The Pitfalls Of Identity Politics

[UPDATE]:

What was I just saying about wingnuts and the health food movement?

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Eden Foods, you are dead to me.

I’ve come to learn that an inordinate number of people involved in the organic foods/natural medicine/holistic health movement are wingnuts. It seems counterintuitive, one would expect these folks to be hippie-dippy peace freaks. But actually a lot of these folks were nurtured in the anti-government, anti-establishment “homesteader” movement of the ’70s, which was a breeding ground for Libertarians. And a lot of them also come out of the survivalist freak show on the far right, as well.

Such are the pitfalls of identity politics. Just because some company markets itself as embracing such progressive ideals as,

Organic agriculture is society’s brightest hope for positive change

doesn’t mean they don’t also believe such crackpottery as,

[birth control] almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices

and

Plan B and ‘ella’ can cause the death of the embryo, which is a person

… which we all know is utter bullshit. Such is the progressive dilemma: I appreciate CEO and founder Michael Potter’s activism against GMOs, but I find his crackpot views regarding birth control abhorrent. And there are plenty of other organic food companies which don’t hold these bizarre views about birth control, so thanks but no thanks. I’ll take my business elsewhere.

Asshole.

Suckers

I know Christians like to think they’re better than everyone else, at least the ones around here do. But is there some evidence that they’re healthier than anyone else? If there is I sure haven’t seen it. But Kentucky is poised to pass a “Christians-only” healthcare plan that singles out Jesus people:

House Oks Christian health care plan for Ky.

[...]

The proposal would exempt the Medi-Share ministry from state insurance regulations. A Franklin County circuit judge ordered the ministry to shut down last year at the Kentucky Insurance Department’s request. The bill in its current form would require members to sign a notice acknowledging they’re aware they may not have their claims paid.

The plan resembles secular insurance in some ways but only allows participation by people who pledge to live Christian lives with no smoking, drinking, using drugs or having sex outside of marriage.

Whew boy. First of all, this just reeks of a scam to me. Hey, let’s give insurance companies another reason to deny people claims! You missed Bible study on Wednesday! No bypass surgery for YOU! And let me say, the idea that people who don’t drink or smoke or have sex outside of marriage or use drugs are living a “Christian lifestyle” is just hilarious. Why not have a health care plan for vegans and exempt them from state insurance regulations? Seems like there’s actual evidence that a vegan diet is healthier than the gravy-slathered deep-fried fat balls most good Southern Christian folk I know shove done their gullets on Sundays.

But look, the whole dang point of being a Christian is not that you’re somehow better than everyone else and living a perfect, sinless life so you get the earthly reward of cheap health insurance. That’s not what the freaking Bible is about, people! It’s about a relationship with God. It’s about things like forgiveness and community building and welcoming your neighbor and caring for the vulnerable.

It’s not about being perfect and if you stumble you don’t get your insurance claim paid, and we get to do the personal responsibility happy dance.

Cripes I’m so over Jesus people these days. This just screams exploitation and grift to me. The marriage of faith and commerce is absolutely antithetical to real Christianity. Any sucker signing up for this is asking to get ripped off.

Guess Who Went To The Doctor Today

Last week I went to the dentist. Today I went to my ob/gyn for my annual.

These days, any trip to the doctor is an infuriating, exasperating traipse through our screwed up healthcare system. And I’m a really healthy person, with really good insurance. Still, red tape and insurance bullshit manages to piss me off every damn time.

I had already decided I was going to ask my doctor about the mandatory pre-abortion ultrasound bills currently making their way through the legislature, in particular, the deafening silence from the medical community and ob/gyn’s in general on this and other issues affecting women’s healthcare. But dang, before I could even get to that we got in a debate about socialized medicine.

It started when she told me she wouldn’t perform the ol’ “blood in the stool” test, aka the FOBT, which I’ve had done routinely for 30 something years. This was because, she said, “BlueCross Blue Shield of Tennessee no longer covers it.” Lovely. I repeat: not because I didn’t need it, but because insurance wouldn’t cover it. And that, she said, was because over the past few years insurance has routinely been paying for fewer and fewer things.

This test is an easy, cheap way to detect colorectal cancer. But hey, I’m over 50 now, it’s not like colon cancer is a concern for us olds, right?

