The Republican Maliization of the Poor

1.
Jimmy Kimmel, the popular comedian and talk-show host, dispensed recently with his comedic monologue with which he usually opens the show.  The story he related brought him to tears.  His wife, Molly, gave birth to a son on 4/21/2017.  Everything appeared normal at first; however, a few days later little William became cyanotic, that is, his lips and other areas of his body “turned blue.”  Something had gone very wrong.

The baby was born with a heart defect called Tetrology of Fallot. In this condition, among other defects, there is a narrowing of the pulmonary artery which transports blood to the lungs so that the blood can be oxygenated, a process essential to life. Kimmel’s son received state-of-the-art treatment, which included emergency surgery to ensure that more blood is delivered to the lungs.  He will need further surgeries as he grows. 

Over the past decades, the treatment of this condition has greatly improved.  Most affected babies will grow into adulthood, and lead fairly normal lives.  Continued medical coverage, however, is essential.

“A Happy Ending!,” Mr. Kimmel told the audience while spectators cheered. The new father thereupon asserted that he has enough means to assure that William received, and continues to receive, proper treatment, but what if he hadn’t?  Under proposed Republican "health care reform," millions will lose their health insurance.  Cutbacks in Medicaid, the health insurance for the poor, will put the so-called lower classes at serious risk. 

States would be able to opt out of covering pre-existing conditions, which will undoubtedly occur, since taxes that help cover Obamacare would be  very significantly reduced.  This means that a baby born with with a severe medical problem would be designated as having a pre-existing condition, since it existed in the womb!

This is unethical.  Mr. Kimmel pleaded quite eloquently for universal health care insurance: "If your baby is going to die, and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make…I think that’s something that, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that right…This isn’t football.  There are no teams.  We are the team—it’s the United States.  Don’t let their partisan squabbles divide us on something every decent person wants.”

Do we all really agree on that?  Apparently not.  A few days later, Joe Walsh, a conservative talk-show host and former congressman, gave the following reply: "Sorry, Jimmy Kimmel, your sad story doesn’t obligate me or anybody else to pay for somebody else’s health care."  He later reinforced his position with a tweet; "It’s not compassion to forcibly take the money I make & give it to somebody else.  It is compassion for me to voluntarily help someone else.”

 Many were shocked by this callous response.  It represents, I'm sorry to relate, the views of a goodly percentage of Republicans. This is not a majority view, (on a global scale that is), since every wealthy country with the lone exception of the United States assures that all its citizens receive health care. Most Americans want universal coverage as well.

This article is an attempt to understand the opposition to health care for all.  Are Republicans monsters?  No, they are human beings.  If Mr. Walsh’s attitude is indeed monstrous, liberals, on a far larger scale, in fact, are (albeit to a far lesser degree) guilty as well.  How so?

2.

I will try to help explain those who oppose universal health care by using Mali as a metaphor.

Mali is a poor, arid country situated in Western Africa.  The current population is approximately eighteen million.  The fertility rate is about 44 births per thousand, which comes to about 792,000 live births per year.  The incidence of Tetrology of Fallot is about one in 2000 births, yielding about 400 Malian babies born with this birth defect per year. (This is the rate for this condition only; the incidence of serious birth defects is, of course, much higher.)

If a Malian baby is born with this type of heart disease, what happens?  Sometimes an agency such as Doctors Without Borders intervenes, that is, if the baby is lucky, but I imagine that most of these infants will not live into adulthood.   What about the thousands of these infants who are born in poor countries throughout the world? Do Jimmy Kimmels think of them?

The duty of every country is to take care of their own citizens first. Indeed, a good criterion to use in the judgement of countries is how a specific country treats its most vulnerable citizens. If one seriously tries to take on the burdens of the entire world, that country would soon cease to exist.   Every rich country has the obligation to allocate significant resources for foreign aid, but that, of course, is not the same thing as providing health insurance to every person in the world.

To become a model world citizen, one must first become a model citizen of one's own country.  No argument about this, right?

Wrong again. My point is this: for many Republicans, the poor might as well be citizens of Mali.  They are the other; members of the Freedom Caucus do not feel in any way responsible for their welfare.  What if Jimmy Kimmel demanded treatment of children suffering from birth defects in Mali? Walsh’s statement quoted earlier might then be as follows; “Sorry, Jimmy Kimmel, your sad story doesn’t obligate me to pay for the health care of the citizens of Mali.”  Few would argue with that, although a little more—well, a lot more—empathy would be in order.

In the modern world, however, no country is an island—America must be concerned about the welfare of Malians, but this is not her primary concern.  She must see to it that minimum standards—which would include health care—are met for all U.S. citizens. When this is accomplished and maintained, considerably more funds and efforts to improve the living standard of the poor all over the world should follow.

3.

We live in communities that are mostly segregated by class.  It is far easier to ignore or even demonize groups of people with whom one has minimal contact.   Such people become de facto foreigners in the eyes of those who do not see them.  “Let those shiftless, lazy, good-for-nothing Mali-Americans fend for themselves, to us they’re not really Americans at all.”

Now you understand the basic Republican position regarding health care, something, we, members of the richest country in the world, still, to our shame, refuse to provide for all U.S. citizens.  Such an attitude, however, is not only selfish and cruel, but self-destructive as well.

Remember what Jesus of Nazareth and Abraham Lincoln famously repeated?  A house divided cannot stand. It is very much in the interest of the elites that the poor don’t become too poor.  If inequality continues to increase, we will be a land of slums and gated communities.  The Mali-Americans would eventually revolt; the moneyed Americans would then support militias of thugs to keep them in check by force.  The great American experiment will have come to an end.

Let us end this essay with an example of what happens to a severely divided society.  Many of us, in India and in countries all around the world, wonder how a tiny country like England could have ruled the Indian subcontinent for so long.  I think the house-divider of Indian society—the caste system—had a lot to do with it.

I had heard of the Indian mutiny of 1857, during which many, Indians and British alike, were killed, but I didn't know much about it. I thought that the Indians must have gotten fed up—rightly so—with Europeans lording over their countrymen. How could Indians have endured this shame for so long?

After reading the excellent book by Christopher Hibbert, “The Great Mutiny—India, 1857,” I found out. The mutiny had almost nothing to do with patriotism and a lot to do with caste.

Shortly before the mutiny, the British had introduced the more efficient, so-called Enfield rifle.  The inside of the muzzles of these rifles had to be greased in order to facilitate the passage of a cartridge.  The fat used to accomplish this was rumored to contain beef fat and/or pig fat. 

As Hibbert wrote, “Since beef and pig fat were the cheapest available, the sepoys’ (Indian solders’) suspicion that they were used instead of mutton or goat fat was far from unreasonable."  A request was made to issue the new weapons to British troops only; this was ignored.  The sepoy army consisted mainly of upper-caste Hindus and upper-class Muslims.  If the brahmins came in contact with tallow, they would feel defiled and would "lose caste"—that is, become outcasts.  The Muslims would feel defiled as well if pig fat were used.  This was the primary cause of the rebellion.  

The lower-caste Hindus that became servants to the British were certainly treated badly; the brahmins, however, treated them far worse.  Thus, the servants felt more loyalty to their British masters, rather than to their Hindu ones.  For this reason, several servants warned the British about the coming mutiny.

The rebellion had nothing to do with an abused common identity.  Indian nationalism would come much later. This is why the British conquered India so easily; there was no sense of belonging to an entity called the people of India.  As long as the British let brahmins be brahmins, they didn’t mind British rule.  The keys of the divided house of India were then easily pocketed by the British.

Take heed, Republicans.  If morality doesn't compel you to do the right thing, take a cue from Indian history and consider your long-term self-interest.  If you let the health of some of your fellow citizens deteriorate, the health of your way of life will eventually deteriorate as well.  

Think of your country.  Think of the world.  Your greedy, egregious refusal to address climate change, Republicans, is more than enough evil for one party.  Will you ever mend your ways?  Will conservatives become reasonable again?  There are no foreigners in an undivided house! 

How can those who live in an unjust house controlled by rapacious landlords ever make room for an undivided world, which should be everyone's ultimate goal? Will the American people vote the oligarchs out of office, and vote the true patriots in? Let's hope so, before it's too late.