For Republicans, the base is off

Without knowing all that much about it, I'm assuming that the Republicans are assuming - I think correctly - that because of this fiasco in Iraq a Republican win in 2008 is chancy at best, which translates out to, extremely unlikely.

If I were a conservative Republican of real weight and quality, I'd sit this one out. This may explain the "lackluster" (ie, "lightweight") quality of the candidates so far proposed on that side.

I'm not saying the Dems necessarily have the right idea for fixing the health care crisis. But at least they acknowledge that there's a big problem here. When I think of the GOP leadership and health care, I get the impression that they believe if they just screech "socialized medicine!" often enough, it will frighten people away from Democrats.

For me, this is THE issue. (After getting out of Iraq ASAP.) Not because our health insurance is questionable - it isn't. By the grace of God we have very good (if very expensive) insurance, and further by the grace of God we can afford it. But for me, as for you Rod, this isn't enough, just to sit on my (perhaps illusory) island of "safety" and say, well, the Devil take the hindmost. It is unjust that so many Americans are being caught in the healthcare squeeze.

And of course my opinion is informed by the extensive time I spend in Europe. In Europe this isn't a problem. There is, everywhere, universal health coverage. In Europe they spend less per capita and get much better results. I've heard a number of different explanations for this sorry state, but whatEVER, I think we're at least as smart and resourceful as the Dutch (ya think???), not to mention richer, and we need to do better.

As you say, the Demos see that there's a problem, which is at least a start. The Republicans don't even see that there's a problem. Clueless.

Don, you GO guy! You've got the right idea on this one.

Call me puzzled that the MRSA infection wasn't taken care of by worker's compensation.

The simple solution for people worried about being bankrupted by a healthcare emergency is to claim that you are in the country illegally. When asked for your name insist that it is Maria Hernandez and that you have no form of ID. As long as you stick to your guns and continue to claim to be Maria Hernandez from Mexico who has no ID, your treatment will be free.

Sad, Joel, but it is what it is. The Republicans didn't do anything about any of these social issues anyway: all they did was talk.

The MSRA case raises questions for me too. I know some nurses (in my family) and they have really good insurance. Better than most. Even my mother who worked as a nurse's aide always had top notch insurance and got it for life (in retirement). It's literally paid out millions in her case. It's usually considered a perk of hospital employment. In fact, in CA, nurses are in big demand and getting over 80K out of college and making up to 150-160K (and top benefits) with experience.

Worker's Comp tends to be inadequate to the real costs of being injured on the job, so Rod's experience is typical.

My daughter and her family recently moved from Scotland to the Netherlands.

One of the positive aspects of the move is the diminished gap between the Really Rich and the Really Poor in the Netherlands vs. Scotland. That kind of gap diminishes the quality of the landscape even for those people who are not either. And for me too, even as a visitor. The Netherlands has a much better vibe.

Health care is just the tip of the iceberg the GOP is crashing into.

Sotto Voce is right on the mark here. It's health care, yes, but it's so much more than health care.

"The poor with children likely won't have any tax liability under that plan. Likewise, it helps the working/middle class have more control over their working and childcare arrangements (conservative issue, anyone?? Less governmental authority). Likewise, phase it out and there won't be "tax cuts for the rich," unless people want to argue that two married teachers each making $40k per year are "rich.""

Except it really doesn't work. Here's a quick example.

Married couple, adult children (i.e. no deductions)
Gross Income: Roughly $45K
Federal & State Taxes: Roughly $4K
Insurance Premium: Roughly $12.5K (80/20, $1000/$3000 deductable, no frills)

Now, if the taxes double to provide universal healthcare at the same level, there is about $8K extra to put into savings or inject into the economy. If taxes triple, there is $4K extra.

I know a lot of folks who fall into a framework like this. I work with 50+ of them each day.

Tweaking taxes, even for those with children, is not going to solve the problem. Folks in mainstream American know that.

Don't pee on our pants and tell us it's raining.

It's all about access to health care. I have a coworker who is uninsurable (meaning that no insurance company wants her) because she has gastroesophageal(?) reflux disease. A few years ago some friends lost their health insurance because he worked for a small company that lost their coverage. Why? Because a couple of employees had cancer. When the small company found an insurance company that would insure them, only the employees were covered. The employees' dependents had to find their own insurance. I have another coworker who is originally from Wales. She told me that anyone who really needed to see a doctor or needed to have their medical condition taken care of right away had no problems getting health care in England. She hates our health care system here. Because of some health issues she and her husband have, she is afraid to use the health insurance she has here for fear of it being canceled.

