Rachel Maddow breaks down how the meme about senior citizens being rounded up and put to death by President Obama's health care reform bill makes its way from fringe crazies on far right blogs and magazines to being repeated on FOX News and conservative talk radio to its actual injection into the public discourse:
While killing all of the old people in our society might be something I've contemplated from time to time when I've been stuck behind one of them in traffic, the very idea that it's a substantive arm of Obama's plan would be laughable if he weren't getting actual questions about it at town hall meetings. And Bernie Sanders is absolutely correct: The Democrats need to do a much better job of explaining a fairly complicated social program because the lack of that explanation has allowed the Republicans to push this kind of ludicrous bullshit much farther into the public psyche than should have ever been allowed to happen.
I'm with Sanders on his endorsement of a single-payer system but lacking that I'd at least like a public option, although I'm unsure how much it will reduce the general bureaucracy involved in private health insurers as Sanders claims. And I'm fairly pessimistic about the millions of Americans Sanders says need to stand up and demand real change from their government on this issue actually doing so. I'm afraid that in the end we'll wind up with watered-down health care legislation that the insurance companies will be able to exploit just as much as they have the current system. And it'll happen because we've had to put our prospects for health care reform in the hands of selfish, self-serving politicians (on both sides of the aisle) who are more concerned with winning their next election than they are with the welfare of the American people. And I become just a bit more cynical, and I open my second bottle of Chardonnay...
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3 comments:
Was at my Dad's last night drinking Rolling Rock and watching the White Sox. We marveled that a player nobody ever heard of, making the league minimum salary, could get an MRI the next day on the toe he fouled a ball on. But 47 million people in this country have no health insurance at all. At least it gave us a good idea of what's really important in this country. We demand entertainment and healthy, entertaining entertainers above all else.
What is so scary is that Obama's health proposals are getting less and less support from the public. This is attributed to the scare tactics and lies on part of the GOP. So, yes, Obama and the Dems do need to get on the stick and do a better job of explaining his plan. Public memory is short and all those folks who voted for change now seem to be resisting it.
The country's priorities definitely seem to be out of balance, T101.
I'm becoming less and less enthusiastic about this issue, Leslie. Obama and the Democrats are all doing a horrible job of selling this plan and crafting responsible legislation. As I said in my post, I don't see the outcome being very positive.
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