Utterly Meaningless

With socialized medicine, parents wouldn’t have any choice at all.

WTF??!! Socialized medicine means FEWER choices — my ever lovin’ ass it does!

I could rant for a month straight on why privatized healthcare is really just a white capitalist plot. Privatized healthcare limits choices to more people than the butt-munch who wrote that article could possible imagine. Privatized healthcare means that if you can’t pay, you’re shit-out-of-luck, baby. It also means that even if you CAN pay for insurance, you are limited to the strictures of the company from whom you buy that insurance. I’m sure our mutual friend, Chris can attest to the ridiculous ass-hattery with which insurance companies can besiege an honest customer. And he has to PAY for the priviliege of having his wife hassled every time she needs her meds and equipment.

Socialised medicine actually gives you more choices. In the States, there were many times when I was sick and my only choices were 1) go to the doctor, even though I couldn’t afford it, then hope I can manage to pay it off somehow, or 2) tough it out and hope it wasn’t something serious.

Now, my number 1 choice is just to go to the doctor — sans extra payment — and get the care I needed in the first place.

Whenever I say “fuck America!” most of the time it is during a discussion of the US health care system.

And, for the record, before anyone gets pissy about me saying “fuck America!” — I happen to be an American — born and bred. So, I know whereof I speak. I also know I could never choose to live there again.

I read the article until I was sure he was serious and not being sarcastic. I then skimmed another couple of paragraphs more, but I couldn’t actually keep reading that shit. Was he really serious with all that? I might actually be sick if I could stop being so angry.

Audrey & Sam,

Does his name not ring a bell?

And FWIW, I think Bush’s veto today was the most ill-conceived, stupid, arrogant, let-them-eat-cake moment in a generation. The moron actually said that they already have health care because they can go to the emergency room.

And don’t get me started on McCain. Mr. Maverick supports the veto because the bill raises tobacco taxes and people might stop smoking (a BAD thing I guess) and then there wouldn’t be enough money to pay for S-CHIP. This from the biggest permanent war cheerleader in the Senate. One month of the fucking Iraq war would fund the expanded S-CHIP for a year.

Not to mention that Dubya is outright lying about his reasons for the veto. He keeps saying that the bill would provide coverage for a family of 4 earning $83,000/year. That simply is not true. The only way that could happen is if a state asked the feds for a waiver to allow it, and in that case the feds can just deny the request for the waiver. That’s the same way the system works right now, and we don’t see any states providing coverage to people with that income level.

As bad as dealing with Blue Cross can be, I have absolutely no doubt that any universal health care plan that could make it through the US Congress would be far, far worse.

There were serious issues with the S-Chip bill, namely that a lot of the expansion in coverage wouldn’t even be going to kids. However, given his political weakness, choosing now to start vetoing stuff seems like a stupid move.

Allow me to jump ahead to where these discussions always end up.

[insert random diatribe about maple syrup, mooses, and Canadian upper classes ferrying themselves to Chicago night and day for real health care]

Rob

Daryl, I’m not entirely unliterate or ineducated, but sadly, I’m not actually familiar with Jonathan Swift beyond having heard his name before. I posted at my own place a lovely knee jerk, freak out, name calling and got agreement followed by the lovely Red Molly giving me a similar wake up call to what you’ve just given.

Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal:
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J. Swift also wrote Gulliver’s Travels.

Well, call me a sucker then, but considering that he’s been dead for over 250 years, I didn’t suspect he’d be blogging. 😉

The great thing about the Internet is nobody knows you are dead.

With apologies to the dogs in the famous New Yorker cartoon…

Mr. Swift is a pretty funny guy and a satirist. In case any of y’all have lingering doubts.

No, he isn’t serious, and that is the point. : )