So people can complain about "socialized medicine" and "rationing" all they want. We already have rationing in the form of health insurance companies picking and choosing who they want.

t's fascinating to me that almost all the comments have been about health care--I only wish that the Repub leadership had the same gimlet eye. And I cheer that so many people feel sure that there is a problem, because there is.

I've worked in health insurance companies for fifteen years, and they are broken. They are responding to the economic and financial incentives handed to them by our weird belief, unique in the world, that health care will behave like any other industry in a capitalist society. Unfortunately, our society knows that and acts like health care is not a market like cars and digital cameras or even houses, but as usual we create regulations that take money from most of us and distribute it to a very small minority, with dubious results--but at least the 80+% who are insured don't suffer financially as much as they could, yet.

The states' various rules and regulations want to protect their people, but don't. The 30-50% of "waste" assumed to exist in the industry don't make anyone more healthy. We do know that poverty is directly related to poorer health, in large part not because of "lifestyle" choices but because they don't get the care they need--they can't afford to. Universal health care holds out the possibility that overall health care costs could go down, in the long run, because people would stay healthier. Other places we point the finger of blame are, in part, responsible for runaway costs, but clearly keeping people healthy is an important cause as well.

In Europe, where the gov't bears the cost of care, interesting incentives are created. They have much stricter rules about eliminating toxins from products, because they know that in the long run they will pay the bill for people getting sicker. And where do products that don't make the grade for European distribution go? America, because, since our government doesn't care who pays for health care, we don't even investigate what makes us sick and try to stop it.

Nuff said--there are entire courses on this subject. But surely the Republicans, in the name of freedom, are wearing sandwich signs that say "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets. or steal bread." Or allow anyone to get sick, and figure out how to pay for care.

Ditto to this from Rod:

"When I think of the GOP leadership and health care, I get the impression that they believe if they just screech 'socialized medicine!' often enough, it will frighten people away from Democrats."

I don't want to see Washington take over the health care system, but I've been saying for quite a few years now that it's all but inevitable because what we have now is working less and less effectively for more and more people, for all the reasons mentioned above and more. We have a situation now where serious illness is a direct ticket to financial ruin for some very large minority, at least, of Americans. I know a couple--solid, hard-working, middle-income, with decent health insurance--who lost a child to a rare form of cancer: first hint that something was wrong in early July, burial in mid-October. They were left, *after* the insurance paid, with somewhere in the range of a couple of hundred thousand dollars in medical bills.

People are simply not going to put up with the uncertainty and the unfairness voluntarily for very much longer. That ol' "socialized medicine" boogerman is less scary at this point than the insurance company.

My father has been in the insurance industry for decades. Even he says the system is broken. Because my husband runs a small business, I can never quit work, change jobs, go back to school, etc., without thinking about health insurance FIRST. If I don't work, my little family of five would be on our own. My husband has a few minor medical issues (high blood pressure, for example) that make him uninsurable. An individual policy just to cover catastrophic events for myself and my children would be more than $1,000 a month.

The way the insurance market is structured does not favor individuals or those who actually need health care. It's a shell game. The companies win by taking your money and denying you care. We, as a nation, can do better.

"Is there something unique about health insurance that sets it apart?
I realize the problem is very intricate and complicated, but wouldn't it help if employers were not the responsible parties for providing insurance to their employees?"

Property insurance is mandated by mortgage lenders and state governments, thus generating sufficient guaranteed premium lots over diverse enough risk pools to make such insurance profitable.

Employers got into health and life insurance for a number of reasons and remain in it, for one, for the same reason, guaranteed blocks of premium with a sufficient spread of risk.

The Conservative/Republican trend is toward "ownership"--HSAs--or, in other words, increasing self-insurance with cash, income tax-advantaged to various degrees, the health insurance equivalent of the replacement of the defined benefit pension with the 401(k); or in more cynical terms, the same "Brazil"ianation that has given you ownership via allowing you to pay for the privilege of being your own receptionist on automated phone systems, the ownership of being your own checkout clerk in a grocery line, and so forth.

