By Naomi | August 13, 2009 at 8:13 am
This summer health care reform is all over the news, and politicians back home in their districts during the recess are encountering all sorts of interesting characters. The Washington Post characterized a recent spate of town hall meetings, held by legislators to discuss the subject with their constituents, as “[having] transcended their original purpose [to] become a kind of professional wrestling for the civically engaged.”
Following up on Sam’s post, and on all the craziness going on in town halls, here is a sampling of past Boston Review on health care. The magazine has been covering health care issues for over a decade, in a manner hopefully closer to chess, or perhaps poker, than professional wrestling. But don’t take it from me – I’m a rugby person, myself.
Also: see if you can spot the brother of a White House official in this list (hint: the official in question is sometimes called “Rahmbo.”)
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Barbara Starfield, Bruce Kennedy, chess, Christopher Murray, civic engagement, cure, David Himmelstein, Dean Baker, doctors, Emmanuela Gakidou, Ezekiel Emanuel, Fabienne Peer, health care, Health insurance, Ichiro Kawachi, interest, Jill Queadagno, John Canham-Clyne, John Geyman, Julio Frenk, Marcia Angell, Michael Marmot, Norman Daniels, poker, politics, poverty, Rahm Emanuel, rugby, Steffie Woolhandler, Sudhir Anand, Suzanne Gordon, Ted Marmor, town halls, Victor Fuchs, wrestling | No Comments »
By Sam Barr | August 12, 2009 at 8:16 am
The new explanation for the mounting resistance to Democratic health care proposals is that people are confused, they don’t know what we’re getting into, and they prefer the devil they know. I think all that is true. But you have to follow up: why are people confused?
Obviously part of the problem is that they are being deliberately lied to. But there are probably relatively few people out there swallowing and regurgitating all the lies.
Why? Simple: relatively few people pay much attention to politics, and most people have a very low level of familiarity with the specifics of any particular issue. According to a recent Kaiser poll, only 27% of Americans are following the health care reform debate closely. There are strong believers on both sides of the issue, but the key, as it always is in American politics, is the mushy, ill-informed middle. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Current Events and Issues | Tags: Health Care Reform, Health insurance, Obama, polling, public plan | No Comments »
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