Eugene Robinson: Lines in the Sand

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/lines_in_the_sand_20110414/

Lines in the Sand
Posted on Apr 14, 2011
By Eugene Robinson


It was refreshing to hear all those unambiguous declarations from President Obama on Wednesday. “I will not” let Medicare become a voucher program or deprive families with disabled children of needed benefits. “We will” reform government health care programs without disavowing the social compact. “I refuse” to sign another renewal of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. Republicans “want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs. ... And it’s not going to happen as long as I’m president.”

OK, there weren’t any lines with the simple heat of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” or the terse power of “Make my day.” But Obama’s budget manifesto represented a significant warming of his usually cool rhetoric. He said he wanted to find common ground but instead devoted much of the speech to drawing lines in the sand.

And thank goodness. If ever there were a time when lines desperately needed to be drawn, it’s now.

snip//

The Republican plan would turn Medicare into a voucher program that subsidizes the purchase of private health insurance. So what if an individual’s insurance premiums were not covered by the voucher? So what if health costs, and premiums, continued to skyrocket? The free market will surely take care of all that, somehow or other.

On Medicaid, Republicans want to shift the burden to the states, giving them block grants and essentially telling them to take care of the indigent however they choose. Some states would be diligent in providing adequate medical care. Some would not.

Is this the kind of America we want? How selfish are we, really? How selfless? To what extent does this churchgoing nation take the biblical instruction to “love thy neighbor” seriously?

These are the kinds of basic choices we face. There are two plans on the table now. Only one of them—Obama’s—appeals to the better angels of our nature.