DX for America
Friday, June 26 2009
I finally finished watching “Rx for America”, the hour-long ABC News town hall with President Obama. I am – sigh – underwhelmed. If you didn’t see it and didn’t record it, you can still watch some of the video or read the entire transcript. You might want to do that before reading what follows.
First of all: graphics. They were 1) ugly and 2) useless. At one point they had icons that were supposed to look like various doctors. I include two here for your consideration, from screen grabs:
I believe the icon to the left is intended to indicate a cardiac patient whose doctor has just fled the operating theater after realizing he was in the process of making a grave surgical error, leaving a hemostat lying on the unconscious patient’s chest. Either that, or it indicates the importance of making sure any reforms do not disproportionately affect the crucial-but-overlooked doll surgeon segment of our health care system. It could go either way.
On the other hand, the icon to the right definitely indicates a nurse, which you can tell from the helpful curved lines indicating breasts (hard to see in this, but quite obvious even on a modest-sized TV). The curves were necessary lest we otherwise assume this person to be male, and then conclude the headgear indicates the Pope or some such ecclesiastical figure.
Second: the audience. It’s like ABC went out of its way to find skeptical and antagonistic people to question Obama. James Rohack has had his day – and he will have many, many more. Gail Wilensky? She did what she could to screw up health care in the Bush administration. We know what these people think, and what their problems are, and why they’re opposed to health care reform. Nothing Obama says is going to make Gail Wilensky see the light. So why not let more real people ask questions we haven’t already heard?
Third: the President’s answers were not sharp enough. They sounded too much like talking points from his campaign, and didn’t really engage the question. Take for example, the very first question. This is an obvious question, and one that he should be prepared to answer directly and succinctly. His answer was unfocused and a bit rambling.
You can read or watch the President’s answer on your own; I have taken the liberty of revising it to what it could have been. Bear in mind, I am adding to the President’s words. He did not say most of this – but I think he could have said it, and so turned the question around, simply by taking the premise a bit more literally:
Q … President Obama, if your wife or your daughter became seriously ill and things were not going well, and the plan physicians told you they were doing everything that reasonably could be done, and you sought out opinions from some medical leaders in major centers and they said there’s another option that you should pursue, but it was not covered in the plan, would you potentially sacrifice the health of your family for the greater good of insuring millions, or would you do everything you possibly could as a father and husband to get the best health care and outcome for your family?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, Doctor, I think it’s a terrific question, and it’s something that touches us all personally, especially when you start talking about end-of-life care. I think families all across America are going through decisions like that all the time. And you’re absolutely right that if it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care. But I recognize that’s not always possible, and that health care is not an unlimited resource in this country. And too often, when we talk about someone getting the very best care, we really mean, the very most care. We mean that person is going to get everything we can throw at them, even if it has an infinitesimal chance of working, even if it’s exorbitantly expensive. And what we’re learning is that quantity of care doesn’t always line up with quality. That the most care isn’t the best care. In some cases, we’re killing people with the best care in the world, because they get too much of it. So we can still get excellent care, even without getting all the care we possibly can. So I think the premise of the question is wrong. There is not necessarily a trade-off. There’s not necessarily a sacrifice.
But, you know, if it were in fact necessary to sacrifice a member of my family for the good of millions – well, yes, I would do so. It would be difficult, but it would be the right thing. Kill one, save thousands. Save a thousand? Right. And if I have to sacrifice a member of my family for the greater good, I think everyone in this room, I think we can all agree, that would have to be Malia. I love her, my wife – Michelle – loves her, but we all know that Sasha is the cute one. Sasha is adorable. I think we all want to keep her around. So if it came to the greater good – to make sure millions of people have access to health care that will keep them alive – it would be Malia. Because if sacrificing a member of my family is what it takes to fix health care in this country once and for all, that’s not a tough decision at all.
You probably think the last paragraph is all for giggles. Yes, it is tongue-in-cheek, but I also think it’s a better response than the one Obama gave. The questioner specifically framed the question in quantifiable terms: a life in your family, for the lives of millions of Americans. This is, of course, a false dichotomy. It’s not a choice anyone ever has to make, and it’s not a choice the President has to make. It’s not a question that deserves a straight answer. But the question was, what would he do? And if he accepts the premise, there’s only one right answer. Obama didn’t give it, but I wish he had.
Hate the nurse icon. I wore a nursing hat once, during my senior nursing school pictures. That picture will one day be my avatar when I am brave enough to out myself. When my sisters saw that picture, they thought I was applying for a catering job. And yes, there are mammary-free nurses out there.
As far as Obama’s performance, I have to see the full interview to give a response.
RR – I think I speak for all the Internets when I say we’re looking forward to seeing that picture.
In the meantime, the ABC program is probably not worth your time. Assuming you know that there’s a debate over health care, you won’t learn anything else helpful.