Don’t answer that.

It doesn’t matter because she said I need to think about getting a colonoscopy at some point, since I’m an olds, and of course it’s a better diagnostic test. Now, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee only pays for one every 10 years if the first one comes back clean. So let’s hope I don’t develop anything in the decade in between tests because apparently I’d have no fucking way of knowing about it.

Okie dokie, let’s hope what I don’t know won’t kill me! Thank you, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee! May you all get colorectal cancer and die an excruciating, miserable death.

Yes, Republicans. Do tell me more about bureaucrats coming between me and my doctor. I’m dying to hear.

So then we both commiserated about how awful insurance was. I asked her which insurance company was the best in terms of coverage, since she dealt with so many. She said none of them, they’re all bad. Okay, I said, fine, then why don’t we ditch them all and go to socialized medicine?

“Oh, no! That’s worse,” she said. In England, she said, whether you have a hangnail or cancer, you’re put into the system at the same place. In other words, serious health issues aren’t given any more priority than minor ones. She heard this from a patient who lived in London for two years. Her patient, however, was considered a “guest of the country” and was put to the top of the list, she explained. (I’m a little unclear how the patient would know, plus if that were true, wouldn’t there be astronomical cancer fatality rates there? Which doesn’t seem to be happening.)

“That’s certainly not what my Canadian friends have told me,” I said. “I don’t know about England, but they told me in Canada if something’s seriously wrong, you’re priority. It’s true you might have to wait longer for routine stuff, but heck, I made this appointment a year ago!” It’s true, I had.

“Oh no,” my doctor responded, wagging her finger at me. “I know someone who lives in Vancouver and when she needed something done she went to Seattle.”

Clearly we weren’t getting anywhere, trading our stories about “people we knew.” What I did say was, what do we do? This can’t be the best there is. What we’re doing now isn’t working, too many people are uninsured, and the poor are suffering the most.

“Oh, the poor have TennCare,” she said.

And so it went. Clearly my doctor didn’t know the first thing about people who weren’t her patients. She worked at a nice office in the heart of Nashville’s central healthcare campus, not the Vine Hill or Downtown clinics. Her clients weren’t the uninsured or marginalized. Nor did she know anything about what was happening in the state legislature. I asked her if she was aware that there were bills in the legislature requiring women to get an ultrasound before receiving an abortion.

“Really?!” She seemed genuinely surprised. Jesus, lady! I wanted to scream. You’re a gynecologist! This is your field! Don’t you pay attention to what legislators are doing affecting your own business?

I asked if there was any medical reason why this procedure would be necessary. “They need to do it,” she said, “to determine the age of the fetus.”

“But what if a woman is positive that it’s within the first trimester?”

“They still need to do it, to make sure.”

“To make sure?”

“To make sure she’s telling the truth.”

Wow. So we have this law to mandate a diagnostic procedure because women are liars. Got that, ladies? The government thinks you’re all liars, just like with all of that “legitimate rape” stuff, and so they need to check up on you with a diagnostic tool whose sole function is to make sure you’re telling the truth.

Yes, Republicans. Do tell me more about your belief in “small government.” I’m dying to hear.

Keep in mind, I was just told I wouldn’t get a routine colon cancer diagnostic because my insurance won’t pay for it.

Like an idiot, I asked my doctor if she performed abortions. She told me no.

“Does anyone here perform them?”

“No.”

“So where does someone go if they need one? Someone with insurance, who can afford it, where do you refer them?”

“Planned Parenthood, I guess,” my doctor answered. “Or Atlanta.”

Keep in mind, Nashville is a healthcare city. Healthcare is one of the largest industries here. We have several major hospitals here. The Nashville Chamber of Commerce proudly touts how healthcare contributes $30 billion to the local economy and creates over 210,000 jobs. But that’s all bullshit. None of that matters if you’re a woman who needs an abortion. For that, you go to Atlanta.

I asked why, although I already knew the answer. But I wanted to hear her say it. And she did. It’s just too controversial, she said. “It’s the religious people, they don’t want it,” she said. Insurance won’t pay for it. Hospitals don’t want to have anything to do with it. And finally she said, “doctors have been killed.”

