God Bess The Child That’s Got His Own
Andrew Koenig appears to have completed suicide in Vancouver. My condolences to his family and friends. My heart goes out to them.
A certified suicide prevention trainer, I’ve put suicide in the context of health care reform before. Commenters object, saying I use suicide to try to score a political point. I disagree. Going back to Kitty Dukakis and Betty Ford we have tried to raise awareness of mental health in order to have these issues taken seriously — and covered by health insurance — rather than treated as a personal failing.
Yesterday NPR characterized the Republican position on health care reform this way:
Republicans say health reforms should focus on lowering costs for people who already have insurance rather than expanding coverage to people who don’t. They want to do this with business incentives and competition, rather than government regulation of insurance companies.
Nothing I’ve read before or since — and I’ve read a lot — calls that characterization into question. The Republican “plan” unabashedly and primarily cares only about lowering costs for those who already have health insurance. It would expand coverage to 3 million people. Obama’s would extend it to 30 million. Estimates are that up to 50 million Americans are uninsured.
I honestly don’t know how that lack of concern for our fellow citizens reconciles with our Christian heritage. Especially troubling is the fact that it seems to be those who cling tightest to that Christian heritage who are least likely to support extending care to their countrymen.
David Weigel of the online magazine The Washington Independent recently covered both the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting and National Tea Party Convention. He was on Fresh Air last week:
GROSS: So I think I hear you saying that people who were considered to be very fringey like Ron Paul, like Glenn Beck, are now representative of a more almost mainstream part of the conservative movement, that they’re more in the mainstream of the movement now and not on the far edges.
Mr. WEIGEL: They definitely are. After a really tough relationship of the past few years, Ron Paul fans were banned from a lot of top conservative sites. They were – again, he was banned from debates. But I think, and I talked to Paul about this, and he says, well, I have more -he said I have more credibility now. I have credibility on economics. I have been saying for a long time that if we didn’t abolish the Federal Reserve, get back to the gold standard and basically roll back most of the American social welfare, we would have an economic crash, and now we have one.
I mean, the irony there is that America before we introduced the Federal Reserve had economic crashes all the time. And before we got off the gold standard, we had more severe crashes than this one. This is a severe crash, but if you go back to the history of boom and bust in the 19th century, when – which all these people are trying to get back, it was so painful that that’s one reason conservatives didn’t talk about this stuff for a while.
He just happened to ride this wave, and after talking for 40 years about a crash, lived through one, and everyone who was around him, making fun of him, decided to embrace. And when I say everyone, I mean conservatives who didn’t really have much of an economic philosophy, apart from cutting taxes all the time will grow the economy all the time.
Obviously I agree with Weigel’s take on the conservative movement, but even if you don’t you have to agree that their agenda is all about rolling back programs. It only looks forward in so far as it wants to move us back to an idealized past.
In another of my posts, about the 15-Year-Old Set On Fire By Classmates, I stretched to make a connection that was not clear. I blamed the criminalization of our culture and the imprisonment of so many kids. It was my effort to make sense of a senseless act.
A regular commenter, Dr J, called me on it. Said he to me, “I find it helpful to keep historical perspective in mind. Violence has always been part of life, and society’s struggle against it is a huge success story:”
Social histories of the West provide evidence of numerous barbaric practices that became obsolete in the last five centuries, such as slavery, amputation, blinding, branding, flaying, disembowelment, burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, and so on. Meanwhile, for another kind of violence—homicide—the data are abundant and striking. The criminologist Manuel Eisner has assembled hundreds of homicide estimates from Western European localities that kept records at some point between 1200 and the mid-1990s. In every country he analyzed, murder rates declined steeply—for example, from 24 homicides per 100,000 Englishmen in the fourteenth century to 0.6 per 100,000 by the early 1960s.
On the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture: Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots.
Zooming in by a further power of ten exposes yet another reduction. After the cold war, every part of the world saw a steep drop-off in state-based conflicts, and those that do occur are more likely to end in negotiated settlements rather than being fought to the bitter end. Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent.
I take his point. And with that I want to keep moving forward. We are the last of the modern western nations to NOT offer our citizens health care. I find that barbarous.
The title of this post comes from a song by the late jazz great Billie Holiday. Listen to its lyrics, hear its meaning. That old pain is with us still:
Them that’s got shall get
Them that’s not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own
That’s got his own…
29 Responses to “God Bess The Child That’s Got His Own”
Commenters object, saying I use suicide to try to score a political point.
