The Sad Lesson of Jon Stewart's Valiant Speech

Townhall.com ^ | June 13, 2019 | Laura Hollis

[Kaslin]

Jon Stewart is best known as a comedian and former host of "The Daily Show." Virtually all talk show hosts draw from the well of politics. But Stewart's tenure took that to a new level, and he made no bones about his distinctly progressive leanings.

Stewart is talented and intelligent, and his riffs on politics and political figures are funny (whether you share his political views or not). He is already a household name. But Stewart gave the monologue of his life yesterday in front of a congressional subcommittee charged with finding additional financial support for the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund. The VCF is running out of money, and Congress has not stepped up to provide further funding.

If Stewart had a prepared speech, it was not immediately apparent. Yet his remarks were delivered with the kind of clarity and brutal honesty that we are not accustomed to hearing addressed directly to members of Congress.

Stewart's first poignant objection was to the absence of so many Senate Judiciary Committee members at the hearing. "Sick and dying," Stewart said of the first responders present, "they brought themselves down here to speak. To no one. Shameful."

He's right.

Stewart also expressed his ire at the excuses made for delays and non-payment of first responders' claims: First the government claimed that the first responders weren't really sick. Then it claimed that their illnesses weren't caused by toxins in the burning rubble at Ground Zero. Then it was "We don't have the money." Stewart accused Congress of "callous indifference and rank hypocrisy."

He's right.

Stewart asked rhetorically why the process of obtaining needed compensation "is so damn hard and takes so damn long." He called for the bill to be a stand-alone piece of legislation and chided Congress for its exploitation of the process: This bill will "get stuck in some transportation bill or some appropriations bill and get sent over to the Senate, where a certain someone from the Senate will use it as a political football to get themselves maybe another new import tax on petroleum."

He's right.

And he drove home that the 9/11 first responders -- the FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority and EMS -- responded instantly to the terrorist attacks. "They responded in five seconds," Stewart said, pausing to compose himself. "They did their jobs. With courage, grace, tenacity ... humility. Eighteen years later, DO YOURS!"

Stewart's impassioned plea has already gone viral. No doubt additional pressure will be put on Congress. But what's the problem in the first place?

Rupa Bhattacharyya, the fund's special master, was quoted in Time magazine saying, "The plain fact is that we are expending the available funds more quickly than assumed, and there are many more claims than anticipated." Twenty thousand claims have already been processed, and 17,000 more are working their way through the system. But illness attributable to exposure to the toxins at Ground Zero will likely continue for years.

Tens of thousands of claims, and the government cannot fund them. No one should be surprised. The problems with the health care provided by Veterans Affairs to our 18.2 million veterans are notorious and legion. Indian Health Services, which serves only 2.2 million (of 5 million total) Native Americans, is even worse. (A recent Roll Call article described IHS’ “seemingly intractable problems: underfunding, quality deficiencies, a lack of agency leadership and inattention in Washington.” Sound familiar?)

Our larger social programs have even larger problems. There are 55 million people enrolled in Medicare. The program’s trustees warn that Medicare will be insolvent by 2026. And the Government Accountability Office reported in 2015 that $60 billion -- 10 percent of Medicare’s annual budget -- was lost to waste, abuse, fraud and improper payments that year alone.

Medicaid has 72 million people enrolled and consumes 20% of states' annual budgets. Yet the government's approved payment amounts to providers are so ridiculously low that many patients on Medicaid cannot find doctors or hospitals that will take it.

As for Social Security, a report released in April states that its reserves are predicted to be depleted by 2035 unless taxes are raised or benefits are cut.

The fact is that our government has done a terrible job budgeting for the populations to whom it has already promised a safety net. There is every reason to believe that a program to pay for health care for 329 million people would be a failure of unprecedented proportions, with catastrophic results.

Stewart said, "9/11 first responders shouldn't to decide whether to live, or to have a place to live," and that frankly no American should "face financial ruin" because of medical expenses.

He's right there, too. But as his testimony showed with painful clarity yesterday, the federal government has neither the ability to pay for adequate care for its citizens nor the interest in even doing so. The government's chronic mismanagement of hundreds of billions of dollars puts the health of its citizens -- not to mention the fiscal health of the nation -- at risk. We need to learn our lesson.

Stewart's speech rang with the kind of articulate passion that often accompanies a run for office, and it will not be at all surprising if we soon hear calls for him to do just that. But if he does, I sincerely hope that he can see in the treatment of the 9/11 first responders the larger pattern of consistent government failure at the highest levels, and that he will join the ranks of those of us calling for alternatives to the disaster that government-run health care would be.

[ExGeeEye]

I’ll give him this much: the servants of the people with soft chairs and nameplates could at least show up.

[gaijin]

His real name is John Leibowitz.

His brother is COO of the NYSE.

[napscoordinator]

At the very least the congress people on the committee should have been there. It pisses me off that they get paid for not working.

[Spok]

It’s ironic when a progressive complains about that the government is slow, unresponsive and insensitive, when that is the monolithic bureaucracy they want running everything.