I’m sure “the religious people” will be thrilled to learn they have successfully intimidated doctors in Nashville into not performing abortions. What’s sad is that Nashville is touted as being a progressive city, a patch of blue surrounded by a sea of red. But we’re still a city where women are second-class citizens because our healthcare needs aren’t treated equally.

It’s not just abortion. My doctor told me that as of January 2009, she can’t perform tubal ligations at Baptist Hospital. Baptist is one of the major hospitals here in Nashville and in 2002 Baptist merged with St. Thomas, another major player, so both are now under the Ascension Health umbrella, which is a Catholic non-profit. I had read that because religious hospitals all receive federal funds, they had to offer some kind of “secular floor,” where stuff the Catholics find religiously offensive can be done.

“It was a room, not a floor,” my doctor told me. “A separate room.” And the nurse technician that would assist her had to clock out, clock in again for the hour of surgery, and clock back out again, so she could be paid out of separate, non-religious funds. But as of January 2009, that room is no longer there. Someone who is not a Catholic will nonetheless have their medical choices made by the Catholic church.

Yes, Republicans. Do tell me more about your belief in “religious freedom.” I’m dying to hear.

This is all just so crazy to me. I didn’t intend to write a novel, but we just covered so much ground. What I wanted to know is why the medical profession hasn’t spoken up as the state house and senate legislate their profession. I mean, good lord, every time something happens in Washington we have a flurry of industry associations and phony astroturf groups telling us why it’s a bad idea. Where’s the TN Medical Assn.? Besides offering “doctor of the day” volunteers and lobbying for tort reform, I mean. It seems they haven’t spoken up because the just don’t know or don’t care.

I asked my doctor why people in her profession didn’t speak out. And she said it’s because nothing was ever going to change. That was just it, it’s too big, too hard, too controversial. It’s not going to change. I was so outraged. I just refuse to believe nothing will ever change. I said, what if people said that back in the days of Jim Crow? We’d still have black hospitals and white hospitals. Yes, she said. You’re right. And that was that.

It was the most disheartening conversation I’ve ever had. Apparently the doctors just can’t be bothered. I mean, I don’t know what else to say and I’m way beyond needing to wrap this up. But I guess I had somehow thought that doctors cared about their patients’ healthcare. Silly me.

Because It’s Not About Birth Control

Okay, who didn’t see this one coming a mile off?

Bishops Reject Birth Control Compromise
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: February 7, 2013

WASHINGTON — The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday rejected the latest White House proposal on health insurance coverage of contraceptives, saying it did not offer enough safeguards for religious hospitals, colleges and charities that objected to providing such coverage for their employees.

The administration said the proposal, issued last Friday, would guarantee free employee coverage of birth control “while respecting religious concerns” of organizations that objected to paying or providing for it.

[...]

Under the latest proposal, churches and nonprofit religious groups that object to providing birth control coverage on religious grounds would not have to pay for it. Women who work for such organizations could get free contraceptive coverage through separate individual health insurance policies. The institution objecting to the coverage would not pay for the contraceptives. Costs would be paid by an insurance company, with the possibility that it could recoup the costs through lower health care expenses resulting in part from fewer births.

How does this “not offer enough safeguards” to address religious groups’ objections? Simple: women can still get their hands on some birth control, that’s how! They want a law that gives employers control over women’s health choices. Hell, they’ve already done it.

Look, can we stop trying to appease people who will never, ever be appeased? This is not about birth control! Half the institutions fighting this were already offering their employees contraception coverage and only stopped when it became news.

This is about the failure of the church. This is about the church’s great shame at being completely impotent in the face of cultural change. This is, specifically, about the Catholic church preaching against contraception for years and years and years and nobody paying attention — hell, even Catholic priests and nuns have ignored that piece of church doctrine. The church hierarchy wants the U.S. government to do what they’ve been unable to do, which is to get people to stop using birth control by making it too expensive and too hard to obtain.

That ain’t happening.

Stop paying attention to these idiots. Catholics don’t even pay attention to them. And if the Catholic church wants to spend its money fighting a legal battle it lost long, long ago instead of using that money to care for the poor and marginalized, then that tells you everything you need to know about the Catholic church. They’re a bunch of phonies.