I'd have to agree with the other commenters. If there is something to tie Koenig's suicide to inadequate health care I don't see it in your post. I believe he would have had access to mental health care while in Canada, and more than likely also while he was in the US. You used Koenig's picture to get people's attention, then wrote an article castigating the GOP.
The GOP deserves castigation. The people who have power in it now largely break down into two types. Those who want to party like it's 1899 and those who prefer 1799. They largely deny that any challenges of the 21st century might be unique to our time period.
There are the 'Captive' Beltway GOP leadership candidates like McCain, there are the 'Captive' Beltway leadership Dem candidates, and there are the 'Captive' Beltway libertarians, such as Weigel. They create an echo chamber, and the American people are sick of it.
Wait….so, more programs=less suicide? Sort of like more welfare= less poverty?
I admit that the OP kind of drifted through different points but I think I have it nailed down.
The GOP is not interested in expanding health care coverage either to the millions of people who have none or expanding the scope of coverage to by regulation to the people who still have coverage. They are only interested in reducing the cost of health care to the people who have it.
I say this is a pretty fair statement of their position. If this is the castigation you referred to then it is for their position and well deserved. If you feel it is an unfair representation of their position please point out where.
The OP then goes on to ask why this rather large segment of society feels this way considering that this is one of the largest Christian societies in the world and the GOP presents itself as the party that best represents those Christian values.
Is this where you feel the OP castigates the GOP? If so I would be interested in an explanation. Do you feel that the GOP doesn't represent Christian values? Or do you feel that the every man for himself atitude does represent good Christian values? Or that the policies of a country shouldn't represent religious values at all? I am not trying to put words in your mouth. These are the only possibilities I came up with quickly.
Sorry, I have to go. I will finish later.
right. because when people have a mental health problem, they recognize it right away and think “hey, maybe i should go to the doctor.”
Andrew Koenig no doubt had more family and personal wealth than most Americans will see in their lifetime. His father was a star actor. He was a star actor. He goes to Canada, home of the socialized medicine allegedly free to all and kills himself.
And you use his death to again argue for bankrupting the country with a massive expansion of government that most Americans quite plainly don't want. And to take a cheap shot at the fiscally responsible Republicans (and Independents & Democrats) who prefer not to borrow money from our grandchildren and children to treat ourselves to health care today. Imagine the respect I have for someone who would take out credit cards in his childrens' names and run up the balance and hand it to them when they become adults.
Why is your officious sense of morality not concerned with this attempt at stealing from future generations? How about the obvious misrepresentation of the product you are pushing?
To top it off you using suicides to argue for this scheme. Note that Canada with its glorious nationalized health system has a higher suicide rate than the United States. Doesn't that discredit your sales pitch? Maybe you can find a tragedy that actually provides empirical support for what you are peddling. I'd stay away from heart disease though, with a Canadian premier coming to the US to have it done — where he knew the care was better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_…
It doesn't particularly bother me that you are a shill for big government. We just disagree. But when you leech on people killing themselves to lecture those who disagree with you about your superior morality you occupy the same 'moral high ground' as the Pat Robertsons of the world. It should come with an air sickness bag.
Government programs mitigate the symptoms of poverty. That is all they can do unless we re-create systems like the jobs programs of the 1930's. This does not mean they shouldn't exist. The private sector is incapable of lessening poverty because that's just not their mission. It's to make as much money as possible with as few people as possible, and preferably paying those people as little as possible.
Koenig had resources most could only dream of. In the end that didn't help him. But it also doesn't change the fact that many with problems like his don't have those resources in this country. It also doesn't change the fact that DaMav's heroes like it that way and want to keep it that way.
Is this where you feel the OP castigates the GOP? If so I would be interested in an explanation.
Basically you're correct, merkin, that is the part is was talking about. I don't see the connection between the GOP, Christianity, and the health care bill to the death of a fairly wealthy man in Canada with apparent good support of family and friends. The use of Koenig's death in Windish's post is gratuitous.
I am not a Christian and don't see where Christianity has a place in the discussion on health care. Not being a Christian, I think I am in a poor position to scold Christians for not acting Christian enough.
On whether the GOP deserves to be criticized, of course they do. Their version of the health care plan is woefully inadequate. That has nothing to do with Koenig's death though and only a very marginal association with religion.
My beloved dog died last year and I wept. It was tragic. But you know, it just goes to show, why are heartless liberals running up government spending and using the government to pass the buck on to our children? Why don't they use their own money to buy health care for everyone? There are so many rich liberals who are movie stars, and rock stars, entertainers, and big business people like that guy that runs GE, and Apple, and then there are the big union bosses with mega-salaries. And don't forget Al Gore, millions and millions of dollars. I'll bet if they just stopped trying to confiscate everyone elses money and preaching to us about it and put up their own megamillions they could buy health care for millions of Americans. And pay off our mortgages too. And maybe then my dog wouldn't have passed away in vain. And if anyone disagrees with me, then its obvious that they are moral barbarians and unworthy of theism or athiesm or anything else spiritually nourishing. Why do liberals hate dogs?