The best system would involve nationalizing the actuarial morbidity risk by requiring a minimum premium from everyone that would then be leveraged via the law of large numbers--how insurance works to spread risk cost--over 300,000,000 plus people. Naturally, Monaco could not achieve such leverage, but then they have a benevolent Prince.

These ultra highly actuarially leveraged discounted medical dollars, their leveraged value regulated by an actuarial equivalent of the Fed, would then, though, be available strictly to the individuals themselves to spend medically as they see fit, when they see fit, on their own doctors and on their own, further leveraging, catastrophic health policies.

We have socialized medicine here in Tennessee, established by former Governor Ned Ray McWherter. It's called TennCare, and it's a bad joke. It's "fubar-ed" something fierce, and he refused to help current Governor Bredesen straighten it out. The people who work and can't afford healthcare (like my husband and me) can't get it, yet my hypocondriac, bone-idle neighbor who's gone "undiagnosed" but she's on disability, can get it. In other words, I'm paying for her to watch soap operas, and sit on the front stoop and smoke all day. I think the rest of the nation would do well to study the failed TennCare system. It's an eye-opener.

I know it is a side issue but Toyota make plenty of cars in the US. If they are hit less by health care costs it is because they have a younger workforce and less union involvement.

Most of the concerns here revolve around the "one medical crisis from bankruptcy" theme. Perhaps it behooves both liberals and conservatives to not look at universal health coverage as much as at "Universal Catastrophic Coverage" instead. I don't see why some sort of actuarial table of cost levels could be worked to cover people who incur medical costs way out of their proportion to pay. I know there'll always be some people caught between the lines (and we should try to minimize them as much as possible), but I have a serious problem with turning it all over to the feds.

First, there's the rationing issue. This is not a minor problem, and many other countries with nationalized systems have started privatizing portions of their system to deal with the shortages. I'd warn liberals not to be so blithe about this aspect of the problem.

Second, and more importantly, IMO, is the fact that if the government pays for your health, they own your body. That means they can mandate all sorts of bans based on the health concern du jour. I'm not just talking about smoking and booze. It also means food choice and exercise. John Edwards was talking about making health exams mandatory. Just about any mandate can be justified under the rubric of cutting costs.

First, there's the rationing issue. This is not a minor problem, and many other countries with nationalized systems have started privatizing portions of their system to deal with the shortages. I'd warn liberals not to be so blithe about this aspect of the problem.

Rationing and absurdly high prices are two possible results of a supply and demand imbalance.

Guess which one we have now?

Think I was going for 'absurdly high prices'? Nope. We currently have both. It's just the rationing is harder to notice because it happens by people 'choosing' not to get medical treatment they need but cannot afford. That's 'rationing' in a free market, which is fine when the product is fancy hats, but not so much when it's human lives.

This is opposed to the rationing that would happen under government control, specifically, that doctors and medical establishments would triage based on need and urgency.

The solution to this supply and demand imbalance to is make sure we actually have enough medical personal and facilities to handle the people in this country. We do not have those, at this moment, but that is hardly the fault of a plan we have yet to implement, it's the fault of the current health insurance system which has been sucking more and more money out of the health care system and driving it to the brink of collapse.

Asserting that the current system is so horrendously broken that switching to the new system will not instantly fix everything is hardly a good reason not to switch. We need to switch now before more hospitals break. (Locally, we're close to losing Grady. Thank God Emory owns something like 5% of Coca-Cola so can finance itself.)

Second, and more importantly, IMO, is the fact that if the government pays for your health, they own your body.

Whereas when the insurance company drops you, the bank owns your house.

Anything the government could regulate with a national health care system they could regulate without one, right now. That boogeyman doesn't scare anyone anymore.

Derek Copold says: Fine, so let's deal with the real anxiety-causing situations, which are a small minority of health-care cases.

No, they're not "the minority." Two things are eating up US health care costs - the incredible expenses of "end of life" care (i.e. the last year of final illness), and the costs of treating complications of chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.

Catastrophic insurance will deal with neither of these.

The mantra everyone's chanting now is "lifestyle, lifestyle," but that's probably not going to make much of a dent. No one is going to touch Medicare compensation to hospitals for ICU payments to people whose lives are extended perhaps 3-4 months by extreme measures. And many chronic illnesses, we are finding out, are *genetic.* Worse, we know they're genetic, but have no idea *how* to refine our genetic examination of these conditions, to find out what the best treatments are - if there even are any.

