(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

I'm dubious about opinion pieces which paint an entire part of the political spectrum with one brush, which The Republican Party Is Turning Into A Cult, over at the Huffington Post, arguably does. But it's worth skipping over those exasperated opening paragraphs to the meat of the matter:

"The US is the only major industrialized country that does not provide regular healthcare to all its citizens. Instead, they are required to provide for themselves -- and just under 50 million people can't afford the insurance. As a result, 18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can't access the care they require. That's equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being "killers" -- and they have successfully managed to put them on the defensive.

The Republicans want to defend the existing system, not least because they are given massive sums of money by the private medical firms who benefit from the deadly status quo. But they can't do so honestly: some 70 percent of Americans say it is "immoral" to retain a medical system that doesn't cover all citizens. So they have to invent lies to make any life-saving extension of healthcare sound depraved."

(Emphases mine.)

(Bet you wish you hadn't got me interested in this stuff now! Sorry, guys...)

ETA: That 18,000 figure is solid - it's from the Institute of Medicine. And, as the comments folks are leaving here are making clear to me, that's just part of the picture - even if you can afford some insurance, you're still likely to be looking at huge medical bills. No wonder (and that Huff Post op-ed should have acknowledged this) there's a consensus in US politics that this is wrong and needs fixing.)

Comments

[kelemvor.livejournal.com]

IIRC from "The West Wing", a blue dog is a Democrat who generally votes Republican to stay in power.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yup. (Seems to be quite a common term in the US political blogiverse.)

"Teabaggers" are the conservative anti-tax (at the fringe: most are anti-tax-hike) activists who want to re-enact the "Boston Tea Party" by sending teabags to their elected representatives. They're tagging along with the "deathers" (those convinced that Obama's healthcare proposal will lead to "healthcare rationing" and "death panels") because they see the public option as another excuse for the administration to take away more of their hard-earned money and use it for the benefit of society's "trash" (poor white, black, immigrant).

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

The best part of that is they called *themselves* teabaggers b/c part of their protest involved mailing out teabags in protest etc. Never mind the slang meaning of the term (you can, erm, look it up), even AFTER being told what it meant o.O

Political theater. You just can't make this shit up.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

o.O

Hey, we didn't need a diagram! XD

[kelemvor.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I must admit, most of what I know of US politics and government comes from "The West Wing", so I have a fairly slanted view!

That said, any administration which gives a tax break to the highest earners has got something very wrong. (I currently work a little over one day out of five for the UK government, and would love to work my way up to the next tax bracket, which would take it closer to two days in five!)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

... what's their position on "Children of Earth"?

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

A 'Blue Dog' is generally a Southern Democrat, who tends to straddle the fence on a lot of issues and leans heavily on the ideas of fiscal conservatism. Ironically, the last 8 years of absolute fiscal irreponsibility was totally acceptable to the GOP and said Blue Dogs until all of a sudden power changed hands in November.

The Republican stance on government is generally, "Government can't do anything competently! Just elect us, and we'll show you exactly why!" :P

I have a huge freaking Teabagger rally happening in my county on September 5th. I understand about 10,000 people are expected to be in attendance. Meanwhile, my little group of Democrats will be holding a press conference across the road from their rally point and trying to counter the stupidmisinformation with doctors and other speakers for the local press.

Wish us luck. I think we're going to need it.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

GIVE 'EM HELL

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

Well, we're kind of hoping *not* to have hell. Hell would be bad, given what some of the rather less desirable elements have been up to lately. :P