Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake....
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?....
-- John Kerry
Not long ago, I received an email listing the Senate Democrats who may prove to be obstacles to President Obama's health care plans. I was not surprised to see Joe Lieberman (is he even a Democrat?) and Dianne Feinstein on the list, but John Kerry? Senator Kerry obviously understands denial and the terrible injustice that results when one group of people must bear the cost of another's refusal to face reality. When a young John Kerry gave the Senate testimony that made him famous, Americans were torn about the thought of "giving up" in Vietnam. We did not want to admit failure and we were willing to send our young men to die for plausible deniability of failure.
The Institute of Medicine estimates that at least 18,000 Americans die prematurely each year because they lack health insurance.
It was wrong then and it is wrong now. The entire world knows that our health care system is a failure. The opposition's best argument for maintaining the status quo is that we simply can't afford to do better. But the whole world knows that we can't afford not to do better. Throughout the developed world, people routinely spend less money for better care than we do. The fiction that we have the best health care in the world is just a tool for denying the fact that we don't even come close to that standard. So perhaps we need to update John Kerry's Senate testimony to make it more relevant to today's world.
Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of the uninsured someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have failed....
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in denial? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a failed health care system?....
