I have stayed in touch with some of the folks that I used to work with back in the US. One of those people is a guy named Rory.
I like him. Smart guy. Great heart. Fashion sense. A big bag of conundrums that I find endlessly fascinating.
He’s also a committed Republican.
We share some friendly jabs via Twitter and the Facebook sometimes. It’s all in good fun and done with respect for each other’s opinions. Recently, though, he kicked out this little ditty on Twitter:
Sometimes Ann Coulter nails it, sometimes she is a bit nuts. In this case, it’s the former: http://s7y.us/11t7 Couldn’t agree with her more.
Normally, I ignore the likes of Ann Coulter, Bill O’Rilley and their ilk. I also ignore the ravings of Rachel Madow & Keith Olberman. I’m an avowed Independent and I hate listening to politicians and commentators spout their party’s daily talking points. I’ve got better things to do with my brain.
But Rory’s a smart guy and he said that she “nails it.” I just had to check it out.
Needless to say, I was aghast. I couldn’t even get through half of it. Here’s the exchange between Rory & I that followed:
@RoryRazon Dude, I got 7 paragraphs in & had to stop. It’s just an absurd, sophomoric diatribe. Nothing accurate. Inane assumptions. U AGREE?
@zax2000 Yes. In particular with paragraphs 9, 10, 13, 14, 15 and 17. But, you didn’t get that far.
OK, so he was right. I did not, in fact, read the whole article. Who was I to criticize, right? So I went back, steeled myself, and plowed through the whole… fucking… thing.
UGH.
I was so MAD at that article! Mad at Ann Coulter for writing it, mad at people for even bothering to read it and mad at Rory for agreeing with it so much that he would declare that she had “nailed it.” I just couldn’t let that stand. And since Rory had pointed out exactly which paragraphs he liked, I thought that I would take the time to go through and explain why each paragraph was or was not complete horseshit.
So below follows my open letter to my friend Rory, which includes my angry, point-by-point dismantling of Ann Coulter’s most recent article, which you can read in its original form here.
Rory,
You’re a great guy and you’ve got a great head on your shoulders. I may disagree with you on some stuff, but at least you’re reasonable.
So WTF is up with the “Ann Coulter… nailed it?”
Do you have ANY IDEA how crazy she is? Did you actually read this column? Do you know ANYTHING about the health care system? I’m not really sure if you do. Please allow me to point out all the ways that she screws with people’s heads & emotions.
All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats’ idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.
REBUTTAL: None here. This is her opinion. She’s certainly entitled to it.
The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple “Genius Bar,” is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes — the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs.
REBUTTAL: Again, pure opinion. I disagree, but this is what a columnist does. Though I would simply point out that even though there are LIMITED restrictions placed on health insurance companies via a framework of regulations -which exist for every industry, including the personal computer market- our healthcare system operates very much within a free-market system, and has since the 1950’s. Also, there are plenty of other “important” markets that the government does not allow to be completely “free.” Like water, for instance.
As a result, it’s easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!
REBUTTAL: So a human being is not more complex than a machine? You mean, you can’t just push a “Reset” button and reboot a person?
We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care — all government creations.
REBUTTAL: I won’t even get into the costs that you have to pay to get into Medicare, Medicaid or veterans’ hospitals. Nor will I get into how 20 years ago over 60% of small business offered some sort of subsidized insurance but now that number is under 35%. But calling Emergency Room access “Universal Health Coverage” is not only asinine, but downright dangerous. Please point out the Emergency Room in America that has been designed as a primary care facility. If you have no health insurance and you need to go to the doctor, you go to the Emergency Room and they are required -by law- to assist you, no matter the ailment or your ability to pay. This is how it should be. (Unless you want people dying in the streets, that is.) Of course, this kind of goes against the idea of it being an EMERGENCY room, but I guess that Ms. Coulter has no problem overlooking that fact. Perhaps she’d be willing to force hospitals to open their General Practitioners’ offices to the same regulations: If it’s not an emergency, you head to the general waiting room and then a doctor is required by law to see you and treat you. Yeah, that’s not Socialism at all. And the cost to taxpayers wouldn’t be anything to write home about. I mean, it’s only the most expensive health care venue that the system has.
So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor.
REBUTTAL: I’m sorry, but I’ve never paid more than $17 for a haircut (I’ve reduced my cost to $8.50 by moving to Beijing), and I am squarely in the category of folks who thinks that $20 for a routine check-up is about as much as should be charged to people. I’m not really sure how my single mother on Welfare could have afforded to pay more than the $20 co-pay to bring me to the doctor’s office to have my throat examined when I was in the 3rd grade and had s sore throat hat woudn’t quit. Thanks to that visit, we discovered Tonsillitis and a genetic blood disorder. Good thing that she had health insurance through the state. Otherwise I might not be here. And on the off chance that Ms. Coulter is simply using hyperbole to single out rich folks who don’t WANT to pay more than $20 even though they could, I applaud her for implying that she endorses a progressive fee system based on ability to pay. How very Democratic of her.
