We in this country need to take more of a global view. My friends and colleagues from other countries are baffled by our nation's extreme behavior. One friend wrote: "How is it that going to war in Iraq generated less ire and angst than these healthcare reforms?" This is a valid question that is hard to answer, but his assessment feels pretty close to the bone. Another colleague, one who lives in Africa, put things into even greater perspective for me: "America still doesn't 'get it' that you live in a world of extreme privilege and luxury if the most anger you can muster is over a healthcare bill while many of the rest of us in the world deal with things like pervasive poverty, terrorist attacks, and dictatorships on a regular basis." All our rhetoric about Armageddon, doomsday, and government takeovers feels overbuilt and overblown when we step back to realize that many other parts of the world live that chaos as a daily reality--that "government takeover" has a qualitatively different meaning in a place like Uganda. Methinks we doth protest way too much!
We also need to take the long view of things. This healthcare reform effort is older than most of us--older than most of our grandparents--with roots going back to Theodore Roosevelt's 1912 campaign, if not before. This is not the first bill, nor the last, to deal with healthcare reform. But it is the first major bill in a very long time on the topic, after Presidents of all political stripes have failed to get something passed for almost 100 years. That is the sense in which this bill passing is "historic," not because it magically solves all of our problems (as some proponents overly celebrate!) but because it begins to break the century-long log jam of political taboo around healthcare reform that has plagued White Houses and Congresses for far too many generations.
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In our perspective taking, we need to strive to learn what is really in the legislation and what is not, and to evaluate how those things will impact each and every one of us personally. We need to stop letting Parties and Pundits and Politicians use the media megaphone to tell us how to think and feel about these bills and do our own homework. This will take time as summaries of so many thousands of pages get written, as myths and misperceptions get corrected, as our nation finds balance again from the extremes that play upon and fuel our emotions. With 9/11 and other world conflicts, we've been through some terrible times as a nation. This is not one of them. The sky is not falling. And we cheapen those historical moments--and ourselves--if we let our reactions to this healthcare reform bill supersede the more serious problems we face.
Click through to read all of Dishman's thoughtful take. We all need to take a deep breath and read more analysis like this. And then roll up our sleeves.