Next week: Tragic death of my daughter's hamster and how that proves liberals are moral lepers and stingier than me, who really likes dogs.
I agree that gov't programs mitigate the symptoms of poverty, much as taking an advil mitigates the symptoms of a headache, and , in that sense they are necessary and valuable. But just as the advil doesn't address the cause of the headache, endlessly expanding entitlements do not address the causes of poverty, and, like much pain medication, can cause unwanted side effects.
Without going any further in that direction for now, I fail to see how the GOP's approach to trying to contain the costs of healthcare, whether you agree or not with their approach, has anything to do with preventing anyone's suicide…it is at best an irrelevant argument, at worst a specious one.
“You used [actually-unrelated or irrelevent X] to get people's attention, then wrote an article castigating the GOP.”
I.e., “[M]oderation.”
I'd be glad to field that one. As someone who was brought up in a Christian family, went to Sunday school, through confirmation, and spent a great deal of time with other Christians who were involved in christian endeavors, spent a fair amount of time reading the bible, etc. for my first couple decades (before becoming a lost sheep
I feel amply qualified to address the subject of “where Christianity has a place in the discussion on health care”. It's simple, if Jesus was here today, he would be unhappy about any choice to limit coverage to millions of Americans. One hardly need be a student of theology to figure this out, as the philosophy espoused by Jesus was very simple and was based on being ones brothers keeper. Of course I don't believe in a theocracy, and am a firm believer in the sep of church and state, so my purpose in commenting this way isn't to promote HCR based on religion, but only to point out how all the parading around of “christian values” the right often indulges in, is so frought with hypocrisy – the HCR debate being no exception.
[...] don’t think that mandatory health insurance would have changed that. And here’s a moving piece on health care — particularly mental health care, as it fits into our nation’s [...]
all the parading around of “christian values” the right often indulges in, is so frought with hypocrisy
I think you nailed it JSpencer. The purpose of the original post was to find another excuse to call the GOP hypocrites whether it related to Koenig's suicide or not.
The Republican “plan” unabashedly and primarily cares only about lowering costs for those who already have health insurance.
This is complete nonsense! What, you're saying that if the GOP plans were to be enacted and drive down the cost of purchasing an insurance policy, they'd have a stipulation that no one who previously was uninsured would be allowed to purchase the lower priced insurance policies?
I assume you'd agree that this is absurd, but think about it…that's the implication you've made. The GOP may or may not have ideas that really could drive down costs, but the idea of working on that aspect of the problem is precisely to make insurance more affordable for everyone, including those who currently have been priced out of the market.
So what office do you think Jesus held? If you remember, one of main reasons that he was crucified was that he flat out refused to start the revolution, that is, he refused to be (an earthly) king, instead encouraging people to help others personally. The hypocrisy of the left is to say that they are concerned about the welfare of others, but are consistently the lowest personal givers, regardless of their wealth. In other words, as a group they're only concerned for the poor when the money is collected through taxes, especially the rich. Oops, take that back: too many rich liberal Democratic legislators have been caught evading taxes lately, so make that “if someone else pays the bills”.
Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, concluded in “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.”, “The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.“ adding:
- “Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).”
- “Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.”
- “People who reject the idea that “government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.”
Dude, I'm not the one who made the rules or bent them to my liking. As I said, the message coming from Jesus was clear, and it wasn't about self-serving or about promotion of dog eat dog values. If you don't like that, take it up with him – if you can find him. If that doesn't work then go ahead and warm yourself by whatever selective deconstruction suits your fancy. As for liberals, they have a legacy (that goes back before my time) of advocating for folks who are less inclined to have a voice, power, or influence. That is just history my friend, I didn't invent it.
Jesus often scolded officials for not doing their duty, and congress is definitely not doing their duty. I'm guessing (I don't read minds) that He's have them all gritting their teeth before he was done. You're asking people to listen to his ideas, but not watch what he did.
Exactly. Advocating. Like this.
the message coming from Jesus was clear, and it wasn't about self-serving or about promotion of dog eat dog values.
But you're assuming that the message included the use of government to assign those values, instead of people voluntarily helping their brothers and sisters (either individually or through nongovernmental associations.) The political philosophies of which way is best to promote the values of helping others can both be justified (in some instances, govt does have to be the agent to set up certain conditions in society while in other cases, nongovernmental means of achieving the goals may be preferable.
