Keith Olbermann & the Fight against Death

The thing about Keith Olbermann is, I tend to agree with his positions far more than I care for his over-the-top, full-of-himself histrionic shtick. So I approached his “Special Commentary” on health care — one hour of nothing but the largest talking head on TV — with both interest and trepidation.
Olbermann called his Special Commentary “Health Care Reform: The Fight Against Death.” Over and over again he returned with a flourish to the word “death,” the subtext being “Look how heroic and iconoclastic I am to be talking about this unmentionable subject.” The inevitability of death was his scare tactic: “You are going to die. We are all going to die.” Yet at the same time, he accused his opponents of exploiting that same fear: The reason misguided folks are opposed to reform are the “death panel” scare tactics of the other side.

Olbermann’s statistics were for the most part already familiar. One new bit was how, in a decade or so, more people will die from lack of health insurance than from a history of smoking.
He also explained ‘Dead Peasant’ life insurance policies, where employers profit by secretly taking out life insurance on their employees – a practice featured in Michael Moore’s latest work, Capitalism: A Love Story.
Keith used highly personal and graphic details of his father’s recent illness to add interest to a complex, wonky subject. This added to the emotional appeal of his presentation. But even without the personal touches, his overall tone was a highly theatrical moral outrage, a hallmark of both Olbermann and the cable infotainment industry in which he sits near the top.
The fact is, I agree with Olbermann. Before money comes into play, health care is a moral and ethical issue: How do we feel about letting people die just because they can’t afford health insurance? Here the subtext is: Don’t you feel guilty? My guess is that 99% of Keith’s regulars already agree with him and thus, unfortunately or not, don’t feel guilty. He’s preaching to the choir.
He ended with a call to action: Health clinics in the six states represented by the Senators (all Democrats) whose support will likely determine the fate of health care reform. The proposed clinics would be run by the National Association of Free Clinics. More details on KO’s fund-raising proposal are available at MSNBC under Action.

Excerpts from the show

Health care as basic as life itself

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America’s widening health gap

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Companies betting on employees’ lives (Dead Peasant policies)

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Respecting pain and patient

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A wake-up call to Washington

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