A Few Words On The Whole Foods-John Mackey Thing

God, liberals, what can I say. Sometimes we annoy the hell out of me.

This is the second time the interwebs is in high dudgeon over something said/written by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. Mackey, who is hawking a book (Conscious Capitalism, and no, I haven’t read it) used the word “fascism” to describe the Affordable Care Act. This got liberals all upset, especially since they well remember his 2009 Wall Street Journal op-ed proposing eight “free market” reforms that he thought would fix our healthcare problems better than Obamacare.

Let me interject here and say, Mackey is an unabashed Libertarian. I do not agree with Libertarianism. At all. I think his “eight reforms” — stuff like tort reform, selling health insurance across state lines, and removing government coverage mandates — are horrible ideas, many already proven failures. He also wrote that if only everyone would just eat a vegetarian, low fat diet, all of our healthcare woes would magically go away. This was an astonishingly simplistic, insensitive and childish thing to say about a really complicated national issue. But hey, one of my biggest problems with Libertarians is their juvenile belief in magical thinking.

Anyway, that was around three years ago. This time, people seem to be hung up on Mackey’s use of the word “fascist.” The thing is, I said the same thing myself back in 2009. Put aside all of the totalitarian/nationalistic baggage the word carries, and consider its economic definition. Aren’t we always told that fascism is the merger of state and corporate power? So how is a government requirement that private citizens buy a product from a private, for-profit corporation without also offering a “public option” not fascism?

Mackey now admits his choice of words was poor. I watched him on CBS This Morning say we needed a new term, one that doesn’t allude to authoritarian regimes.

This made me laugh. Mr. Mackey, I believe the word you’re searching for is “corporatism.” Funny that wouldn’t occur to the CEO of a big corporation. Ah well. Libertarians, what can I say? They always wear blinders. I have to wonder: if Obamacare mandated that everyone buy organic food, would Mackey have a problem with that?

Mackey is entitled to his opinions, as are we all. I don’t agree with him on everything. But it seems a shame that he stuck his foot in his mouth on the Obamacare “fascism” stuff, because really liberals should be behind a big chunk of what he’s saying now.

Again, I haven’t read his book, but I’ve read several interviews he’s given about it. And basically what he seems to be telling his fellow corporate CEOs is, stop being such selfish, greedy dicks.

For example:

“I really don’t think shareholders should come first, I think it’s fundamentally a bad strategy,” Mackey said yesterday at a Captains of Industry series interview with Norman Pearlstine, chief content officer of Bloomberg News. “Happy team members result in happy customers, happy customers result in happy investors. If you put shareholders first, you won’t get there.”

The event at the 92nd Street Y in New York was sponsored by Bloomberg Businessweek.

Mackey, 59, a self-styled “conscious” capitalist and longtime nonconformist, has written a new book in which he criticizes companies that focus solely on maximizing profit. The book, “Conscious Capitalism,” was released this week.

In the book, Mackey and his co-author, Raj Sisodia, a Bentley University marketing professor, discuss ways to create value and lift people from poverty. Mackey’s bottom line: making money need not be a zero-sum game.

I agree with that 100%. And I’m not a Libertarian. I also agree with this:

Mackey tells Inskeep that companies must have a higher purpose than just making money.

For example, when Whole Foods decided it wanted to stop selling overfished species of cod and octopus at its seafood counters, it didn’t just abruptly cut off its suppliers. Instead, the company gave its suppliers three years to come up with a better way of fishing; during that time, the seafood stayed for sale — but with a label of “unsustainable.”

In the end, Whole Foods, working with the Marine Stewardship Council (we’ll have much more on them later), was able to find one supplier of sustainable cod.

I agree with that approach. I also find it a little strange that Mackey doesn’t recognize the flaw in his magical Libertarian ideology: why aren’t all corporations like Whole Foods? Why isn’t everyone focusing on the big picture, why aren’t they all doing the right thing, instead of just focusing on profit? Does Mackey not get that a health insurance company doesn’t make money off of certain groups of people? Like, really, really sick people? That Libertarianism requires a whole set of presuppositions that don’t exist in the real world?

