| As I was listening, I also read Matthew Yglesias' post about how publicly traded American companies pay their CEOs way more than publicly traded euro-zone companies.
Yglesias noted that the CEO of Aetna, No. 300 on the Forbes 500, "earned" $38.12 million last year, while the CEO of Swedish telecom company Ericsson, No. 289 on the Forbes list, earned just $2.5 million.
The name of the Aetna CEO sounded familiar, and sure enough I had read about him being a sandbagging "expert" on the Obama town meeting on ABC Wednesday night in McJoan's excellent FP diary on Daily Kos.
So I had my hook -- it will always be hard for for-profit health insurance companies to compete with a government health insurance entity that would pay its top executive less than 1 percent of what Aetna's chief profiteer Ron Williams makes.
I called, made my case about the inherent inabilty of companies like Aetna to compete, and was subjected to a 10-minute-plus inquisition designed to marginalize me as beyond the pale of reasonable political discussion.
Lynch compared decent health insurance to electricity as a vital need, and asked if I would also want the government to take over companies that provide electricity.
I responded that that was irrelevant to the current debate about health insurance reform, but grand inquisitor Lynch was relentless.
So I said, sure, I'd prefer lower-cost electricity provided by municipal utilities (like one nearby in Green Island) to the very-high-priced electricity I'm forced to get through National Grid, a British company that's bought up several Northeastern electricity/natural gas distributors.
Really, who wouldn't.
When we did discuss health insurance, I responded to another Lynch leading question by saying I supported single-payer, like in Canada, France and Germany, but not a National Health Service like in Great Britain.
Lynch then lied that few in the U.S. support single-payer, and called me a socialist for wanting what most people want.
He also badgered me about whether I supported government ownership of hospitals, after I had told him that I did not.
Though I added that for-profit hospitals were no good.
When he again called me "far left" for supporting health insurance reforms that most Americans also support, I'd had enough.
I said, "Screw you, far left," and hung up.
In retrospect, I wish I had not said that, but after more than 10 minutes of being cross-examined by someone whose generous health insurance is paid for by NY taxpayers (his wife is a retired teacher), I somewhat lost it.
On the other hand, Lynch has hung up on me a lot more than I've hung up on him.
Lynch is no dummy -- he's a former managing editor and columnist at the Albany Times Union. But he's convinced that his brand of support-the-status-quo political moderation is received truth, and anyone who dissents from that is a wacko.
So he enjoys baiting people like me and Joe from MoveOn, and trying to prove that his mini-Village conventional-wisdom views are aligned with the majority.
Which, as every poll on health insurance reform shows, is not true.
I continued listening, for the last time, to see what other callers would say about our dust-up.
Lynch, naturally, called me some more names, and one caller gave him props for that.
The last caller of the day was also a single-payer advocate, citing his acquaintance with people from Europe who overwhelmingly approve of how their countries provide health care for all and basically free higher education.
Lynch was much gentler with this guy, who made the same arguments I did in a different way.
I think I know why -- Lynch knows who I am; we crossed swords a lot back when he was an enthusiastic Iraq War cheerleader, insisting on the received (from serial liar Cheney) truth of pure BS like Atta in Prague and WMDs.
So when "Dave from Rensselaer" called yesterday, Lynch was on alert to deride someone whose views on health insurance reform reflect the vast majority of Americans as "far left" and "socialist."
Lynch promotes his show as "radio for people who think."
What it really is is "radio for people who think like Dan Lynch."
Which thankfully is a micro-minority, in every poll and radio rating book. |
