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nolawitch58Of all the crazy things floating around about health care reform, I heard a couple of the most uninformed doozies yesterday. I don't even know how we got started on the subject, but one of the newbies said that the Supreme Court had already ruled that illegal aliens would be covered under HR3200. I told her that since the bill hadn't been passed into law, the Supreme Court couldn't rule on it pre-emptively, and that someone had to file in the lower courts first before it got that high, so that was a crock of shit. Besides, I noted, was that really a good reason to begrudge millions of Americans access to health care? Really?
Then I heard a completely outlandish assertion: If an American is sick or injured in a foreign country, such as France, they will put you on a plane and send you home for treatment. Of course, I called that complete horseshit. In fact, all the stories I've ever heard about Americans with urgent health needs while abroad in civilized countries with some form of universal health care contained the same wonderment that nobody in the hospital asked them for insurance cards or how they were going to pay for it before removing their burst appendixes or cleaning and stitching their wounds. In fact, the wonderment continued when their bills, if any, were presented and ended up being some ridiculously low dollar amount compared to what they would have received here in the States.
Faux Noise and UnClearChannel have muddied so many minds. I fear that those minds weren't all that sharp to begin with. How else can you not extrapolate that an industry spending one million dollars per day in opposition to reform is not doing that to protect the average American? If a person is so naive as to think that any corporate spending isn't done to further the profit margins of the corporation, they cannot be reasoned with. I'm sad that these Kool-aid drinkers are in the Pagan community. I'm sad that anyone would continue to believe the falsehood when presented with facts. I'm sad that anyone with a computer doesn't look this stuff up on their own.
Worse, I'm sad that Nobel winner Paul Krugman's opinion piece in the New York Times this week about the American education system is true and that we've screwed up the schools over the past several decades, taking the well-educated citizenry that was once the envy of the world and turning our populace into intellectual jokes.
Then I heard a completely outlandish assertion: If an American is sick or injured in a foreign country, such as France, they will put you on a plane and send you home for treatment. Of course, I called that complete horseshit. In fact, all the stories I've ever heard about Americans with urgent health needs while abroad in civilized countries with some form of universal health care contained the same wonderment that nobody in the hospital asked them for insurance cards or how they were going to pay for it before removing their burst appendixes or cleaning and stitching their wounds. In fact, the wonderment continued when their bills, if any, were presented and ended up being some ridiculously low dollar amount compared to what they would have received here in the States.
Faux Noise and UnClearChannel have muddied so many minds. I fear that those minds weren't all that sharp to begin with. How else can you not extrapolate that an industry spending one million dollars per day in opposition to reform is not doing that to protect the average American? If a person is so naive as to think that any corporate spending isn't done to further the profit margins of the corporation, they cannot be reasoned with. I'm sad that these Kool-aid drinkers are in the Pagan community. I'm sad that anyone would continue to believe the falsehood when presented with facts. I'm sad that anyone with a computer doesn't look this stuff up on their own.
Worse, I'm sad that Nobel winner Paul Krugman's opinion piece in the New York Times this week about the American education system is true and that we've screwed up the schools over the past several decades, taking the well-educated citizenry that was once the envy of the world and turning our populace into intellectual jokes.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 02:30 pm (UTC)I despair of my countrymen ever coming to their collective senses.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 02:28 pm (UTC)Have you followed some European elections, lately ;-)?
Not that it's funny, but the downsizing of mass education is showing all over the planet....
no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-13 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 05:02 pm (UTC)like i am entitled to free heath service because i am unemployed and has no coverage from somewhere else and we are NOT a rich country at all.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-12 06:49 pm (UTC)and employers must insure their employees. and that's insurgence payed by both employer and employee.
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Date: 2009-10-12 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-13 12:04 pm (UTC)The people who are between the rock and hard places are the ones who always were - the working class, who bought into the whole idea of work for 40-50 years, save a bit (or let your employer do it for you) and retire in some relative comfort. The rich don't use health insurance; they pay as they go, because they only go to the "best".
My guess as to how the rumors about Americans getting sick in foreign countries get started is because Americans are convinced that we have the best health care and are demanding to be sent home for care. Or their insurance companies are...
no subject
Date: 2009-11-03 09:30 am (UTC)Happy Birthday :)))
no subject
Date: 2009-11-03 09:31 am (UTC)Happy Birthday :)))