The government also “helped” us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary — which you ought to pay for yourself — and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments — which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against.
REBUTTAL: So now Ann Coulter is qualified to determine which medial procedures are or should be covered by insurance? What is “ordinary?” Water is an “ordinary” necessity of life and it is provided at a pretty cheap price by public utilities. So is electricity. Rates for all of these “ordinary” things are set by the government or by public/private entities and then approved by the government at some level. If Ann is advocating a similar pricing strategy for “ordinary” medical procedures, then I am all for that! Now, can she actually provide us a list of which procedures are “ordinary” and which are “exotic?” If not, who does? The free market? How many people have to die from a particular ailment before testing for it is deemed “ordinary?” Can she at least tell us THAT? Then, what price points are OK? How much is life worth, exactly? (When all of the policy debates and treatises about the role of government are stripped away, this is really what the Health Care debate is all about.) And what about “Shrinks?” Are they REALLY “exotic?” How many people should we let kill themselves? Are all of the teenage girls who starve themselves, or cut themselves really not “normal?” Because if no “normal” people would ever voluntarily pay for a shrink’s services, then what does that make those folks? (Should I dig up the statistics on suicide rates among LGBTQ teens for you?) Good LORD!
This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes — as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider ‘57 Chevy.
REBUTTAL: Oh, so now an STD test for a girl who was raped is like checking your dipstick? Wow. This makes SO much sense. Why don’t I agree with her?
But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they’ll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat — but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists.
REBUTTAL: I disagree with some of the comparisons that she draws, but this is a pretty sound -if common & tired- premise: Lobbyists are running amok in Washington. (Though, once again, a commentator simply mentions things that are “expensive to treat” and doesn’t actually talk about WHY it’s expensive and how we could fix THAT problem. Every word spent NOT talking about that is simply wasted.)
As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him … or going uninsured. People who aren’t planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance — and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don’t have health insurance.
REBUTTAL: Again with the “smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him” stuff. Can she at least provide a list of what IS/SHOULD BE covered? However, she does make a valid point here after the idiotic opening. An a la carte style of health insurance would be a wonderful option. Too bad that she doesn’t seem to realize that minimal insurance programs actually exist and that hey work very well- especially for the working poor and the young. Guess what they need? Government help to get implemented. Why? Because the free market doesn’t like them! They don’t make the insurance companies enough money! The best of these programs are run by charitable foundations and non-profit institutions, including a massively successful one in New York financed by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Coulter has conveniently ignored a slew of efforts that do EXACTLY what she’s advocating because to do so would completely undermine her argument.
The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down — not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you’re in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas.
REBUTTAL: Actually, the entire financial model of for-profit insurance companies depends on the very things that she is railing against here. Simply covering catastrophic problems is not a viable option for them because those costs are so high that premiums would be too high for lots of people to buy and/or profit margins would be way too low. (See my previous REBUTTAL.) The reason that we join insurance companies is because we want a larger community of people to share the cost of our catastrophic -and, yes, basic- health care costs so that we don’t have to do it on our own. ($150 for a 15-minute session with a doctor so that he can glance at my x-ray, confirm hat I have a broken wrist and then direct an unpaid med student to put me into a cast? PLEASE!) What the insurance companies do is simply take a cut of the monies paid as a fee for this service. In return, they -supposedly- handle price negotiations, logistics and other minutiae of the industry on our behalf so that we don’t have to think about it. Now, if only there was some other entity that we paid money to and could advocate on our behalf and handle logistics for us. Perhaps for a lower price point? Hm…
Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care — especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure.
REBUTTAL: Wow. She starts off wonderfully, but then goes right back to the crazy. In what world does a visit to a doctor cost LESS than a manicure?! The only time that it does is when the insurance company covers most of the price and we are then only responsible for the $20 co-pay! Back in paragraph #4 she complained that costs were being kept artificially low, but now she seems to imply that we don’t even need mandated coverage of “ordinary” things because they cost so little anyway! That just doesn’t make sense.
Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else’s Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It’s like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it’s a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.
REBUTTAL: Again, a nice premise, but she completely misses the point. Government mandates a certain basic level of services to be covered, but the companies themselves add on all of the other stuff, because the free market demands it! They exist to make money. Viagra makes money. The more people use it, the more money they make. Her argument seems to be against government-mandated healthcare (she strongly implied via sarcasm back in paragraph #5 that government mandates were bad), but she fails to recognize that without them, the free market will dictate more coverage of high-margin procedures & drugs and less “routine,” low-yield things. Ugh.
Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you’ll be out of luck.
REBUTTAL: First – NOBODY in a serious position of authority is advocating a single-payer system at this time. It’s not even on the table. So right away, she’s lying by saying that Democrats want to “force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan…” Also, in a single payer system EVERYBODY would be covered for EVERYTHING. So, again, a flat-out lie.