That there are some individuals who really don't walk the walk is obvious…but the belief in small govt conservatism itself is not a hypocritical one for the many people (as evidenced in the research that Prof showed, as well as other studies) who voluntarily work and give to help those who are less fortunate. Similarly, there are some people who espouse a liberal big government philosophy who would also donate their own money and time, and others who are hypocritical because they ONLY want public policies, based on the use of other people's money, to go toward solving these problems even as they themselves live a lavish lifestyle instead of parting with some of their own resources.
Hypocrisy has no particular party affiliation, and it's only your assumption that government policy and taxation are the main means of caring for the needy that makes you see it that way.
The question becomes one of whether or not the Republican policies would drive prices down enough to make a dent in the numbers of uninsured. It's highly unlikely they would. Look at the recent increases in premiums on individuals, of which Anthem was only the highest profile one. Yesterday a Republican was being interviewed on NPR and was asked what could be done about “junk” health insurance policies that took money from people but just gave the appearance of insurance because they covered so little and had so many loopholes. The Republican denied that any such policies existed. Yeah. Right.
Nothing can address the causes of poverty in a capitalist system. It's just going to happen. Inequality will exist. Businesses will never address it because they do not view it as their problem. This leaves us with only the option of addressing the symptoms through other mechanisms, of which government is the one with the greatest reach.
This subject has little to do with Koenig's death, but there are many who have similar problems to his that will never have treatment without some kind of system to give them access to health care. So it is not totally irrelevant.
I agree with the first part of your comment but reject the suggestion that government can't play a huge role in protecting the people it serves from being fleeced by an unregulated and unaccountable freemarket. Caring for the needy is one thing, but standing by and allowing a new class of the needy to be created because they are being preyed upon is quite another.
The question becomes one of whether or not the Republican policies would drive prices down enough to make a dent in the numbers of uninsured.
That is quite true, Jim, that this is the question that can and should be debated. I realize that those on the other side of the aisle don't believe that the GOP plans would do enough to drive down costs. From what I've seen, the plans they have on the table now would probably only be a starting point, and I also think that they'd have to increase the amount of subsidization that they've proposed for people of low incomes (those who make just over the qualifying point for Medicaid- either change the threshold to expand it a bit or use some other method to subsidize purchase of insurance for people in that bracket.)
I still think that's fundamentally a better approach because it more directly affects the real costs of medical care instead of just trying to manipulate pricing of insurance.
Yesterday a Republican was being interviewed on NPR and was asked what could be done about “junk” health insurance policies that took money from people but just gave the appearance of insurance because they covered so little and had so many loopholes.
That's not something I'm familiar with but assuming you're correct that this is a problem, I have no issue with agreeing that this would be an appropriate area for regulation. That could be done in a variety of ways, and conservatives and liberals would surely differ on which approach to take- but I have no problem agreeing with you that GOP pols shouldn't just deny some of the real problems that exist. (See…I can sometimes criticize the GOP unequivocably without bringing up some correspondingly negative characteristics of the Dems!
)
Prof, if you can snatch up any tickets to the an Ozzy Osbourne show in Sierra Leone I'm good for half a dozen.
If there is ample opportunity and equal access to education and employment for all, and the economy is robust and growing, then poverty should be relatively minimal and confined primarlly to the most helpless or hopeless. Government's job is to help those people, for sure. It shouldn't be the problem of business to help the poor. Churches, charities and government should be the answer.
The problem arises when government tries to bully business into doing the government's job. Then things get frigged up.
But I don't think we disagree that much (am I sounding too much like Obama here, lol?)
Your argument is completely wrong. Our economy is a pyramid. The closer you get to the top the less room there is, the fewer jobs. Education? Given the number of engineering, technical, phone support, back room business jobs and others being shipped overseas none of those jobs are safe. And if you think getting fired because your job is being outsourced is bad, consider what happens to some of these people.Many jobs in this country do not pay enough to lift a person out of poverty. Remember that the important number is not U3 from the BLS but U6, which currently is approximately 18% and that just might be underestimated. When I refer to businesses helping the poor I mean by not shipping their jobs overseas, working hard to replace others by automation and then whining when people say that something needs to be done to help the unemployed and the working poor by the government. Most modern conservatives actually believe that there is a job for everyone who wants it. This is wrong. They also never seem to want to acknowledge that a job is not enough. How many Wal Mart workers receive government aid? A significant number. If this acceptable, fine. Let's admit it's necessary, do it and do a better job of it. If not, then we need to come up with some kind of alternative.