ObamaCare is getting scary. The New York Times to the rescue!

Telegraph Blogs (U.K.) ^ | July 11, 2009 | Stephanie Gutman

[Schnucki]

Try this thought experiment. You are the editors and publishers of the New York Times. You believe you have a sacred trust. It’s not to tell your readers what’s going on in the world. Any moron can do that. No, as the “newspaper of record” your mandate is far loftier: you are here to make your readers better people.

Every day in every way, you are here to persuade them to ride their bicycles to work and to air dry their smalls. They need to open their pocketbooks on cue for programmes like HeadStart; they need to stop grumbling about affirmative action. Mostly, they need to trust in the sometimes mysterious ways of Chairman Obama.

Things had been going pretty well. The Chairman’s approval ratings had been high, but just recently things have gotten a bit rocky. Suddenly ObamaCare - the term pundits have coined for President Obama’s plan for a total overhaul of the US health care system in which everyone gets whatever they want whenever they want without any new costs to anyone (expect those distant baddies known as “the wealthiest Americans”) - is not moving smoothly toward passage by Congress.

It seems - who would have thought! - that there is no easy way to bring comprehensive affordable health care to every single American (and many non-Americans like illegal immigrants) without new taxes or cuts to government-funded programmes like Medicaid (which serves the elderly) or Medicaid (for the poor).

Sensing weakness, the baddies over at Right-wing talk radio and the Wall Street Journal have begun to spread ugly rumours of the coming “European-style” rationing. They’re painting vivid pictures of waiting lists, of committees, of standing-in-line-to turn in an application to petition authorities to be alloted a mammogram. (Which is actually something that happened to a relative of

[Wally_Kalbacken]

An excellent illustration in pointing out that under a system of rationing - someone would be trading off a hip replacement (declined by the rationing system) for better pre-natal care for urban mothers (approved by the rationing system). Now, obviously it will not always be that explicit trade-off, and implicitly in our present system tradeoffs are happening (just not under an overt rationing system). This kind of kind of alternative selection illustration has to be articulated to the general public in order to stop Obamacare.

[freespirited]

A couple years of Obamacare and the American public will throw the RATS out of office.

[taxtruth]

I see it as throwing the older people under the bus to take care of the young and working.

[socialismisinsidious]

But we'll still stuck with Obamacare...it's very difficult, next to impossible, to take back power, control from any government bureaucrat. I'm afraid we'll be stuck with a socialized system no matter who is put in charge.

[kittymyrib]

I would be for a program withholding all expensive medical care from journalists, particularly those writing garbage such as this at the NYT. Such expenditures certainly can’t be rationalized on the basis of what they add to our society.

[I am Richard Brandon]

Where does AARP stand on all of this. Apart from selling insurance & sundry stuff, do they actually DO anything?

[BusterBear]

What a great suggestion!!!

[mo]

“I see it as throwing the older people under the bus to take care of the young and working.....”

I see it as theft. Those people paid into Medicare as a benefit defined in 1964....not to receive benefits to be “re-defined” in 2009

[BusterBear]

Where does AARP stand on all of this. Apart from selling insurance & sundry stuff, do they actually DO anything?

They're one of the biggest propagandists in favor of ObamaCare. In their newsletters, they try to sell ObamaCare as if it is God's gift to their membership. They are knifing seniors in the back while purporting to be an organization whose aim is to help them.

I don't know what their motives are but I regard them as completely unethical - a front group for something or other, but definitely not what they pretend to be.

[BusterBear]

I see it as theft. Those people paid into Medicare as a benefit defined in 1964....not to receive benefits to be “re-defined” in 2009.

You are so right. A classic bait and switch.

[freespirited]

AARP is a disaster. Sure, they do stuff on Capitol Hill. They lobby. The problem is they are on the wrong side of just about every issue. It’s basically a RAT-run organization that sees old folks as senile fools who need to be protected from themselves.

Of course, like you point out, it’s a big money making operation too. A post yesterday predicted AARP would not oppose Obamacare because its honchos hope to make money off of it. I cant argue with that but I think they will take a lot of flak from their members. So I’m revving up the popcorn machine and waiting for the fur to fly!

[ballplayer]

Do we at least get a last meal , Maybe a Movie?

[taxtruth]

Yep,I know what you mean.The problem is,the government will be forcing the working people to pay for their aging parents healthcare even though the parents paid into the system.This is a ponzi scheme/fraud.I know where this is going.

[1_Rain_Drop]

So his white grandma was the first victim of 0bamacare.

[Bhoy]

The last comment was very interesting:

“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”

David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991.

dusty on Jul 12th, 2009 at 1:58 am
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