From OpenLeft:
If Private Health Insurance Is So Awesome, Why Would It Lose a Competition With Gov't Health Care? (+)
by: David Sirota
Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 10:54
If government is so awful, so inefficient and so supposedly hated by the country as Republicans so often insist, how are those same Republicans insisting that Americans would overwhelmingly opt to be covered by a government-run health care program, if given the choice?McConnell suggested there were areas in which Republicans won't compromise, particularly the creation of a new public insurance program to compete with private insurers.
"Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition," the letter stated.
If the "free market" is as marvelously awesome as the GOP says, shouldn't it have absolutely no problem winning a health-care competition with "government-run programs?" Or does this little-talked-about hypocrisy in the Republicans' argument expose a brazen corruption? Does it show that the GOP is totally bought off by the private health insurance industry that Americans despise?
I'd say the latter. The GOP sees polls showing the public supports the concept of government-sponsored health care (and loves government programs like Medicare) - that is, the party knows that if given the choice, many Americans would choose a government-run program over private health insurance. But because the party is so owned and operated by the private health insurance industry, it is willing to effectively undermine its entire macro-argument about the supremacy of the free market so as to shill for its moneyed benefactors.
Here is a video from Think Progress. Listen to what the GOPer says about healthcare being a PRIVILEGE.
The fight is NOW. It is upon us. Tired of the GOP trying scare folks with 'socialized medicine'. Over 40 million of my fellow Americans have no health insurance, and it's time to end that - NOW.
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3 comments:
I am so tired of the Republicans pulling the red-baiting card whenever they want to scare folks about needed reforms. I have relatives in Korea (which is a bastion of capitalism) and they tell me stories all the time of getting an MRI for less than $100 and getting much needed treatments for chronic ailments for less than $20 per doctor visit. And that goes for everybody! Other countries have figured out how to provide basic, high-quality healthcare for their populations. Why can't we do the same?
Here's a special from the socialist rag the Washington Post on the state of health care in rural Virginia. Where desperate people -- Americans -- depend on charity for much needed healthcare.
The thing is this underscores how stupid white folk in Red States are. they are the ones taking it up the a**, and yet they will buy into this? Healthcare is a privilege? Lord have mercy...
I have my doubts that Obama will get this done in the next couple of years. He may be attempting too much.
We shall see.
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