10 Things You Must Believe to Oppose Universal Health Care
 

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In order to oppose Universal Health Care (UHC) and support Corporate Profit Based Health Care (CPBHC), you have to believe the following statements to be true:

1. With my private insurer, I can select any doctor I want and there is no one between my doctor and me when it comes to decisions My doctor does not have to consult with my insurance provider to see what medications or procedures are allowed. I can get whatever my doctor and I want, whenever I want it and where ever I want it. It is only with UHC that someone is in between me and my doctor. It is only with UHC that I am limited to my selection of doctors.

2. The poor citizens of Appalachia who stood in the rain for hours to receive limited health care from compassionate doctors and nurses who examined them in animal stalls because there were no suitable medical locations nearby, were receiving "The Best Health Care in The World".

3. The family that goes into bankruptcy because one of their members is gravely ill and their insurer denies payment because of a technically in the fine print, are also getting the "Best Health Care in the World".

4. Hospitals spend millions of dollars a year advertising their services to us because they want us to know where to go when we get sick. These millions of dollars are not added to the cost of our hospital visit. We ought to do the same with our police and fire departments.

5. Drug companies also spend billions of dollars a year in marketing (more than they do in research) because they want us to remember what medication we should take when we are ill and these billions of dollars are not figured into the cost of the medication.

6. The citizens of Germany, France, Canada, Belgium, The UK, Norway, Portugal, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Austria, and others with UHC have awful medical care but they are not allowed to protest it and their systems of democracy forbid these people from electing representatives in government to overturn UHC and switch to CPBHC.

7. The medical and insurance corporations in the USA are spending a million dollars a day to lobby against UHC because they really care about our health and they know their system is better for us. It has nothing to do with protecting their massive corporate profits.

8. Medical and insurance corporations care about their customers first and their investors second. Every medical and insurance corporation in America puts a patient's health ahead of the interests of the shareholders. All of them. They are saints. Money means nothing to them.

9. We need to end Medicare and Medicaid and VA hospitals immediately.

10.All of the studies from all of the research of all of the nations with UHC that prove that they spend less and live longer, are lies. All of them. It's a conspiracy.

This would be a more attractive read if it was bullet points or numbered.

Done...re-read.

Wow. That's actually not true. I don't believe in any of those things, yet wildly oppose fascism as done in the Universal Health Care bill.

Sort of a silly article. Do you actually believe this stuff?

Madmax is the new edgy.

You put me in my place.

Egads.

Hehehe:p

Ok I'll bite. Where does the 70% of black children being illegitimate come from. More to the point, WTF does legitimacy have to do with wither parents take care of their kids or not?


And what about the lazy white people or hard working black people?

I'll let you know when I get the results back from Maury.

Are you my daddy?

Ummm...again...are you all seriously trying to have a convo with madmax?

Use him for the entertainment that he's worth or ignore him altogether. Typing to him in all seriousness became dumb months ago.

Sort of silly? This stuff adds nothing to rational and reasonable discourse. It's stupid.

Fascism? Seriously? The more things change the more they stay the same -- decry anything one disagrees with as fascism. Or socialism, take your pick (though you probably can't pick both).

Was it fascism when Republican lawmakers proposed much of the same stuff in the 1990s?

This kind of over-the-top nonsense also adds nothing to rational discourse -- it's the mirror image of the drivel that DS posted. To equate the health care bill to fascism is just plain ludicrous.

I find articles like the one posted add to the schism rather than try to bridge it. This article, however, spells things out pretty well, pros and cons both:

http://www.freep.com/article/2010032...s-coming-in-10

Here is an excerpt:
Here is a look at some key provisions that are to come from one of the biggest changes in health insurance in America in 45 years.
HARD-TO-INSURE

By July, consumers rejected by insurance plans because of costly, preexisting medical problems should be able to purchase insurance through high-risk pools, which are to continue until 2014, when a new marketplace, or insurance exchanges, is to begin to operate. By the end of June, the government is to establish a temporary high-risk pool program. The caps this year on out-of-pocket costs for enrollees are $5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families.

Starting this year, insurers won't be able to drop coverage for a person who develops a health problem, and no longer will be able to set yearly or lifetime limits on coverage.

