MOB RULE
I appreciate that the devil is in the details.
And that President Obama's health care initiatives may be craggy and rife with almost as many problems as the ones he is trying to solve.
But...
He is trying to find health insurance coverage for almost 50 million of his fellow citizens.
And the hysteria and lies and near-violence and death threats against the President himself are astonishing to me.
Hideous and repulsive.
And the fear implied in words like "socialism" speaks so much of rank ignorance, lacking of facts and information.
This simple fact remains.
I pay $168 every three months into my publicly funded health care system.
For a great many years, I have cost that system darn little.
As I age, I cost the system more.
I see my doctor more often in his office.
I have had two heart "procedures" in the last four years.
Nobody asks for my credit card.
No insurance company argues with me about what they feel bound to pay.
Americans and Africans ( South Africa is in the midst of the identical struggle to reform their own system, which is rife with iniquity, based largely on color!) should be looking to Canada as a hopeful role model not as the devil incarnate.
5 comments:
It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people (honestly where can they go with a pre-condition). And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait, Medicare and Medicaid and our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.
How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a “lynch mob” advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types AKA “screamers” are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.
The mood in America with health care reform borders on hysteria. It is a perfect example of how people fear change even if it is change for the better. Sure we have a few bumps in our health care system but I'll take the bumps over no or poor coverage. I have heard endless stories of Americans having a health calamity in the family bankrupt them. Of that little boy right now in Florida with a disease that does not qualify them for health care under their plan, so having to hold fund-raising rallies, ie through exposure on CNN to raise money. These stories need to be told. Replace fiction with truth. Americans still have a morbid fear of "socialism" perhaps dating back to the 1960s which equates it with communism. I have heard many voice their opinion that "the constitution" as being violated with this change. Your blog keeps the message simple and could be a conduit to helping replace fear with education. One tweak - inform the masses what socialism is and isn't and you again replace fear with education.
David, I am so glad you are back and keeping us informed, agitated and entertained. We are grateful to our healthcare system for the success of your cardiac procedures. Maureen B.
I saw part of a fascinating documentary several months ago on one of the PBS stations about the history of socialism. Back in the late 1800s & early 1900s there was a fairly-popular federal socialist party in the US that ran a candidate in at least one of the presidential elections. Many socialist supporters in the Mid West (mostly farmers) became disenfranchised with the federal political system in the US and migrated to Canada, in places like Saskatchewan. (This migration involved hundreds of thousands of persons, if I remember correctly.) These were the people who helped form the CCF which introduced a form of socialized medicine to Canada. Our gain, the US's loss.
Alas, thanks to many decades of "red scare" rhetoric spewed by US politicians and special interest groups, words like "liberal" and "socialist" cause many Americans to feel fear and disgust. I am quite alarmed by the bullying tactics these so-called "concerned citizens" use at town hall meetings. I'm wondering if any of the Limbaugh and Hannity types are going to start calling for the assassination of Obama, just like the editorial writers did over one hundred years ago regarding President McKinley in Hearst newspapers. (McKinley was eventually assassinated by someone who believed the editorials.)
I hope Obama and the Dems stand firm and get something passed. I wonder, however, if they wouldn't do better to introduce legislation that limits the profits insurance companies can make, or pegs insurance rates to amounts paid out. If they are always finding ways to deny people coverage, why should people have to continue to shell out huge chunks of money for insurance of questionable value? (And why does one CEO of one of the health insurance companies receive 1 in every 700 dollars spent on health insurance in the US?) Their overall health insurance model needs to be seriously rethought and revamped.
Craig Y.
David, what we see on TV are right-wing (nuts?) rent a mobs that are purposely acting like demented Nazi's.
The current 'death' squads myth is raising all sorts of fear among the elderly.
The real story is that the private medicine gang are deathly afraid of the truth, that they are milking the American public for every penny they have.
Until our political leaders understand that the USA is in deep deep trouble, both politically, morally, and financially and are not that wondrous beacon of society they want the Canadian public to believe.
Today the USA is like that once favourite uncle with a small pension,demented by age, trying to pretend its 20 years ago.
These Nazi style(I hesitate to make this comparison, but after seeing clips from last nights news, no more) rent a crowds, with their hysterical screaming is showing the world how far the once mighty USA has fallen.
I wonder if the GOP, who is orchestrating this, understands the real damage they are doing.
The Evil Eye
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