Countries with national health care services are experiencing the same problems as we are, only from a different angle. Here, we cling to jobs many of us hate because of health insurance. In Canada, doctors simply leave and come to the US (where they open plastic surgery clinics), leaving Canadians with far less choice in health care than they might have otherwise. In Great Britain, rationing for some patients has gotten so bad that they go to Malta or India for necessary surgeries. Here in the US, we would rather expend public funds to treat people with diabetic comas in the ER, or amputate their limbs, rather than *pay* for the primary care that would help them control their diabetes.

Point of information about the coupling of health insurance to jobs. It was in the early 1970s that Richard Nixon (with Congress) ordered wage and price controls to "fight inflation." Congress passed a law allowing companies to give medical insurance to their employees - and take a tax break for it - as a way to do an end run around the wage and price controls they themselves had set up. Medical care costs were *far* lower then than now. So insurers set up group insurance plans to cater to these employers (the bigger the better, because the bigger the group), and the employers got a tax break for the costs of the plans.

IOW, they created a monster.

I'm not sure that decoupling jobs and health insurance would even work now. If you took away the tax break for employers, many would simply drop health insurance. This would leave many entirely without insurance, because just about *everyone* over the age of 30 or 40 is probably by definition "uninsurable" by private, individual policies.

No, they're not "the minority." Two things are eating up US health care costs - the incredible expenses of "end of life" care (i.e. the last year of final illness), and the costs of treating complications of chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.

I'm talking about cases more than cost, and I was referring more to people of working age, not end-of-lifers. That's the main subject of this thread. If the complications you're talking about run into the "I'm going to lose my house" zone, they should be covered under a catastrophic plan. I'm even open to tax breaks and credits for preventative screening.

But should the feds be funding every every broken bone, birth or other one-time procedure? Because if they do, those costs will really begin rising through the roof, as has happened with every other medical expenditure we've taken on since the 1960s.

Derek, you're confusing me. Are you suggesting that right now, as it is, those broken bones are not being treated? If broken bones are being treated, and I sincerely hope they are, how would public funding cause that same cost to "rise"?

Yes. Either that, or the government puts a cap on the price, which will lead to a shortage of people able to do it. So, that limited pool of people will either continue to do the broken bones, leading to shortages in other areas, or the bones will be put off.

Well, she liked that. No labor pains. So when she got pregnant again, she wanted to do that again. Here, if she had had insurance, she could have.

We're not necessarily talking about elective c-sections, Susan. We're talking denied or delayed cancer treatments and hernia operations. Also, bear in mind that Britain has started looking at privatizing NHS duties. I don't how much of that affects Scotland, but the system is hardly perfect.

I'm not going to pretend to have all the answers. As Rod has pointed out, we have problems here. But we also have advantages, too. Our cure rates are better than other countries for a lot of diseases. What I want to do is move our system to where we can take care of the truly financially ruinous situations, but we don't do so by handing over the entire health care system to government that hasn't proved itself very nimble when it comes to social services--like public housing, for example--and thus lose the innovation that's made medicine so much better over the past few decades.

Another thing to consider, when the GOP was pushing the Patriot Act, I warned friends that there's no way they'd give that kind of power to someone like Hilary Clinton, who could very well be president in 2008. Now consider this, do you want to put this much responsibility in the hands of a government that could very well wind up being led by another George W. Bush. I'm sure you think it'll never happen again, but in 2004, very few Republicans thought HRC would be a serious contender.

I am not saying fractures aren't treated now. I'm saying they should probably be paid for privately, both to keep costs down and to discourage unhealthy behavior. Why should money be taken out of your and my pocket to pay for some jack@ss' skateboarding stunts, for example?

So, if the government takes over paying for this, wouldn't the cost be the same? What difference does it make where the check comes from?

Have you ever heard the saying "An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications"? Government expenditures by nature overpay. No one has direct ownership over the money, so competition is muted. Thus, people can raise the price with little complaint--until it goes one step too high, at which point a price cap gets slapped down. This is not a bug. This is a feature. Cost overruns come with government expense. We put up with it for a lot of things because there's just no way around it. That may eventually turn out to be the case for some drastic medical procedures, but it shouldn't be the case for routine things.

