Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Digby says it best

... but why is no one else saying this at all?
Or, more to the point: Why are House & Senate Dems not saying this - loudly, frequently?
Anyway - if they want a crib sheet, Digby has one:
Truth And Consequences
by Digby
This must-read report in the New England Journal Of Medicine lays out the facts about the cost to society in lost lives, productivity and money for failing to assure that everyone is covered by health insurance. And the costs of treating them late in preventable emergency situations is far, far higher than it would otherwise be. This should be obvious, but it's not.

The conservatives frame this problem in contradictory terms, arguing both that people ARE covered and that it will cost us too much to cover them. They further insist that people shouldn't be allowed to free ride on the system, that there should be no mandate to buy insurance and that any government administered health system is an infringement of their freedom. But these various ideas are just a smokescreen.

It's quite obvious that what they truly believe is that people who don't have insurance should not be allowed to get health care and that if they get sick they should be allowed to die unless they can find some charity or raise the money. There's no other way to reconcile their beliefs.

If conservatives believe this, they should say so instead of framing the issues in terms of whether or not we're going to "young and dynamic" vs "middle aged and secure" as David Brooks deceptively does in his column this morning. If you think that people who don't have health insurance (or the means to pay cash) should be barred from getting medical treatment, then you should be willing to make that argument up front. I would guess that there are more than few people in this country who believe just that. People who have insurance.
Seriously: Why don't the Dems take to the airwaves with these talking points??? ... pointing out the logical implications of the GOP's position? ... stressing the basic economics of health care?

... and it probably wouldn't hurt to mention the Preamble: if timely access to affordable, high-quality health care doesn't count as "the general welfare" of "we the people", what does???

How did the GOP end up in the driver's seat?

2 comments:

  1. That's what 'ol Bart has been saying for years.

    "Why don't Democrats just list the facts?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nobody's allowed to make the Owners look bad.

    That's the First Rule. And the Second Rule

    And the Third Rule.

    Doing so is to promote 'class war,' which no one in the media EVER wants to be accused of.

    In the CorpoRat State, corporate media are STATE media...

    ReplyDelete