Enter
insurance every week. The same
people breaking story after story
about those losing their coverage
now had better things to do back
when it really mattered. As with
almost any story that we could
tell about the rampant, constant,
tragic economic insecurity of the
average American, it only seems
to swell up as a Thing That Matters when such plight can play a
role in the Beltway parlor game of
who’s winning and who’s losing.
That’s what makes the whole
“Obama’s Katrina” construction
such a multi-layer insult to normal people. It makes the assumption that Bush actually suffered
some real material loss in the
hurricane that hit New Orleans.
He didn’t. It further assumes that
some similar hardship is coming
to Obama’s doorstep. This is only
true if we define “hardship” as
“no hardship at all.” It glibly trivializes the real people who have
suffered in both instances — those
who suffered some sort of devastation in the Gulf region, or those
who have been dealt a hard blow
in the insurance market. Finally, it
only underscores the wholly transient nature of the media’s concern for the welfare of ordinary
people. If their suffering can’t be
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translated into a telenovela about
the electoral troubles of affluent
political celebrities, it doesn’t
merit coverage.
In the end, when we talk about
how Hurricane Katrina is like the
Affordable Care Act, we’re talking
about the most ephemeral damage in the world — the damage to a
president’s legacy. This is important
to some people — perhaps it really
matters very deeply to presidents
You try telling... someone
who knows the perils of not
having affordable health care,
“Well, the good news is that
the rich politician on whose
watch this happened has taken
a real hit to their reputation,
so you have that going for you.”
Bush and Obama. But you try telling a Katrina survivor, or someone
who knows the perils of not having
affordable health care, “Well, the
good news is that the rich politician
on whose watch this happened has
taken a real hit to their reputation,
so you have that going for you.”
Hopefully your health insurance
will cover the cost of having
your jaw reset.