Thursday, December 17, 2009

Citizen Numbers

I'm struck, in reading the support for the disastrous Senate "health" "care" bill, how much it depends on the idea than an improvement on the average level of US health care is acceptable, even though it means that huge numbers of people will be ruined, and some will die. And I think I'm starting to see a pattern: among liberals the academics and the people with secure jobs support it (even Krugman, sigh), and the people like Ian Welsh who've actually been poor, or who know people who've been poor, oppose it. It's easy, when dealing with numbers, to forget that each click on the counter signifies a whole life: hopes and fears and dreams. I want us to remember.

No comments: