HEALTHCARE REFORM

As anyone knows, who has been actually listening to and reading what the healthcare bill actually proposes, almost everything in it proposes changes the voters of the USA are for.

Interestingly, the major news outlets—which still pretend to offer "objective" takes on the "top" (i.e. whatever the rightwing propaganda machine pushes as the main story of the day) new stories—only began discussing and explaining what the bill contains after it became apparent over the weekend that the bill might pass.

This film I found on Youtube shows how the rightwing tea Party supporters have no idea what's in the bill and are only reacting to rightwing lies (i.e. "socialist medicine"—that would mean the state, i.e. the government, owns all the hospitals and clinics and drug and health insurance companies etc. and all the doctors and nurses etc. work for the government, are paid by them etc. etc. etc. when in fact the bill as written is closer to Republican proposals for healthcare reform than anything liberal or progressive Dems have proposed, as can be seen here—thanks Tom for hipping me to this link).

But the "mass media" continue to promulgate this idea that to be objective both sides have to be given the same weight, which usually means the rightist perspective is emphasized over any moderate or centrist position (there is almost no representation on the news of any "leftist" side of the issues of the day), so that a handful of Tea Party protesters in DC are portrayed as a significant news event, but a much larger group of immigration reform advocates in the same place on the same day is passed over as an afterthought etc.

It's pretty disheartening to see how much the news media has capitulated to the right in this country. It was one of the first things that struck me as my brain began recovering from the surgery over four months ago now. How absurd the political discussion had become in this country. To the point where almost nothing of substance is argued or explained in the mainstream media but only the arguments over who's "winning" an argument based on rightwing lies and exaggerations.

It's actually pretty frightening. The sway these rightwingers have over any public discussion. Like my friends who have been sucked in by the rightwing troll on this site (and unfortunately he has taken to doing the same on the sites of other friends) who has lost any concept of the truth he might have ever had.

I leave his comments on because some of you find it informative to see what lies the rightwingers are pushing each day, but for my own taste, I feel he can get his own blog to bloviate on. I find almost everything the rightwing nuts have had to say about healthcare reform to be complete and total lies.

But they have to lie because the truth would expose them for what they are, sore losers with no concept of what democracy means, but only an intense desire to thwart and destroy whatever the majority has voted for if it doesn't serve the interests of their corporate masters, whether corporate entertainment (Fix News, Rush, et. al.) or corporate game rigging (drug and insurance companies etc.).

If the rightwingers really believe it is wrong to extend health insurance to all children, to extend children's health insurance coverage on their parents' plans to age 26, to prevent health insurance companies from refusing coverage for an "existing condition" or for any other reason, or to cap benefits for healthcare so that anyone with a serious illness runs out of healthcare benefits and has to sell their house and go into debt and declare bankruptcy and lose everything they have as has happened to so many because they were unlucky enough to get a serious illness after paying into a health insurance policy for decades, lifetimes, etc. if the rightwingers really want to support that let them say so—in fact MAKE THEM SAY SO.

So, despite the fact that some of you enjoy the mad ravings of this blog's rightwing troll, I may start deleting his comments when they propagate outright lies (which lately has been every comment—by the way he is now pretending he was always against Bush Junior when if you scroll back to when Junior and his rightwing republican cronies were running the country, you will see he was all for their policies etc.).

It's time for the Dems to answer every lie from the rightwingers with a simple TRUTH OF THE DAY, like this bill accomplishes many of the things the Republicans were pushing for under Clinton and even more of the things the voters said they wanted when Obama and the Democratic Congress was last elected. When the pollsters ask specific questions about the bill, the majority are for its components (like some mentioned above, all of which the Congressional Budget office says will say money, not to mention the rider that eliminates corporations that make money off student loans by charging them more which will also save money, 32 billion according to the budget office etc.) and the main objection is THEY DON'T GO FAR ENOUGH!

Anyone who loves democracy, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and what this country once stood for—"liberty and justice for all" for example—should be outraged at what the rightwingers have been doing and are trying to do and should organize to marginalize them to where they should be and once were, radio talk shows at 1 and 3AM, and in hate mongering publications with a handful of subscribers, etc.

[Oh and PS: I'm sure you're already aware of this, but the "unconstitutional" methods the rightwing nuts are screaming about the Dems employing to pass this bill—like "reconciliation"—have been used more by the Republicans rightwingers than anyone else in Congress over the decades since Reagan first utilized the old Nazi and Stalinist idea of "the big lie" to thwart the will of the people and pass legislation which hurt most of us but benefited corporate interests and the wealthy, in fact the last time "reconciliation" was most successfully used was to ram through Bush Junior's tax cuts for the wealthiest few which destroyed the surplus left by Clinton and put this country into the worst debt it had ever seen before and led to the financial mess we're in now, but no tea Party action then, hmmm....]

[PPS: This Op-ed column in today's NY Times sums it up nicely.]