Where sloganeering trumps dialogue
Anyone encountered the latest Facebook meme about healthcare? If you believe this, you’re supposed to post it as your status:
No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.
An unfortunate number of my contacts have done so. Now, I realize the left doesn’t have a lock on bumpersticker politics. God knows I proudly wore my “My President is Charlton Heston” sticker through two administrations, one of them Republican. But the health care debate lends itself especially badly to pithy one-liners.
I mean, let’s try: nobody should be forced to pay more to get less. Or…nobody should accept a lower standard of care in order to insure illegal aliens.
And if you’re thinking, “but Weasel — the bill doesn’t insure illegal aliens!” you don’t read the same sites I do. In which case you’re probably not even here, because god knows I mostly preach to the choir. Obama is still talking about “47 million uninsured” and thus he damn well IS intending to cover illegal aliens, because they’re wrapped into that number.
If you haven’t read the various analyses of who makes up the uninsured, you really should. Or cut to Michael Ramirez’ excellent take (I really, really owe that man a fan letter). By his math:
18 million could afford to buy their own insurance but choose not to
12.6 million are illegal aliens
9.4 million are between jobs and only temporarily uninsured
8.4 million are 18-25 and don’t think it’s worth the cost for them
8 million are kids who are covered but haven’t been signed up
3.5 are eligible but haven’t signed themselves up
(adds up to more than 47 because the groups overlap)
And for this you’re going to jettison the most robust, innovative healthcare system EVAH? Fuck off and die, I’m thinking.
Oh, and don’t even ask. I mostly use Facebook to keep an eye on those paste-eating nose-pickers from High School…mostly to make sure nobody publishes any snapshots of my glorious mullet.
September 7, 2009 — 7:12 pm
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