KEEPING OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE: HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC SECURITY: THIS IS A LIFE OR DEATH ELECTION

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It’s fun to write about politics; this blog has always been about many things but has pretty much been all politics all the time for the past three months.  Even so, once in a while all that handicapping and general outrage and idealism and hope crashes smack into the basic realities of what’s at stake here. 

For example, just this month:

  • I had a medical test which costs money, (and which not all insurance companies cover,) that found and dealt with something that was not important today but, if not detected, could someday have been way more important than I even want to think about.
  • A friend I really admire was diagnosed with Lupus – costly and complicated to treat.
  • Another friend’s child was born a month premature, miles away from home during a vacation.  After some very scary post-delivery bleeding, she and her baby are fine now.  Their health insurance guaranteed easy access to capable, coordinated care.
  • A story appeared, in various forms in several papers, reporting "Many Cancer Patients Forgo Health Care Due to Soaring Cost of Medication" and including these other facts:

"25 percent of families with a cancer patient spent their lifetime savings for the treatment.  The same survey said 10% of these families had to forego some basic needs like food, heat and housing" and

"20% of Americans have big problems paying their medical bills."

  • Another, in newspapers and Scientific American, reported that "the United States has slipped from 24th to 29th in infant mortality rates in developed countries," meaning that 28 "first world" countries are doing better than we are in keeping newborn infants alive.

This is the reality in our country today.  And that’s just one issue in just one month. The same is true for education, climate change and our basic civil rights.  And that doesn’t count Iraq, Guantanamo, candidates who want to ban books, threatened legal access to contraception and other women’s rights issues, the growing income gap and the current terrifying economic crises.

I know you know this.  As my rabbi likes to say, "I’m talking to myself here" but as we monitor polls and the endless talk show and newscast chatter, we need to remember.  As I was awakened by a very lovely nurse offering me cranberry juice, with a view of colorful fall leaves on the trees outside the window of a clean, well-lit recovery room, the first thing that came into my mind was how lucky I was to be there.  This election is about winners and losers and parties in control, yes.  But even more, this time, it’s life and death.

Oh, and if you want to get upset about the campaign itself anyway, try this.

                  

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: SARAH PALIN IS THIS ELECTION’S WIZARD OF OZ

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This is an argument for a change of focus.  As I began to write it all I could think about was the Wizard of Oz, the fake behind the curtain who had everyone believing he could save them all.  When he finally presented gifts to all but Dorothy, it sounded horrifyingly like the tactics of the current "wizard,"  nominee Palin, and her boss.  I am as angry and uneasy as anyone over the nomination of Sarah
Palin
but I think it’s time to stop now. 

This morning I heard Paul
Begala
say on MSNBC that every day McCain isn’t talking about the
economy, he wins.  That he can’t win ON the economy so if he keeps
distracting the voters and the press he will be better off – a premise
supported by the current poll numbers.  Begala also kept comparing
Palin to the "shiny object in the water" on a fishing line that makes a
fish take the bait.  I think he’s right.

The issues of this
election are, as we all know, so enormous and scary that it may be
easier to keep focusing on the governor, but that will not win the
election.  We need to help remind people of the real issues – the
devastating effects of the sub-prime crisis and it’s sequel, investment bank failure so evident in the past few
days, the state of the economy generally, our sinking competitiveness
in education and the  tragic decline of many of our schools, the
attempts by the Right to place (with hat tip to Auntie Mame)"braces on
our brains" and of course, Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, energy and
infrastructure. 

We’re in a mess.  It wasn’t caused by pigs or
lipstick or tanning beds or even community organizers — it was caused
by the people currently in office who want four more years and are
Orwell-ing us into giving it to them.  This community has enormous
impact and knows how to raise a ruckus (If you don’t think so, mosey on
over to the League of Maternal Justice!)  Let’s get some message
discipline here, leave Sarah to others and push the issues.  We’re
going to kick ourselves if we don’t.

A version of this post appears on Blogher.com.