Even two decades after the collapse of liberals’ beloved Soviet Union, they can’t grasp that it’s easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism.
REBUTTAL: Wow. I’m a liberal in many ways, but I certainly didn’t love the Soviet Union. Nobody in my I’d-Rather-Vote-For-Satan-Than-A-Republican family liked them either. I’m not sure what casting aspersions against a group of people does to further the cause of health care reform, but I guess it makes for nice hyperbole. However, her blanket statement that “it’s easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism,” is just plain wrong. Is capitalism the ideal? I’d agree to a certain extent. But is it always “better & cheaper?” Nope. Try riding the subway here in Beijing, for starters. If you’d like I can list all of the infrastructure accomplishments that have been made -just in China- that have been done with a speed and efficiency that is -no hyperbole here- absolutely frightening. Our free market, capitalist system can’t even come close.
You don’t have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise.
REBUTTAL: Hm. I can’t say that any of the crazy is apparent here. (Though is the U.S. really a “capitalist paradise?”) But, again, she’s comparing luxuries & peripheral consumer products and services with something that is essential to the life of every single person. Everybody requires health care to be born. Everybody requires it to die (or it will be provided in order to stave off death for as long as possible). A more accurate comparison would be to the cheap price of things like water, basic foodstuffs, electricity, heat, etc. But, again, she would be forced to acknowledge the role of government in controlling those costs and she would be undermining her entire premise.
Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster — less service for twice the price! If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under “universal health care,” no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card.
REBUTTAL: More absolute statements that, without qualification, can only be called lies. Are single-payer systems ALWAYS a “disaster?” And what constitutes a “disaster” in the first place? Is it simply a failure to adhere to her personal political/economic ideology? Is Ms. Coulter aware that recently Canada was ranked as #8 in the world for life expectancy while the US was ranked #50? Is she aware that in European countries with single-payer systems (and, admittedly, smaller and more homogenous populations) people in surveys have responded that they are, on the whole, happier than those in the US? This is not to say that single-payer systems are a panacea. They have their problems, just as our system does. But you can HARDLY call them “a disaster.” They’re just different. And as for the bureaucrats being the only ones who “will be allowed to hold the credit card,” this is yet another lie. Any reform plan passed will be voluntary. A government-run plan will be an OPTION for those who want it. Nobody will be forced to subscribe to it. If you like your profit-driven insurance package, then you are welcome to keep it. You may even see your prices go down and your services go up because of the new competition! Hooray for capitalism! (For somebody who advocates for capitalism so passionately, she seems to get unreasonably upset at the idea of added competition within the industry.)
Isn’t food important? Why not “universal food coverage”? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us “free” food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the “food crisis” in America, and you’d be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.
REBUTTAL: Another lie. We currently have “universal food coverage.” It’s called food stamps and/or WIC. And nobody claims that it’s “free.” It is paid for by taxes on those of us than CAN afford food. And guess what? Under these food-assistance programs, you are absolutely restricted on what you can buy: Staples & essential foodstuffs. As somebody who lived off of them for the first half of my life, I can tell you that we never complained about what was and was not covered. We were just happy to be eating. This is a ridiculous and insulting analogy.
Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care — and health insurance — on the free market.
REBUTTAL: Ok, now she is actually making a cogent and agreeable point. Unfortunately, she is also contradicting herself in sequential paragraphs. First, she implied that there was no “universal food coverage” and now she is advocating that people be issued “health stamps” a la food stamps. Huh?! And, incidentally, just who will be issuing these “health stamps?” Why, the government, of course! And what kind of “free market” will it be when 1/7 of the industry’s customers would immediately be government-subsidized? (That’s 50 million out of a population of 350 million.) How does that promote competition? Where’s the incentive to improve if a big chunk of your bottom line is simply government largesse? Furthermore, why even offer services in poor areas where you’ll only be able to offer the most basic of services because it is all that the “poor and tough cases” can afford? And what about the millions upon million of people who are teetering on the edge who would jump off of the insurance rolls in a minute if they could go from paying their constantly-increasing premiums to getting a government handout for basic care? Isn’t this the very scenario that she’s spent the whole column arguing AGAINST? Now she wants to bring it about in a different way, with less people getting covered, and causing an even bigger strain on our budget & economy than simply offering an insurance program would do?
Wow! I feel better now… And worse. Funny, that.
I have finally figured it out, Rory. Ann Coulter attracts people because she gives voice to a constituency of people who share a distrust of the government and/or have an almost fanatical devotion to the Republican party. She spews forth indignant, barely-controlled rage at anyone and anything that dares to oppose her worldview without bothering to worry about truth, context or even whether or not she makes a coherent argument.
Forget about ideas, solutions or even an accurate identification of the problem. With Coulter you’re just going to get the Republican party line… on smack.
Keep wasting your precious time on her drivel. That’s the last time that I ever will.
Your buddy,
Mike