Pink Floyd on Health Insurance Executives

It's hard to imagine there's much that hasn't already been said when it comes to this year's big health care debate. Listening to some tunes today, though, did provide a little food for thought. It occurred to me that "Dogs," the relatively overlooked but still epic second track off the Floyd's Animals LP, could very well have been subtitled "How to be an Insurance Executive." Consider the first two verses:

You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need.
You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street,
You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed.
And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight,
You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking.

And after a while, you can work on points for style.
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake,
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile.
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to,
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You'll get the chance to put the knife in.

Crazy, huh? I mean, this is just like that Dark Side of Oz phenomenon -- it's just too freaky to be a coincidence! Somehow the Floyd recorded a song way back in 1977 that perfectly describes the behavior of present-day American health insurance executives!

Anyway, those who have had their lives ruined or seen loved ones die as a result of endless and callous insurance industry greed, may take some comfort in verses three and four:

You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder.
You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you
get older.
And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south,
Hide your head in the sand,
Just another sad old man,
All alone and dying of cancer.

And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown.
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone.
And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw
around.
So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone,
Dragged down by the stone.

Well, that's karma for you. Still, as much as one can look forward to these a*holes getting what they deserve, I'd just as soon see Congress pass a solid public option so that no one can be victimized by them anymore. The biggest obstacle to that, though -- besides of course industry lobbyists themselves and their congressional lackeys -- are those dimwitted members of the public at large who for some mind-boggling reason seem to like getting abused by corporate vampires, those "thank-you-may-I-have-another-sir" types who protest tooth and nail to prevent changes that would actually benefit them personally at the expense of their corporate overlords. They go by many names -- teabaggers, troglodytes, masochists, morons -- and I think the next couple of verses are actually more about them than their beloved plutocrats:

Gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused.
Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used.
Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise.
If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this
maze?

Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending
That everyone's expendable and no one has a real friend.
And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner
And everything's done under the sun,
And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer.

Yes, they're a sad, cynical, and yet gullible bunch, but even they deserve a bill that treats health care as something more akin to a right than a privilege dependent on wealth and luck.

That said, if an opt-out option gets passed that allows some of the, er, stupider states to pass on the public option...well, it's their funeral, right? Then again, even the dumb states have children and some smart adults, so here's hoping they don't get left out in the cold thanks to the stupidity of their fellow citizens.