Read the whole thing while I highlight some of my favorite parts.
While I spent a few moments of my holiday weekend revisiting the irony of anti-socialism protests taking place on socialized park land, it occurred to me that the proposed government-run public health insurance option probably won’t cost nearly as much as the CBO is suggesting.
Because clearly there won’t be any Republicans signing up for it.
I mean, no Republican would dare sign up for inexpensive, easily portable health insurance. Not when red, white and blue All American for-profit health insurance is available. After all, free market private health insurance will probably continue to be the more expensive option, so that must mean it’s the finest insurance, right? Expensive equals good, no? (No. More on that presently.)
And of course none of the Republicans or Blue Dogs in Congress are covered by a government health insurance plan. Except for all of them.
Hadn’t considered that. Guess we can cut 21% off the public plan since no self-respecting Republican would ever choose socialized medicine.
I find it hard to believe that you, Mr. and Mrs. Wingnut, would defiantly pay more for less reliable insurance if offered a better deal. To pay more for less would be outstandingly backwards. Palin backwards. “Quitter” equals “fighter” backwards.
The fact remains that the only downside to the public option is that it’s just too awesome. We don’t deserve anything that good. Simply put: it’s Medicare, but for anyone who wants it. And this is somehow a nightmare scenario — one that we must never be allowed to experience even though it would cost much less than our current system, it would cover everyone who wants it, and it would be accountable to the American people. This is somehow a terrible idea. Terrible to the private health insurance mafia, that is. They simply can’t allow you to have an affordable public option because they need your financial support. Face it, $1.4 million a day to lobby members of Congress isn’t cheap.
1.4 million a day? It’s sad to see an industry struggling to make ends meet.
We sometimes hear a similar argument from rednecks who outright refuse to own a “faggy” fuel efficient car even though they’re more affordable in nearly every way. But, you know, maybe I’m wrong and the ability to haul a cord of wood and to disguise their impotence with an optical illusion of enormous genitalia is worth the extra cash they’re borrowing from various credit card companies to pay for all of that Middle Eastern gasoline. It’s this brand of ignorance and defiance that’s holding us back in so many ways, be it in terms of healthcare or green industrial development or education. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Fox News have convinced too many of us that “smart, free and affordable” is un-American — and that “oversized, unhealthy and expensive” is patriotic.
This last highlighted paragraph sums up what infuriates me most about Republicans – The blatant worshipping of stupidity; the way they moan about “failures” of public education only to turn around seconds later and sneer at someone with a Harvard degree. Talk about conflicted.