Anti-reform logic: The poor don’t deserve health care.

Back during the first Clinton Administration, the main assassins of health care reform were Bob Dole and Phil Gramm. They did the dirty work of the special interests. The only thing that has changed since 1993-1994 is that more Americans are uninsured and the health care system is even more dysfunctional.

What hasn’t changed is the ideology that says that Americans without health care must fend for themselves, that the taxes of “well-off” Americans should not be used to pay for health care for the poor (i.e. it’s their fault that they are poor and should suffer the consequences), and that in a theoretical free-market economy the health care providers — doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, etc. — should be free to maximize their profits regardless of the consequences.

The graph below shows who exactly has and who doesn’t have health insurance. According to a Gallop poll taken in June, almost 42% of Hispanics, 20% of blacks, and 29% of those earning less than $36,000 annually are without health insurance.  These are the “Have Nots” in this debate.  The total group without health insurance, according to the poll, includes some 47 million Americans.

Predictably, of those earning more than $90,000 a year, only 4.5% are without insurance. This is the constituency of the GOP and the conservative Blue Dogs who are trying to deny the poor a public option.

It’s easy to imagine how the smug, wealthy conservatives out there can be so callous about denying health care to the poor. Unfortunately, they are the ones with the clout. They are the ones that our politicians are listening to.

We have to make sure they hear our voices, too.