I guess not. But c’mon, liberals. Let’s join in the conversation here, instead of calling for boycotts over the misuse of a word like “fascism” — especially when a lot of us were saying the same thing two years ago.

So no, I’m not boycotting Whole Foods. Nor am I nominating John Mackey for sainthood. Remember this? Remember when Mackey created an online sockpuppet to bash rival Wild Oats in online stock forums? At a time when he was trying to buy that company? Hilarious. Also, not nice. John Mackey, you’re kind of a dick, too. Something else I can say about most Libertarians.

By the way, this reminds me of the one bumper sticker I want to see. It goes something like this:

Who Is John Galt? And Why Is He Such An Asshole?

Ha ha. Love that one. So, boycott Whole Foods if you want to, but I won’t. But I will ask my fellow liberals to stop reacting in such a knee-jerk way to the use of loaded words like “fascism” and whatnot. Please. This makes us no better than the Teanuts who call for the fainting couches every time a liberal says a mean joke about Sarah Palin.

I Thought They Hated The Feds?

The above photo is from a Tea Party rally going on right now at Tennessee’s Legislative Plaza. It was posted to Twitter by Tennessean state house reporter Chas Sisk. (Yeah it’s a crappy photo but it’s all we’ve got, folks.)

Tennessee is one of the few states which still has not made a decision about setting up a state health insurance exchange as part of Obamacare. The Tea Party is rallying against the state exchange, of course.

Which begs the question: they do know that if the state doesn’t set up its own exchange, the Feds will do it for them, right? Right?!? Aren’t these the “states rights” people? They really want the Feds to do this instead of letting Tennessee do it? Are they serious?

Not the first time the Tea Party hasn’t made a lick of sense.

Oh, and also from Chas Sisk’s reporting on the rally comes this gem:

Steve Gill is our local conservative radio blowhard. Hilarious. Apparently Republican votes count twice as much as Democratic ones! Must have something to do with that “real America” stuff I mentioned in my last post.

The Face Of What’s Wrong With America

Anyone who can read this story, and say, “yes, this is as it should be, this is right, and good for the country,” is fucking nuts.

To recap: Republican Congresswoman Diane Black — someone I would never in a million years support, let me add — is locked in a bitter primary fight with her longtime Republican nemesis, raging Islamophobe Lou Ann Zelenik. Normally for those of us on the left this would be a “grab the popcorn” moment, but today’s paper gave me pause. Here we learned who is funding the attack ads Zelenik is running against Black: one guy named Andrew Miller Jr. He’s a “healthcare investor,” who happens to be her former finance director, and who served on the board of Zelenik’s anti-Muslim group, the Tennessee Freedom Coalition (and yes, the fact that there’s an anti-Muslim group calling itself the “Tennesse Freedom Coalition” tells you these people have descended into self-parody). Miller apparently had $260,000 collecting dust in his bank account and decided to try to buy the Republican primary. I wonder, should Zelenik win, how he expects to recoup that investment? Maybe we shouldn’t ask.

Miller was last seen trying to unseat Rep. Jim Cooper by serving as finance director for “Constitutional Conservative” (i.e., Tea Party wackadoodle) Jeff Hartline in 2010. Miller makes his money through a healthcare venture capital and private equity firm called HealthMark Ventures. And this just tells me everything I need to know about what’s wrong with our country. We’ve got a healthcare system that leaves 40 million people without insurance and denies policyholders coverage for pre-existing conditions like being a battered spouse. But there is so much money swirling around the so-called “best healthcare system in the world” that vulture capitalists like Miller are drowning in cash. Any suggestion that they should pay the tiniest bit more in taxes so people don’t have to put a pickle jar by the Mapco cash register to get their kid chemo is the worst sort of un-American affrontery.

Miller isn’t the only fly crawling over this shitpile but he’s the perfect face of it: using his profits not to create jobs, but to buy an election on behalf of an anti-Muslim hatemonger. Ain’t America grand.

Take The Health Reform Quiz

Test your knowledge of the Affordable Care Act with this simple, 10-question quiz. Tell me how you did in comments – no cheating!

I should say your humble scribe got all 10 correct. A+ for me!

Memory Hole: ACA Edition

And the early reports are in: the entire healthcare law, including the individual mandate, has been upheld. The only exception is the federal government’s right to terminate state Medicaid funds.

