OK, progressives know that Bernie Sanders is unmistakably a good guy. He pointed out recently that in a country with such a huge gap between economic classes, and with so many low and moderate income people drowning financially, any talk about cutting Medicaid and Medicare is inhuman and should be unthinkable; he’s certainly right about that, and it’s great to have a national political representative speaking plain truths on the public’s behalf like this. But then, Sanders goes on to talk about health care reforms that are still needed and throws out that ridiculous term, “single payer healthcare.”
I am a reasonably well-informed person, a fluent English speaker; I read up on issues and solutions AND I’m actively involved with progressive politics. I also know a lot of brilliantly well informed people in the left wing of the political spectrum and get a chance to pick their brains at Green Drinks events or Madres por Obama meetings. I also don’t mind picking up the phone to bother friends to educate me on important topics. And yet, it took me almost three years to understand what the term, “single payer healthcare system,” actually signifies.
It seems to be one more phrase coined by the usual group of exquisitely educated, ultra liberal, Rockport wearing, financially comfortable, United States citizens who recently created another set of completely inaccessible phrases to describe the same thing: “tar sands pipeline”, which I’ll explain in a second and, “XL pipeline” whose hidden meaning I was not able to decode.
Question for the people creating these phrases: when you describe things people should care about in language that 1) fails to paint a vision people can relate to and 2) has no meaning for average people, could you be alienating the very people who might like to get stand together with you on these issues to make a bigger impact?
As it turns out, the phrase “tar sands” refers to the process of boiling huge areas of desert to extract oil from the sand, using a process that would take more energy per barrel to produce than the oil it extracts will represent. And then, they would send that oil underground clear across the North American continent through tubes that would invariably leak and destroy natural habitats (and possibly water supplies) all along the way. So, what’s that bit about tar? Nobody was ever able to explain that part to me, but no matter – now you know what the phrase “tar sands” means.
“Single payer healthcare”. Whoa, what a mouthful. Before I tell you what it does mean, I want you to know that it doesn’t: it means NOTHING about individuals paying for healthcare, although I know that’s exactly what it sounds like. This phrase refers to a system where medical bills are submitted to one central office, which processes them for payment. In a nutshell, the single office paying the bills is the “single payer” in the phrase “single payer healthcare system.” Who would have guessed? Not me, that’s for sure.
This is how I managed to break through the wall of almost five years of frustration trying to understand what “single payer healthcare system” means: I got a friend into a headlock and said that I wasn’t letting her go until she stopped explaining the benefits this system offers to the public and simply broke down the meaning of the term’s LANGUAGE to me. At the end of 20 minutes we were both exhausted emotionally and physically, but my friend had revealed the meaning of “single payer”, and now I can share that meaning with you, and Bernie Sanders.
I propose a challenge for simple progressive language: that easy to understand terms always be used when introducing to the national, progressive community items that are of true interest to a wide range of folk. I am sure that many more people would jump on board to support issues if it were much easier to understand what they really are. Failing to do this smacks not only of elitism, but also disenfranchisement and dis-inclusion. Let’s leave that stuff to the conservatives.