The anger over health- care reform in America

Here in the blue state of Connecticut and across the country, we continue to see a surprising number of citizens, voices quivering with fear and anger, as they protest the seemingly straight-forward issue of finding the best way to improve the U.S. system of health care to benefit all Americans. Why the fear and anger? What’s behind this? What’s the solution?

Demonstrations for and against health-care reform that took place over the summer in Litchfield, Simsbury, Waterbury and Washington, Conn., provided an opportunity informally to poll protesters’ status and opinions, and develop a kind of protester profile. Who are they? What do they want?

There are serious, dispassionate concerns about health-care options, such as cost, but this does not explain the rage expressed by a sizable number of our citizens at these counter-demonstrations. Why the angst?

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Although protesters at Connecticut events pointed across to supporters of health-care reform, labeling them “unpatriotic socialists,� it was not possible to find a single protester who had ever served his country in combat, and only a few who had ever performed peacetime military service. Was the sample biased in some way? By contrast, the supporters of health-care reform included a number of veterans, some decorated for service to country. Why the disparity?

Perhaps the central criticism by protesters against health-care reformers was not so much the question of patriotism as the socialism issue. Asked to define “socialism,� the best several protesters could come up with was to equate it with “Communism� and “Naziism� — simultaneously.

The actual meaning and content of the protesters’ slogans and seemingly canned vocabulary did not apparently matter. For example, one protester carried a large sign urging “Tort Reform.� Asked what is a “tort,� he said he didn’t know. The fact that President Obama had already announced that he embraced tort reform did not seem to count.

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Informal polling at the Connecticut events indicated that some 75 percent of health-reform protesters believed that Obama was born in Kenya, and therefore wasn’t really president of the United States. The remaining 25 percent named other countries of birth, such as Indonesia, or Hawaii which, they explained, was not a state when the U.S. Constitution was written. It was generally believed that Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate as well as Honolulu newspaper birth announcements were Hawaiian and U.S. government conspiracy forgeries.

More than 60 percent of protesters believed in the reality of proposed “death panels� designed to “pull the plug on Granny.� More thoughtful protesters seemed to recognize the metaphorical or theatrical nature of the term, but they were nevertheless convinced that Medicare and Medicaid benefits would be slashed under the Obama health plan. They doubted the intention was merely to reduce Medicare fraud and waste. Thousands of Americans, they said, would die as a result of “Obamacare.�

Significantly, nearly 50 percent of those opposed to a government-run “option� were themselves already benefitting from some form of government health plan, namely Medicare, Medicaid, and in a few cases the VA. It wasn’t clear how many understood that Medicare is government-run. Two of the most vociferous admitted they were on lifetime disability, receiving thousands of dollars of support each month. But 100 percent of protesters polled “strongly opposed� a health insurance public option as being “un-American.�

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Elsewhere across the country, protesters went to still greater extremes. They waved signs depicting President Obama as an aboriginal witch doctor, a Nazi complete with Adolf Hitler’s trademark mustache, a Communist with hammer and sickle, and a purveyor of blood-letting and euthanasia. Why the animus toward such an obviously intelligent, moral, humane and popular president? Is race a factor? This deserves a closer look.

According to former President Jimmy Carter, a significant element underlying the protest movement against “Obamacare� is racism, pure and simple. If so, this is disillusioning. After all, we’re in the 21st century, aren’t we? On the other hand, the conservative columnist and ABC news analyst George Will assures us, “There is not a shred of evidence that racism is a factor in the protest.�

According to the Borowitz Report, a Minnesota opinion poll found that those who take issue with President Obama on health reform do so because of his “questionable� birth certificate, his “love of socialism,� and his “Hitler-like health plan,� but “not because of race.� Well, that’s a relief!

This is the first part of a two-part column.

Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and legal counsel of the World Health Organization.