Softening The Enemy

Whenever it rains, as it did throughout the day yesterday, weeding follows.   The more it rains, the softer the ground, and the easier the weeds are to pull.  Quite literally the enemy is softened; the enemy being the firm hold of the soil on roots sprouting unwanted plants in the flower beds, but as you know “softening the enemy” is really a military term that euphemistically describes the death of enemy troops before our guys move in.

We softened the enemy guarding Hitler’s Atlantic Wall on the bluffs above the beaches in western France on D-Day in 1944.   Within days all those “softened” Germans lying dead at their posts allowed the allies to march into Paris and liberate France.

We softened a bunch of Iraqis, twice, in 1990 and again in 2003 when we rolled into Baghdad, but we find eight years on, some fanatical jihadists insist on softening us right back.

With the weather so uncooperative yesterday, I drifted to the little TV on my kitchen counter all day as the funeral for Ted Kennedy began in the morning and ended with burial after nightfall at Arlington National Cemetery.  I felt sad for his widow, interested in spotting the Kennedy heirs of my generation Caroline and Maria, and pleasantly surprised to see Kennedy’s son Ted Junior perform so well eulogizing his dad.  Could he be the next Eulogizer in the family?  Ted Junior runs an investment firm and hasn’t signaled any desire to run for office so we might not see him on Capitol Hill but we may see him at Kennedy funerals of the future.  Perhaps he’ll share remembrances at the funeral of that last surviving Kennedy of the second, most accomplished generation, Jean Kennedy Smith.  Hope so.  He was inspiring.

Much of the analysis of Senator Kennedy’s record focused on his work to provide universal health care for all Americans, a “right” he called it, like public education, and not a privilege.  In this way, with so much goodwill for the “greatest legislator of our time”, could the enemy be a little softened?

Conservatives and some of my family members say we can’t afford to insure all Americans.  But we’re already paying for it in the form of a stunningly inefficient health care system right now.  Even on “fair and balanced” Fox News, every expert agrees the existing system cannot sustain itself.  Deductibles and co-pays will continue to spike and the choices will decline.  So if you’re fully employed and insured and happy with what you have, don’t get too comfortable.  It can’t last even if President Obama resigns from office tomorrow.

The New York Time’s Nicholas Kristof writes in today’s Op-Ed section that 62 percent of bankruptcies are linked to medical bills and among the filers, an astonishing 78 percent have health insurance but were financially devastated by gaps in coverage.  A lack of health insurance results in 18,000 unnecessary deaths per year.

How can this be?  This country spends more money per capita on health care than any other country in the world, but since our life expectancy ranks 36th, there’s a discrepancy that’s costing us much more than money.  What well-informed conservative can argue we’re getting our money’s worth?

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel to get out of this expensive mess.  Most industrialized countries domore for their citizens with less money, and indeed for anyone who finds the European models scary and not applicable, we have some cities in the U.S. that deliver better results for less.

I know change is tough.  For some people change is impossible even when the status quo is paralyzing.  I hope everyone who watched the coverage of Ted Kennedy’s funeral yesterday, and all who waited hours to view the casket in the Kennedy Library, and the spectators who lined the route of travel for Kennedy’s final trip through Massachusetts and Washington, applauding and waving little American flags, will honor the legacy of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy and push for universal health care, the “cause” of his long and fruitful life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/opinion/30kristof.html?em

Tagged as: Health Care, Ted Kennedy, War