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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on December 22, 2009, 05:01:48 AM
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Daily Kos Founder Gets It Right
December 22, 2009 at 7:29 am | In Political | Leave a Comment
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Regarding Senate compromises on healthcare reform which have led to its moving forward, Markos Moulitsas, founder of the liberal blog Daily Kos, told “Meet the Press” on Sunday:
I don’t think this is a reform bill. I mean, I think it’s very clear, this is not insurance or healthcare reform. What it is, it’s allowing more people, 30 million people, to buy into the existing broken system. It’s very important to keep in mind that healthcare insurance is not the same as health care. Insurance, not the same as care. If you go up to Massachusetts, they have a, a mandate as well, and last year 21 percent of people in Massachusetts could not get health care because they could not afford it. Even though they had insurance, the premiums–not the premiums, the deductibles, copays and out-of-pocket expenses were too high. So really, this isn’t reform. It’s expanding the system, it’s almost rewarding the existing system. Now, what is important about this is that it actually puts the federal government, puts America on the place to say health care is a right, it’s not a privilege to just those who are–who can afford it or who are lucky enough to have a good job that has good benefits. But as far as reform goes, I think this is a long battle that we have ahead of us.
Although I am ideologically opposed to Mr. Moulitsas, and wish to see a very different kind of healthcare reform than he would prescribe, there is much he says here which I agree with. He indicates an understanding of what insurance is, and what it is not. Indeed, insurance is not the same as care. It is therefore facetious to refer to an effort to provide healthcare to all as “insurance reform,” as has been done by many. I agree an individual mandate will neither provide everyone with the care they need nor reform the insurance industry in a positive sense. I agree an individual mandate would provide tremendous benefit to insurance companies (despite the fact they would no longer be selling true insurance).
Wealth will be redistributed, not from the rich to the poor, but from unwilling individuals to corporations engaged in an insidious relationship with the state. This will accomplish none of what any benevolent party, regardless of ideology, wants to accomplish. Those who truly believe the government should provide healthcare to all will not see that happen. Those who believe the government should stay out of healthcare will not see that happen. Those who cannot afford insurance now will not be able to afford it later. The truly indigent will remain so. The only parties who will actually benefit from this bill are government and insurance companies. Government will be empowered to intrude deeper into the lives of citizens than ever before. Insurance companies will have millions of new customers compelled to do business at the point of a gun. In every way possible, this bill will fail the American people.
Where Moulitsas and I disagree, of course, is the notion that healthcare is a right. Access to healthcare may be regarded as a right, insofar as it should not be denied for non-medical discriminatory reasons. But there is a difference between access and provision. We have no right to any provision. Once blacks could sit anywhere on a bus, they were still expected to pay for it. Government provision of healthcare would be an entitlement, fundamentally the opposite of a right. Rights indicate what others cannot take from you, not what you can take from others. That said, it is somewhat ironic that a political effort ostensibly intended to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor now appears set to do precisely the opposite.
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Anyone with a clue knows what a disaster this is.
Hello official 15% UE - here we come.
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DailyKOS is a shitbag lib organization who is always wrong.
Until, of course, you agree with them. Suddenly they are a great source of info.
Tomorrow they'll criticize Palin, and they'll return to being yellow journalism of the worst kind. Right?
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DailyKOS is a shitbag lib organization who is always wrong.
Until, of course, you agree with them. Suddenly they are a great source of info.
Tomorrow they'll criticize Palin, and they'll return to being yellow journalism of the worst kind. Right?
No, its just that anyone with an ounce of honesty knows what the hell is going on with this treasonous piece of shit legislation.
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No, its just that anyone with an ounce of honesty knows what the hell is going on with this treasonous piece of shit legislation.
is that an endorsement for daily kos? sure sounds like it :)
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is that an endorsement for daily kos? sure sounds like it :)
Even a broken clock . . . . .