April 12, 2011
Just think for a moment about the 55-year-old Tea Party activist who today is caught up in the excitement over Rep. Paul Ryan’s “bold” Republican budget. Picture the activist adjusting his tri-corner hat, waving his yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, and thrilled that finally someone is getting serious about dismantling the socialist tyranny of Medicare.
2 comments:
Going by insurance company lights, death of a diabetic in his late sixties is not premature. They want everyone to pay the price of their own weaknesses. Eating too much sweet food is a pre-existing condition. Being born prematurely is a pre-existing condition. Being poor is a pre-existing condition. They want everyone who is uninsured to die on schedule, and for those who are insured to pay their premiums on time without complaining about the 30% profit margin.
DRY WELLS
"You don't miss your water 'till
your well runs dry."
Other (democratic) industrial
nations have put together
combinations of private and public
health care inputs. I personally
prefer those with heaviest reliance
on the public ---and publicly controlled-- role (eg Scandinavian
models among others).
Other versions have been used. I believe Canada with its "Medicare"
(not to be confused with US
"Medicare") is based on public
INSURANCE payments being made to
essentially private providers.
Americans are being taught that
each person has no basic responsibility for his/her neighbor's health.
If a tenant who lives down the
hall has cancer (or other condition), that is not MY concern.
The ill person should have worked
and gotten a coverage (profitting
private insurance, of course!).
Until this fabrication, encouraged
by those making profits, is
replaced, Americans will never
recognize their own role in making
access to health care a RIGHT.
"Competition" (unregulated) does not makes prices go down. If there
are more cars being sold, does the
cost of your vehicle come down...
by %50...by %25...? Of course not.
Exceptions are the Wealthy (to
whom we look up as "models") and
those who have become the media's
"neediest cases". We feel virtuous
if we make a charitable contribu-
tion...which we then can deduct from OUR own taxes.
This is no way to "run a railroad"
as Mr. Kruse points out eloquently
above.
I do not personally believe that
a fight for universal health care
(or by any other name, it would
smell as sweet!) is in the cards
this year. I have supported fights
for meaningful healthcare for years.
All the enthusiasm of advocates
however admirable will not produce
the votes in Congress or the will
in the White House.
One can only hope for that pride
in charity which attaches to small
voluntary tokens.
email:peterloeb@yahoo.com
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