My Opinions are in a Newspaper (And Other Tragedies)

Good morning everybody.

First, the obligatory apology for my absence the past week.  I'm sorry, can we move on?

No but seriously, I recently received a position at the Iowa State Daily as an Opinion columnist.  A lot of my content on this blog will stem from my pieces there. 

The theme in the coming few weeks will be an attempt to paint an accurate picture of the American nobility pulling the strings of our democracy.  If you have any pieces you would like to submit or discussions you would like to see on the topic, feel free to email me or leave a comment in the cleverly named "comments" section.

Several of you saw my first piece, but I'm posting it here again to immortalize myself the way that only the internet can.  All the best, sorry it's so long.


Ian J Barker
Senior in Chemical Engineering

The health insurance reform (HCR) bill waits for sentencing, but regardless of what happens, one thing is clear: Americans have had little say in how they feel about reform. In the face of errant misrepresentations, public opinion for this cost-cutting legislation has soured. Well-funded special interest groups, in their unique position to create and shape public perception, have played a large role in the faltering public opinion of HCR.

The moderating force behind representative democracy is that citizens perceive the actions of their representatives through felt consequences and, in the following election cycle, repay the favor by ousting miscreant legislators. The problem with this model in contemporary society is that the most prevalent forum of public discourse is now television; a one-way conversation monopolized by the wealthiest of economic elites.  The cost of entry is simply too high; a 30-second television commercial, run in 1999, cost an average of $343,000 according to the New York Times.

The editorials that you write, the conversation that you have in class, the consequences that you feel from your government’s actions; little of it so much as ripples the ocean of national opinion any longer.  The public’s capacity for leveraging its own political power to affect change relies on discussion, which rarely occurs when television dominates the conversation.

Special interests, with their massive financial coffers and unique position to put messages out in the open for public consumption has hijacked our system of government – in this case, health insurance reform - and threatens to cripple the republic as our founders envisioned it: with unfettered public discourse contributed to by all members.

Once these well-funded groups have secured television time, they report perception as fact in a way that serves their agenda, regardless of their authority.  For example, on September 11th, 2010, the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR) ran an advertisement during peak television hours that contradicted each of President Obama’s talking points in his speech the night before. The group stated each of their points without reproach, citing no facts or passages of the bill, yet many Americans accepted them as an authority, swinging public opinion polls against reform by playing to public fears of a government takeover.  The strategy was well calculated, since 51% of Americans fear government above health insurance according to a Rasmussen poll.  However, CPR's credibility comes seriously into question when one examines the Justice Department's account of Rick Scott - CPR CEO - and his 14 felony allegations for Medicare fraud at a for-profit hospital chain.

There is no doubt to anyone that health insurance reform poses a real threat to the record-breaking profits of health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The most profound tragedy in the current discussion is that Americans, despite this conflict of interest, remain unconvinced that the opposition to health insurance reform stems from elite economic interests.

From “death panels” to “socialized medicine”, each counter-attack claims to come from some unknown corner of H.R. 3200. The problem is that an alarming number of these attacks have been misrepresentations of the real bill.  If one reads H.R. 3200, one wonders how Section 123's Health Benefits Advisory Committee, for example, headed by the surgeon general who quote, "recommend[s] covered benefits," became an example of a "government's takeover of health care". Certainly a representative, Democrat or Republican, could accurately interpret this language, but instead citizens have to dig into the bill themselves in order to determine the truth.

Americans trust their representatives to make the best decisions for them. Our reliance on representative democracy has streamlined the process of legislating. However, it has also, via one-way political dialogue, removed citizens from the legislative process to a degree that prevents all but the most informed and educated from comprehending what our representatives perpetrate.

So, in an effort to establish a connection between the economic interests involved and the message of the bill’s opposition, I present the following facts. Humana, one of the largest health insurance firms in the country, saw their stock hit a yearlong high the day of Scott P. Brown’s election in Massachusetts according to Google Finance records.  Pfizer pharmaceuticals saw a year-high close on the exact same day. In fact, the entire sector of stocks under the classification of "health care" saw a year-high (since January 2009) spike in closing stock prices the day of Brown’s election. Scott Brown ran on a platform promising to be the filibuster-breaking vote in the Senate debate on health care.

The fact is that the savings of the proposed legislation are passed down to us; those of us on this campus who will soon take up the burden of skyrocketing health insurance costs and the astronomical price of prescription drugs. Despite this vested interest, our needs are not being heard while Humana’s are.

If you wish to get involved, there are opportunities to make your voice heard. Call your representatives, write in to your local newspaper, call in to radio programs, and saturate the local media with your opinions. It is only through the last bastions of public discourse that we can begin to make our voices heard.