Dictator Bush is such a liar that I shouldn't even be dignifying his excuses for vetoing the SCHIP bill with an entry here, but I need to show just how morally bankrupt the modern American brand of conservatism is.
When Congress passed a bill to expand SCHIP to provide health insurance to 10,000,000 more children, I didn't think Bush would actually be foolish enough to veto it. I know he wanted to, but I didn't think he'd want to put his party's political fortunes on the line.
But guess what? He vetoed it - thereby depriving millions of children (70% of whom are in families with an annual household income of under $41,300) of insurance.
Why? Bush said he wants to see "private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system." Um, George? Ever see 'Sicko'? Private industry runs the American health care system now. It doesn't exactly cause there to be, well, a health care system, does it?
Also, Bush complains that the bill would have moved the children covered by it from private insurance to government insurance - but this is an outright lie: Two-thirds of these children had no insurance to begin with. Not only that, but SCHIP, while funded by the government, isn't fully government-run: Private insurers still provide the insurance, and private doctors still provide the medicine. In fact, Bush and his cultists lied about almost every aspect of the bill, like when they falsely complained it only covers very rich families and undocumented immigrants. (It covers neither. The lie about it covering undocumented immigrants was spread by right-wing Missouri congressman Todd Akin.)
The silver lining in this roo-crackin' thundercloud is that, when Bush vetoed this bill, you could just hear the Republicans' political fortunes collapsing. Two-thirds of the American public supported the bill. If voters can keep this on their minds for another year, then election night in 2008 is going to be even more fun than in 2006.
Every time you hear someone complaining about "socialized" medicine or other services, it's almost always just a flimsy excuse.
(Source: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/top10/309;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001035.html;
http://www.bendweekly.com/Opinion/Editorials/9627.html)
Monday, October 8, 2007
Bush's excuses for vetoing SCHIP bill
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"Sicko"? How about France?
ReplyDeleteIf you want to talk about France scheff then let's talk about France.
ReplyDeleteOver there they HAVE a health care system AND guaranteed housing......Bush's boyfriend Sark-lousy hasn't taken that away yet!!
Anybody, anywhere, in any country, who would settle for anything less than that is selling themselves short....unless maybe they live somewhere that just doesn't have a government. If a country can afford to raise a military and pay the salary of its govt. officials, it can afford at least some measure of health care and housing.
France's public health care system is a good place to go to die. Unless you're bleeding, you won't see a doctor, you'll see a nurse practitioner. You'll have to wait to see an M.D. Second, it isn't free. Taxes there are staggering. Also France requires national service time from its citizens -- either in the military or other public service.
ReplyDeleteU.S. health care is the best world. That's why people with weird diseases come to this country for treatment. It is expensive, and it will be no matter who gets the bill. People who want cheap surgery go somewhere else and cross their fingers.
Nope, you are wrong again like usual.
ReplyDeleteChirac abolished mandatory national service in 1997. The US (still) has the selective service system.
On the other stuff you have already been proven wrong here before. Not once, but many times. For your own good, I kindly suggest you don't continue with this bullshit about "America has the best health system in the world" because you just end up sounding like you don't know what you're talking about.
Assuming you are an American, why don't you people who hate this country so much go live for a while in one of these socialist countries you view from afar as being so great?
ReplyDeleteThe author of this blog wants free health care because he doesn't have a job and refuses to get one. I'd support a public health care system if (1) the government were capable of managing it well and (2) no freeloading were allowed.
Sceffbd????
ReplyDeleteCOOL IT!!!!!
Amost every fucking article now for the past month has been dutifully followed up with the same scheffbd line. Which usually falls along these lines: "America has the best health care system" or "The moderator has no job" or "You people hate this country" or "The moderator got a good job because he's a Dem" (contradicting the second claim) etc. etc. etc.
ENOUGH!!!!!!!!
I don't think you have any right to judge a person or their job. (Didn't the moderator already say he wrote a book and gets income from that?)
Well guess what, I was out of a job for two years because I got hurt at work. Is that my fault? Huh, scheffbd Mr. Know It All??????
Maybe the author of this blog wants free health care because first, it costs too much otherwise, and second, the rest of the world has it?
Thoughtful posts from Reality Based and Cruella as usual.
ReplyDeleteI live in Michigan and let me tell you what turned me off to the American health system.
A few years ago I had what I thought was the flu. I made an appt with the doctor. The doctor couldn't get me in for another week.
Appt time rolls around, and I'm still not feeling better. So I visit the doctor. But the doctor wasn't in, so I saw the practitioner. She told me to go the emergency room.
I go to emergency room and get in argument with hospital people about not having adequate insurance. No insurance, no treatment, they say.
Finally after arguing with them I get through. Three hours later, a doctor shows up. Diagnosis: "virus" that has to "run its course".
One week later, still not better. Got in to regular doctor, who diagnoses it as strep (which is not a "virus"). He gives me a prescription that costs $70.00 and took a month even to work.
Now I know there's always Windsor. I came down with something similar the following year and had someone take me to Windsor. There was a walk-in clinic right there. I got a diagnosis and a prescription right away. The diagnosis was free, the meds cost six dollars I think. The whole process took less than an hour, and the infection was knocked down totally within days.
And I'm not even a Canadian citizen. (The citizens get the real goodies.)
People who actually get sick in America find out quickly enough how bad the American system is. Either scheffbd never gets sick, or is very rich and can actually afford health care.
The meds you got in Canada were likely developed in United States. They cost $6 because the Canadian government limits how much drugmakers can charge. If the U.S. did that, a lot of the drugs that are saving lives and improving quality of life would not exist. Research is too expensive to risk failure. Basically we foot the bill for the rest of the world. Still, if it's an older drug, you may have been able to get it for $4 at Wal-Mart.
ReplyDeleteI've never denied health care is expensive, and you won't get the best care unless you are insured. My argument against socialized medicine is the hulking federal government doesn't do a single thing well -- NOT A SINGLE THING. Unless you count wasting taxpayers' money. There's no way it could effectively manage something as complex as national health care. If the government offered a "free" public health program, employers would drop private health insurance immediately. Then it really would be the case where only the rich can get good health care. I guarantee someone like John Edwards' wife won't be going to the government's oncologist. Mayo Clinic for her, Free Clinic for the rest of us. Good hospitals will become members-only clubs.
If the hulking federal govt. doesn't do a single thing well....whose fault is that???
ReplyDeleteWhat party has been in power for 26 years?? (Yes I'm counting BJ Clinton as a Republican....he signed the DMCA, welfare reform, etc.)
Conservatives complain about government not working....then they get elected to prove it.
The government works better when we don't have Bushes and Cheneys and Newts running it. Why do you think the Canadian system has worked better than the American system (in the years when Canada didn't have a conserv PM).
You'd have to go back much further than that. At least to World War II, if not pre-Civil War.
ReplyDelete