Posted on 08/13/2009 3:17:36 PM PDT by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- It’s all so sad. Well-organized conservatives have launched a full-scale attack on health care reform. And they appear to be winning -- for now.
Their victory strategy involves deliberate distortions of the truth and scare tactics. Under the plans Congress is considering, a government bureaucrat will come between you and your doctor, their TV ads intone ominously. You will lose your private health insurance, dumping you into an inferior government plan. You won’t be able to choose your doctor, they say.
The desperate opposition also claims we will have "socialized medicine," rationed care and forced euthanasia for the elderly.
Those falsehoods and calls to disrupt congressional town hall meetings are being peddled by right-wing organizations such as Freedomworks.org, which is directed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, now a Washington lobbyist with clients including a major international pharmaceuticals company.
I covered the battle to create the Medicare system back in the 1960s. The cries of "socialized medicine" worked for years until President Lyndon B. Johnson rammed Medicare through Congress in 1965.
Johnson signed the Medicare legislation on former President Harry Truman’s desk in Independence, Mo. Truman had first proposed a health care program for the elderly back in the 1950s.
Truman, still feisty at age 81, was all smiles.
I remember a newsman went up to Johnson and told him "my mother thanks you." Johnson turned to him and said: "You should thank me," meaning Medicare would help families with the increasingly heavy financial burden of caring for seniors.
What kind of a country are we if we do not provide everyone with the excellent medical care that only some of us now receive?
I continue to think the so-called single payer system is the only answer to the nation’s obligation to make sure that no one lacks health care. Yes, single payer means a government-run health insurance program for all -- the prevailing system in Canada and in many nations in Europe.
At this point under the current employer-provided private health insurance system, 47 million Americans have no coverage and more are losing what they have every day through job loss in this devastating recession.
President Barack Obama is making a big mistake by ignoring the single-payer proposal.
Because the words "single payer" have been subjected to such pervasive demagoguery and misrepresentation, its polling numbers do not reflect how popular it really is.
In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll last month, 58 percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat favored a program to provide insurance "through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for-all."
That’s basically the same as single payer. But once the same poll actually used the words "single payer" to describe the program, support dropped to 51 percent.
In 2003 before he became a U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama actually called himself a single-payer "proponent." But now that he is president, Obama has buckled to Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Democrats in pursuit of consensus. My question is if Congress passes a watered-down version of health care that doesn’t truly cover everyone, is the result worth it?
The president has given no hearing to the advocates of a single-payer system and neither has the media.
He also had worked out a deal with the drug manufacturers not to use the federal government’s massive bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices -- although now the White House appears to be having second thoughts.
Single payer works; it is not code for substandard medical care.
Diana Beeson, an American friend from Ohio who now lives in Canada, wrote me that three years ago she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and received treatment "unrivaled by anything I can imagine even with my fairly decent coverage as a state employee in the U.S.
"I have had surgery, chemotherapy and closely followed my oncologist and the family doctor of my own choosing. It has not cost me a dime," she said.
Beeson said she wanted to share her "wonderful experience with health care in Canada."
The systems in Canada, Britain and France, among others have been much maligned and scapegoated by corporate medicine in the U.S.
It’s understandable why the president has bent over backwards to appease Congress, having studied Hillary Clinton’s failure to touch base with key lawmakers in selling the program she drafted in her years as first lady. Her recommendations died on Capitol Hill, aided by the phony "Harry and Louise" television distractions.
President Obama should lay down markers for real health care reform -- meaning we all kick in to a national program instead of fattening the pocketbooks of the insurance financiers.
Instead, the president has given up on Medicare for all, calling single payer "impractical."
He still has time to do the right thing and nothing to lose.
She should be more concerned about hag care.
Yoo-hoo, Helen Thomas ping list! FReepmail me if you'd like to be added.
Obama Sings Happy Birthday To Helen Thomas, Brings Her Cupcakes (VIDEO)
Huffingtion Post/AP
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/04/obama-sings-happy-birthda_0_n_251088.html
“SOCIALISTS LAUNCH ATTACK ON THE AMERICAN WAY”
“FReepmail me if you’d like to be added.”
I don’t want to be added, but I would like to wash my eyes out with bleach!
I should not have ventured into this thread.
I suspected that one or more of you would not be able to constrain yourselves and post a photo of the unspeakably hideous author of the article.
I don’t know what’s worse.
Her logic or her appearance.
Oh, and thanks for ruining my supper.
=== barf-o-plex ====
Sometimes I wonder if the Democrats are so intent on killing everybody on the planet, why haven't they (or their terrorist/communist buddies) pushed a button and wiped out a city yet?
“She should be more concerned about hag care.”
That would be covered under Veterinary Insurance.
Helen, take a painkiller. Obama thinks *your* health care is costing $$$ that could be spent on young illegals.
Not tonight dear, another Helen Thomas post on FR...
Wondering. . . was HT ever young ? Or was she born on Medicare?
Seriously though . . .
The left has recently taken up the refrain of “you’d oppose Medicare too !” - as if that were a bad thing.
The truth is, the Government has incrementally co-opted portions of the the health care system over the past 40 years. In the case of Medicare, even with the lifelong garnishing of wages of every wage earner in the country - they’ve managed to create a system that represents trillions in un-funded obligations.
Now that they’ve managed to drain the profitability out of every segment of health care that they control, they look over at the private providers and say, “Hey you guys are making money - we need to take over your business.”
And of course their will always be wingnuts like Helen Thomas who believe that somehow the country owes them medical care. go figure.
"What the Hel is that?!"
Thanks, seanmerc.
Pinging 1-COUNTER-MORTER-68 since we were discussing Helen Thomas. Just wanted you to see what I have to put up with about once a week!
(Won’t mention Sir Winston Churchill’s famous quote.)
It’s so sad that she’s a moron.
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