But I am left with the fact that the US spends more per capita on health care than anyone on the planet, while our health statistics - pick your statistic, infant mortality, longevity, you name it - put us well down the list.

That's because our statistics don't compare well with unlike societies. Factor out murder, and the life expectancy rises. Factor out the preemies, and infant mortality numbers change. Dr. Gratzer points this out in the City Journal article I linked to above.

As far as costs go, given our government's track record, making health care a government concern won't fix the problem. There has yet to be a government program of this nature that hasn't exploded well beyond its projected costs. And the costs are rising in other countries, too. They've only been able to keep them down through price controls, which has led to the kind of agonizing rationing I mentioned above--and thus has led many of them to begin privatizing portions of their services.

Derek:

Since you have seen fit to insult my very being today, let me assure you that as far as my experience with health care is concerned, even if there may be a more market-oriented solution (as indeed, I hinted above there might be), our current mental health system is a disgrace.

(And I emphasize SYSTEM -- the doctors working in it are for the most part excellent, it's the hospitals and insurance companies that are the problem.)

As far as cure rates go, the US has higher rates due to earlier discovery. Having discovered things we are more likely to treat them quickly. Most of the time this is unneccesary. For example, enlarged prostates take upwards of 7-8 years to run their course. Many don't ever become cancerous. Yet we will still make men impotent and expose them to other risks on the chance they may develop cancer. But when we look at deaths per 100K from prostate cancer, the U.S., Canada, and Britain are fairly close to equal. So, be careful with statistics.

The one thing I find disconcerting about much of the conversation is the re-inventing of the wheel aspect. Based on the experiences of other countries, we have a fairly good idea what would happen if we went to various public models. There really isn't all that much mystery.

Oh, and Derek, you're already paying for that skateboard fracture. If both of you have insurance, your rates are affected by the claims of the skateboard guys. If he (or you) has no insurance, his injuries will be treated - inadequately - at public expense, and again, you're helping to pay for it. Very inefficiently, may I add.

Health care in the United States isn't cheap right now, as I pointed out before. We spend much more than anyone else, and get less for it. It's just that we're not spending our money very wisely.

Quick aside: Susan, I did see your question to me about my labelling journalism corrupt. It kicked off a long train of thought that is still running its course. If you'd like to see my eventual response, and don't mind sharing your email address with me, write to me at madfedor@yahoo.com.

To the sub-topic of health care coverage:

In general, most people completely fail to understand the basic concepts behind insurance. Phrases like "you are paying for the expenses of others" made in a complaining or pejorative mode are -- and while I try to be polite, I must be blunt -- illustrative of that ignorance.

By definition, insurance is the larger group paying for the claims of the few. A person pays the premiums because he or someone he loves might some day be one of those with a claim. He is not paying for others, he is paying for the privilege to be one of those others if such a thing should happen.

I cannot emphasize that too much. By definition, good people.

The primary culprit in the damage caused by our present insurance climate is very simple: profit. Remove profit from the mix, and most of the inequities in insurance tend to disappear.

I'm in IT now, but for my first career I cut my baby teeth on life insurance, and ended it with the designation of pension actuary. I know the mechanics of insurance from the inside. I don't claim expertise, but I do claim to understand the basics perfectly. The sole difference between life insurance and health insurance is the payable event: death, or medical costs.

The comparison with socialized health care becomes simple: in a for-profit provider, the strongest way to maximize profit is to minimize claims payments. There is no other expense in the mechanics that comes close. In a universal coverage system, the strongest way to minimize costs (since profit is no longer a concern) is to maximize the health of the covered people.

[sarcasm] Gee, which works better for the average sick person? Let me see... maximize profits... maximize health... [scratches head)[/s]

We need to understand how it works before we can decide how we need to apply it to our situation. Free market competition simply does not work in health insurance, and the evidence is the millions of people who cannot afford the premiums.

Does anyone know about Switzerland's universal health coverage mandate? They have a mixture of public and private coverage. They require all Swiss to buy some form of private insurance,and the there is a deductible made for what you pay in premiums.

They don't charge for pregnancies and if you are hospitalized you help pay for room and service charges.

Here are some aspects that would make it attractive:

1.they have a combination of public health providers, i.e., the University of Geneva Hospital.