[Proud_texan]

" And how do they know...

Certainly there should be assistance but there seem to be some big questions left unanswered.

Firstly, as pointed out by many already the first responders have excellent medical insurance. Probably better than 99% of the general population.

Is there truly a higher percentage of cancer in that group? There very well might be but the Hinkley, CA. case as well as the silicon breast implant situation showed that sometimes people get cancer not necessarily a result of anything specific.

It's a terrible disease and those with it have my most heartfelt prayers. But some people just get cancer.

Someone else mentioned charity and I think that would be an excellent option. Here in Texas there are a number of regional "100 Club" charities that take no money for management but buy a life insurance policy for first responders. In addition they give cash to the family of the fallen to take care of immediate expenses. Looking at their most recent annual report there is no shortage of contributors.

Is New York so poor they can't establish something like that or are they so commie they don't see any place for private solutions?

[HamiltonJay]

While I agree with him on this one.. its also incorrect that the comittee was not there... yes there were empty seats and I am sure a few people were not there, but the empty seats, as the chairman tried to explain but of course did not make the viral clip, were largely due to the fact he was meeting with a subcomittee... while the chamber had seats for the full committee.... and most of the subcommittee was indeed in attendance.

So I agree that it is ridiculous that it has taken years and tons of fighting to do something that should be automatic, it obviously made great theater/tv as well.. but it wasn’t fully honest either.

[MCF]

He didn’t complain when Obama shipped 150 billion in cash to Iran that could have be used for the fund.

[cuban leaf]

But, children at the border.

[GOPJ]

If corruption is a possibility with that crowd you can bet it is a certainty.

True. But Stewart's fighting the good fight - and our members of Congress are once again, total jerks... Maybe Stewart should have offered to buy some 'speeches' from these Congressmen - at $300,000 for a half hour 'talk'. Or whatever they charge now a days...

Jon Stewart's in my prayers along with our brave first responders... And a pox on the creeps in the House.

[Wuli]

The author is right, and wrong, with regard to the costs for it all.

Yes, the rate that Medicaid pays for services is for some doctors less than their costs. That is true.

But it is also true that for decades now the nations attention as been DIVERTED from the true cost problem - the excessive rise of health care costs - and made to focus on “insurance”, and the rise of insurance premiums as “the problem”.

The problem has NEVER been the insurance premiums. Their rise is a direct reflection of the rise in what the insurance must pay for - the health care costs.

Through political maneuvering and the socialist agendas in regard to health care and health insurance, the consumer has been removed as a market force and check against ever increasing health care costs; and led to think only terms of getting insurance so that someone will pay for it all. Insurance, insurance, insurance is the national mantra and focus on a problem that is really NOT about insurance. It is about the cost of health care; that is the DIRECT problem.

Until the focus of the people and the political class TURNS on the health care industry, they, the socialists and their sheeple in the political class will keep the people diverted into the dead end gully of fighting over the cost of insurance and how to get government to help pay for it, while nothing stops the ever rising cost of health care itself. THAT - the cost of health care - is what is bankrupting everyone, as more and more money is diverted to merely keep throwing money at the health care industry (who are overwhelmingly Dim supporters and backers).

[Mr. K]

Stewarts cannot see the real problem... The Government.

But he expects them to ‘fix’ it.

[originalbuckeye]

I think the latter part of your last sentence..........

[jurroppi1]

Yes, that is exactly what I was alluding to. I almost put the words “It’s not theirs to give” in the post that you responded to.

[utax]

“Stewart is talented and intelligent, and his riffs on politics and political figures are funny (whether you share his political views or not).”

Sorry - no. stewart is just another liberal a$$hole. and he’s NOT funny.

[Vehmgericht]

Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz is not a household name.

[DoughtyOne]

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Just $428.00 dollars to 98.00%

[generally]

If the conspiracy theorists are right, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were, then those waivers are protecting the Deep State in the USA. Not islamic governments.

I’m looking at you HRC&BJC . And many others. From both sides of the aisle.

[RipSawyer]

Meanwhile a 39 year old veteran I know who was severely injured in service as an artilleryman in Iraq and has very limited use of his entire right side, able to walk but not able to do much of anything with his right arm and diagnosed as a PTSD sufferer is given sixty percent disability which means he receives NOT sixty percent of what a 100 percent disabled man receives but much less than fifty percent, more like twenty or twenty five percent. It is truly absurd.

[RipSawyer]

“I do not see anywhere in the Constitution where it is the job of government to provide healthcare.”

You are exactly right, it just adds insult to injury to know that they take all that money and waste it so badly that it buys very little care for anybody. Some statistics seem to indicate that people on Medicaid are far less healthy than those who have no coverage of any kind.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Stewart is talented and intelligent, and his riffs on politics and political figures are funny

Giving this puke way too much credit. I loved The Daily Show in college and watched it daily--when Craig Kilborn was the host. Anybody who watched it regularly after he left the show is an idiot. It's baffling that his buttboy Colbert has a show.