make, and the one that I feel the president is still not making to the best effect, is that things must change. It’s evident to the 40 million uninsured Americans that we need a fix, and it’s evident to anyone who’s been dropped from their health insurance, denied coverage because of a preexisting condition, or reached that ever-dreaded cap and had to start paying out of pocket to survive. It’s also evident to anyone who’s studied national bankruptcy statistics or a breakdown of our national debt.
That’s still not a majority of Americans.
What we don’t talk about that often is that there are still over 100,000,000 Americans who are pretty happy with how things are. These are people who feel no personal urgency to get better health insurance coverage passed. They were the crowd the president started speaking to this evening, and they are the crowd that Republicans and those against a public option have been pursuing from the start.
That’s why the way this debate is framed is so crucial. We can tell all the stories we like about people dying and suffering because of insufficient health care — but it’s easier for someone who has health care to believe that those stories are exceptions than it is to believe they’re the rule. To accept that these stories are true and that they really can happen to anyone, you have to accept that bad health and bad fortune can happen to you.
Most of us have a lot of difficulty accepting that until it happens to us or to someone close to us. Young, healthy Americans will struggle with this. Americans who still say, “my dad ate bacon every morning and never saw a doctor in his life, and he lived to be 90” will struggle with this. Americans fortunate enough to have certain employment or personal wealth will struggle with this. Yet every one of those groups is in danger of facing a sudden reversal of fortune — one catastrophic car crash, one debilitating stroke, one fight with unpreventable cancer, and your mind will change.
Short of 3-D horror films, what will overcome this adherence to the status quo? Two things: first, honesty from our political leaders about what their plans aim to do and what they cost. I hope the President was serious about calling people out when they misrepresent his plan; I hope the media will also dig in and call out both sides when they exaggerate. If those who like the status quo are convinced that they can basically keep it — that they can have “status quo plus,” — they will be less likely to be frightened, and more likely to be supportive.
Second, in the same way that a person’s mind is most likely to be changed about the wisdom of gay marriage when they know someone who’s gay, a person’s mind is most likely to be changed when they know someone who has faced physical or financial ruin because of a health problem. This is one time when anecdotes are helpful.
I think there’s a lack of open discussion about health problems in America. Sure, older Americans might make their daily aches, pains, and medications the centerpiece of their lunch chatter, but it’s pretty rare for younger Americans to talk with their friends about these things. Yet if you know someone who’s having her life turned upside down by unpaid medical bills, you’re more likely to start wondering seriously whether that could ever happen to you. If you have a friend at work who isn’t on the offered plan because her pre-existing condition — something as insidious as, say, pregnancy — didn’t allow her to enroll, wouldn’t you be tempted to check and see what, exactly, you’re covered for? And if you made that investigation — wouldn’t you (like many, many, many Americans) be very likely to find out how vulnerable you are?
I say, for the next month or so, the personal story is the best weapon. If you have a story, tell it — tell it here, tell it at the watercooler, tell it at your family reunion, your church picnic, your book group. More than speeches and town halls, I think from here out, stories can be what will save us.
SATURN SMITH 