2. subsidized private health, which means subsidized home care for difficult pregnancies, a handicap or old age sickness,

3. or private health providers.

All Swiss are allowed to choose which of these would fit their needs the best. It is freedom of choice in healthcare.

Insurance companies are required by law to provide a certain amount of coverage to clients.

Now why can't we do something similar in the states? A combination of public and private coverage, with a minimum legislative mandate?

It seems to me that one of the problems of applying "free market economy" to health care is that most health care expenses are not discretionary in any meaningful way. And the ones that are are the very ones which are the most important.

Two and a half years ago I fell off a horse and broke my arm. It hurt like anything, as you can imagine. Derek would say, tough luck, you shouldn't have been on that horse in the first place. He'd say it right up until he fell off his bike/was injured skiing/fell off his skateboard/tore a knee cartilage jogging/injured his shoulder swimming/fell off a horse himself/became obese from never getting any exercise. Hey, if I get hurt it must be my fault, yes? And if I can't afford medical care, I guess I'm out of luck, huh.

Once you've fallen off the horse or whatever, only some kind of nut doesn't seek medical help. That hurt SO MUCH that Derek's casual dismissal of fractures as sort of discretionary medical expenses makes my blood run cold. "Oh yes my dear, with hindsight we now see you shouldn't have been up on that horse in the first place, so now you're on your own. If you can't afford to have it treated, well, too bad, you got yourself into this." Luckily I have medical insurance (temporarily, like all of us) and I did get treatment, and the fracture healed well. (And luckily Derek isn't in charge of medical care!)

Sadly, the only medical expenses which are discretionary are the preventive ones. The tests you have even though you feel perfectly fine, which reveal the early stages of something that can be treated cheaply if we find it early. That kind of thing goes to the end of the line if you can't afford it.

Market economy works for plasma screen TVs because you can live without them. That fact drives the price down. If they all cost $20,000 no one would buy one, and the manufacturers would go out of business. That same dynamic doesn't work for my broken arm.

Gosh, Susan, thanks. ;-)

Before my arm gets a sprain from the self-patting on my back, the gestalt is much more complex and must also be addressed.

Highlights (meaning: yes, I'm leaving out some details. Oh, and please assume good will on my part, and avoid reacting to the negative implications in the following; ask me first):

The exorbitant cost of medical school, coupled with the lack of a merit-based measurement of who should be trained.

The costs of health care are incredibly complex, from supplies to equipment, from having a mix of expertise amongst the professionals to paying them what they are worth.

The role of medical professionals in front-line health education.

We can't really fix it if we don't examine the entire process. We can and will find savings, economies of scale and waste. It requires a constructive and forward looking examination, not the setting up for finger pointing.

Yes. The cost of medical school is intimately tied to the earnings expectations of the graduates.

I have a foster son who is black, and who grew up in the ghetto. His siblings are mostly in jail for drug dealing. He is now, after very much suffering and astronomical debt, a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon. He's making a ton of money, which first has to go to repaying all this debt. What's wrong with this picture?

Franklin says,"We can't really fix it if we don't examine the entire process. We can and will find savings, economies of scale and waste. It requires a constructive and forward looking examination, not the setting up for finger pointing."

Right on, yet again.

There is a page full of stats at http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm for anyone who is interested.

Here we go maybe http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php

Peter, excellent citation. The missing comparison is to the relative health of the citizens of each country. I don't know myself what the relevant condition measures should be, but I'd guess they'd be the incidence (per 1,000, or 10,000) of certain conditions.

It's a difficult comparison to make. There are large differnences in health indicators depending on climate, pollution and other factors, I'm sure. The US is so large geographically that I'd also guess it would have to be broken down by region for any valid comparison.

Thanks, Larry. I have a 30-year head of steam built up: I started my first insurance job in 1976.

Kit, the linked article (well, essay) offers some interesting talking points, but it should be mentioned (though I despise the need) that the group consisted of just 30 people. It is dangerous at best to project their responses to any sort of larger population. Just sayin'...

Having written that, I am having difficulty keeping my natural paranoia suppressed. There is a lot of anger out there. Hunting scapegoats is humanity's favorite sport (arguably, of course).

I'm reminded of a line Aaron Sorkin wrote in The American President:

"He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."

One might not like Sorkin's politics, which tend to shine quite brightly through his writing, but it's not hard to see the reality of that quote.