Until the Pain Stops: America's Misplaced Outrage

[SHRED]

This is becoming excruiatingly difficult for me to witness.
Where did our country go?
Where was it ever?

:shrug:

Until the Pain Stops: America's Misplaced Outrage
By Jack Random
August 24, 2009

~SNIP~

How do you argue with people who begin the debate with the premise that the government wants to kill old people and proceed to an impassioned denunciation of Socialism under Hitler’s Third Reich? (For those who are confused, Hitler was a tyrant and a dictator whose political party captured power in part by trapping the German socialist party into a deal with the devil. If Hitler was a Socialist then Reagan was an Anarchist.)

~SNIP~

This latest White House retreat comes on the heels of a town hall meeting where a member of the audience challenged the president on whether corporate healthcare could survive in competition with a government sponsored and administered nonprofit alternative. The president gave assurances but it was the wrong question. If corporations cannot compete with the public option it is because nonprofit healthcare is superior. It is a lesson virtually every other advanced nation has already learned: Healthcare should never be sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed.

This is where the debate should have begun: Would the nation be better served by government administered nonprofit universal healthcare system?

We never got that debate because our president took National Healthcare (the infamous “single payer” system) off the table on day one. He would not even allow single payer advocates to testify in congress. Even if he had no intention of implementing a true National Healthcare System that is where the negotiations should have started. If it had we might have compromised with a public option; instead we are on the verge of compromising with insurance company sponsored co-op that will end up being a dumping ground for the uninsurable (i.e., those with pre-existing conditions).


ARTICLE:
http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-08-24-10-42-07-news.php

[Hydra]

1. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be convinced

To vote against their own interests.

It happens over and over again.

Corporate greed must be satisfied! The rich must not be taxed! I must continue to be screwed for bad healthcare! I support the troops in their quest for oil and cash crops!

[redqueen]

2. Humans are followers by nature.

Add in the fact that most of these followers just want to be on the 'winning' side, and there you have it. Nothing amazing about it, really.