Time's Tumulty Points Readers to Scholar Who Suggests ObamaCare Opponents Racist, Xenophobic

In a one-line blog post, "Health Reform: Euthanasia and Other Rumors," Time magazine's Karen Tumulty pointed readers to a blog post at The New Republic's Web site set on "Exposing the Euthanasia Scare" that has cropped up in the debate over health care reform:

Albeit in kinder, gentler language, Pollack posited that opposition to socialized medicine among American senior citizens was due to racism, xenophobia, and homophobia

Harold Pollack - Member of Doctors for America

Doctors for America Steering Committee
PRESIDENT and CO-FOUNDER
Vivek Murthy, MD MBA

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
Alice T. Chen, MD

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Mandy Krauthamer, MD MPH

STRATEGY DIRECTOR and CO-FOUNDER
Nikhil Wagle, MD

DEPUTY CHAIR, STRATEGIC COUNCIL
Arun R. Patel, MD JD

NATIONAL FIELD DIRECTOR
Alex Blum, MD

DEPUTY NATIONAL FIELD DIRECTORS
Zaneb Beams, MD
Ali Khan
A. Rab Razzak, MD
Krishnan Subrahmanian

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
Megan Scott Smith

Strategic Council
Jay Bhatt, DO MPH
Asaf Bitton, MD
Rishi Manchanda, MD
Rahul Rajkumar, MD JD

I wonder why ‘Doctors for America’ are mostly located in MEXICO?!

http://www.drsforamerica.org/organizers.php

Tell Human Stories

Harold Pollack is Professor of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, where he is faculty chairman of the Center for Health Administration Studies.

I should say immediately that actual voters are only one part of the puzzle, not the hardest part, either. Right now six senators are negotiating a powerful bipartisan bill. Altogether, they represent fewer people than live in greater Chicago. The drive for health reform is not slowed because of public ambivalence. It is slowed by Senate rules specifically designed to slow down (and thereby thwart) large reforms.

Still, public opinion matters and is malleable. I propose four suggestions, none of which will shock President Obama’s advisers.

Start with images of uninsured people in the E.R. and people who lost their homes because they got cancer.
.First, he must use his unique standing to highlight the human stories that motivate serious reform. This debate started at a human level, with images of uninsured people who wait long hours in the E.R. for grudging care, people who lose their homes because they get cancer, those with preexisting conditions who can’t buy insurance or who are stuck at a crummy job to keep their coverage. We can’t allow these faces to be obscured by the inherent complexities of health reform.

Second, he should puncture complacency about an unsustainable status quo. You may believe that you have good insurance. Absent effective regulation, you have no real way to know. You certainly can’t know that it will remain affordable for you or your employer. As costs escalate and financial insecurity moves up the economic ladder, this really matters.

Third, he must reassure seniors. Opponents are spreading the notion that health reform entails deep Medicare cuts, and that the president would ration care to seniors to finance universal coverage. Oddly, this campaign is being waged by politicians prone to criticizing Democrats for neglecting the entitlements crisis. Still, it appears effective. There is something especially sad here. Enacting Medicare, achievement that it was, has made universal coverage harder by peeling away a huge constituency for further reform.

Finally, President Obama must remind us to keep smiles on our faces. As Colin Powell put it, optimism is a force multiplier. We’ll have many disappointments, but a historic achievement is within reach.

http://tinyurl.com/nv64a3

At a deeper level, these talking points go beyond the usual Medicare politics and pander. Seniors comprise right-wing talk-radio's core audience, but the anxiety extends beyond retired ditto-heads. A conspicuous number of scare stories pitched to seniors suggest that the main beneficiaries of health reform will be various frightening others. These listeners have endured dizzying social change, ranging from gay marriage to the rise of immigrants (legal and illegal) as a powerful political and demographic force. This predominantly white group watched an unprecedented youth vote fuel the unlikely ascendance of a black president with an Islamic middle name.

For millions of older people, America suddenly seems very different from the country they once knew. So when President Obama asks seniors to trust him as they trusted many Democrats before him, even his remarkable persuasive powers sometimes fall short.

--Harold Pollack

More Here

Harold Pollack is also affiliated with this TAX EXEMPT organization...(claims to be ‘non-partisan’!)

About New America

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.

New America emphasizes work that is responsive to the changing conditions and problems of our 21st Century information-age economy — an era shaped by transforming innovation and wealth creation, but also by shortened job tenures, longer life spans, mobile capital, financial imbalances and rising inequality.

The foundation’s mission is animated by the American ideal that each generation will live better than the last. That ideal is today under strain. Our education and health care systems are struggling with problems of quality, cost and access. The country requires creative means to address its fiscal challenges and pay for needed public, social and environmental investments. Abroad, the United States has yet to fashion sustainable foreign and defense policies that will protect its citizens and interests in a rapidly integrating world.

Too often, these challenges have proven impervious to conventional party politics and incremental proposals. With an emphasis on big ideas, impartial analysis and pragmatic solutions, New America invests in outstanding individuals whose ability to communicate to wide and influential audiences can change the country’s policy discourse in critical areas, bringing promising new ideas and debates to the fore.

Launched in 1999, the foundation was guided through a period of rapid growth by founding president Ted Halstead. The institute is now led by President and CEO Steve Coll and an outstanding Board of Directors, chaired by Eric Schmidt. New America is headquartered in Washington D.C. and also has a significant presence in California, the nation’s largest laboratory of democracy.

Board of Directors

Liaquat Ahamed
Author

James Fallows
National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly

Roger W. Ferguson Jr.
President and CEO, TIAA-CREF

Francis Fukuyama
Professor of International Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University

Atul A. Gawande, M.D., M.P.H.
Surgeon, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health

William W. Gerrity
Chairman and CEO, GMS Asia

Ted Halstead
Founder, New America Foundation

Noosheen Hashemi
President, HAND Foundation

Laurene Powell Jobs
President of the Board, College Track

Zachary Karabell
President, River Twice Research

Jeffrey Leonard
CEO, Global Environment Fund

Kati Marton
Author & Journalist

Walter Russell Mead
Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Richard Medley
Chairman, Medley Capital

Lenny Mendonca
Chairman, McKinsey Global Institute

Eric Schmidt
Chairman & CEO, Google, Inc.; Chairman, New America Foundation Board

Bernard L. Schwartz
Chairman & CEO, BLS Investments, LLC

Laura D’Andrea Tyson
Professor, Business Administration & Economics, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

Daniel Yergin
Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates

Fareed Zakaria
Editor, Newsweek International

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