Suck on that, Ginni Thomas.

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Nothing to see here, move along:

Justice Thomas’ wife says healthcare law is unconstitutional

Virginia Thomas is working to repeal the law through Liberty Central, a conservative group she founded. Her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, could provide a key vote to strike down the law.

October 21, 2010|By Kathleen Hennessey and David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau

Reporting from Washington — Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is working to repeal what she believes is President Obama’s “unconstitutional law” regulating health insurance, an issue likely to be decided by the high court.

“With the U.S. Constitution on our side and the hearts and minds of the American people with us, freedom will prevail,” says a position paper posted on the website of Liberty Central, the group formed by Virginia Thomas this year to advance conservative principles and candidates.

The story goes on to talk about the most important issue of the day: Ginni Thomas’ phone call to Anita Hill. Well done, media.

Memory Hole: Rep. Jim Cooper On SCOTUS

While we’re all waiting for the Supreme Court to issue its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, I remembered Rep. Jim Cooper touched on this at our blogger meet-up back in January. I revisited the recording which Sean Braisted posted and threw up a quickie transcript, because I thought you guys would be interested. Cooper of course is a Democrat and he voted for the ACA, and he also teaches a course in healthcare policy at Vanderbilt University.

Here were his thoughts on SCOTUS and the healthcare bill (and if you listen to it at Braisted’s place it starts around the 14 minute mark, I think…):

This is an amazingly important moment in America and hopefully it won’t be a Bush v Gore case where they make a totally political … the court needs the credibility when they’re deciding things according to the law. If they were to overturn the individual mandate that would be getting rid of eight years of Commerce Clause precedent. Now it is true before the New Deal that they had a much narrower view of government. But ever since the New Deal it’s been settled, Republican judge, Democratic judge, Commerce Clause is broad. If they were to suddenly narrow that, they’d be taking America to the 1920s.

And then for them to roll back Medicaid coercion? That would be astonishing. We would lose highway programs, we would lose tons of stuff. So what I have trouble helping people understand is, they think John Roberts, he’s conservative, Alito, he’s conservative, Scalia we know he’s conservative, and Thomas … what they don’t understand how they’re radical conservatives. Like, this idea that corporations are people? That is crazy. That is absolutely, flat-out crazy.

Some interesting headlines have hit the papers lately on the “what ifs” of the pending SCOTUS decision. (The funniest so far, hands-down, has to be Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who accidentally posted all of his possible responses on YouTube before his team had a collective woopsies.)

Constitutional scholars seem to be of a like mind with Rep. Cooper, noting the court will lose all credibility if it overturns the individual mandate because it will so obviously be a political not legal decision.

Via Ezra Klein we have Yale constitutional law scholar Akhil Reid Amar noting:

“I’ve only mispredicted one big Supreme Court case in the last 20 years,” he told me. “That was Bush v. Gore. And I was able to internalize that by saying they only had a few minutes to think about it and they leapt to the wrong conclusion. If they decide this by 5-4, then yes, it’s disheartening to me, because my life was a fraud. Here I was, in my silly little office, thinking law mattered, and it really didn’t. What mattered was politics, money, party, and party loyalty.”

Well, um, duh. Welcome to the world. Seems to me we’ve been headed down that pathway since the mid-90s. Where’ve you been, buddy?

Also from the Ezra link, here’s Kevin Drum (not a constitutional scholar, but whatever):

Overturning ACA would be a whole different kind of game changer. It would mean that the Supreme Court had officially entered an era where they were frankly willing to overturn liberal legislation just because they don’t like it. Pile that on top of Bush v. Gore and Citizens United and you have a Supreme Court that’s pretty explicitly chosen up sides in American electoral politics. This would be, in no uncertain terms, no longer business as usual.

Again, what rock have you guys been living under? If even my Blue Dog congressman sees the radicals on the bench for what they are, what the heck is wrong with you pundits and scholars?

Ezra says SCOTUS has always been political and I’m not sure that’s the case, certainly not the level we see today. But as I noted back in March it does have a long history of making really crappy decisions like, for instance, Buck v Bell.

(h/t Kay at Balloon Juice)