By 2014, insurers won't be able to deny coverage to anyone who has had a preexisting health problem. By law, they also can't charge people more because of their gender, race or health problems.

BUT -- insurers can charge people ages 50 to 65 as much as three times more than people ages 21 to 34, whose coverage doesn't cost as much. Monthly premiums also may be higher based on where a person lives, the size of the family and whether those covered by the policy are smokers. In Michigan, people in tri-county Detroit, for example, typically have paid more than people in the western parts of the state, such as Grand Rapids, where health care costs are lower.

A rather simple definition of fascism would be the marriage between corporations and the state. To force individuals to purchase a certain thing from a certain industry is the epitome of this marriage. I don't decry anything as something...unless it is. And it is. It fits the simple definition. Granted it doesn't show as much totalitarianism as Mussolini's fascism, of course. But it's fascist.

Absolutely.

The Republicans are just as guilty of this stuff.

I flat-out have a problem with anyone telling me that "to believe X, you must believe Y". No, I don't. Kind of like my history teacher telling me that it's impossible to be against abortion, but for the death penalty - no it's not, because that's what I believe in.

Not to mention that most of those points are silly, extreme examples of ridiculous propaganda. Just because we know the drug companies are screwing us on prices, doesn't mean we want to throw a bureaucrat into that mix.

Exactly.

And the scary part of this silliness is, someone out there in the world read this like they were reading the 10 commandments.

Agree. They had a chance to shrink our nanny state and instead went the complete opposite way. Free stuff is nice but ultimately someone has to pay for it. We can't afford all these giveaways. Plain and simple.

No, it's not, and that's not at all a simple definition of fascism.

A simple definition of fascism might be one that comes from a dictionary: "a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism."

Or one drawn from political science, like this one:

"A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Robert O. Paxton, "The Anatomy of Fascism," 2004

The simple hallmarks of fascism are authoritarian and totalitarian-single party states with a nationalistic obsession. What you call the "marriage" between corporations and state isn't necessarily an end in itself but is a means to achieving complete control (authoritarianism/totalitarianism) for the nationalistic purposes. And interestingly with regard to the use of fascism in this instance, one other standard hallmark of fascism is anti-liberalism.

Even if I grant that "marriage between corporations and state" is the simple hallmark of fascism, by your definition all 50 states are already fascist to the extent they require anyone owning a vehicle to purchase auto insurance from the insurance industry. Ditto the federal government and FICA.

Whether you agree with the health care bill or not, this just doesn't come close to fascism.

This unfortunately has become standard political "discourse." If someone disagrees with you (the generic you) on something you feel really strongly about, it can't be because reasonable and well-meaning people can come to different conclusions about what is best. No, it has to be because they are socialists, Marxists, fascists, anti-american, elitists . . . .

As George Orwell said about fascism:

"It will be seen that, as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else."

MysticCat is my nonsexual cybercrush. There, I said it! *sigh of relief*

I'll take what I can get. ;)

I had to add the disclaimer to prevent you from feeling like you will be stalked. :p

Feels good to get that off your chest, doesn't it. :p
Just so y'all know, I like the hijack better than the thread topic.

Wouldn't marriage between corporations and the state be closer to socialism then facism?

Yes

I often find myself thinking "See? Proof that the good ones are all married" when I read his posts. I concur Doc, I concur.

MC? Can we clone you??

But they don't require that you buy/own a car. Operating a car is a privilege and not a right. We are now for the first time requiring the public to buy a product from a vendor. FICA is, in reality, just another tax for a government service.

The problem as I see it is that there is a limit to what we as a nation can afford to do. Just where does this stop. We seem to be more than willing to have the government supply to us all the commodities/conveniences that our lives merit. At what point is it incumbent on us (the individual) to meet our own needs. There has to be a limit to entitlements. Why not housing, food and clothing? How about cars and transportation?

If we do not get our spending under control we will have to print money, as was done during the Weimar Republic. to meet our obligations. If so, inflation will hit us with a vengence and the poor will be disproportionaltely hurt.

At what point will working cease to be worthwhile and we all decide to go on the government dole? There are costs for everything and only so much of other peoples money that can be confiscated. I see no end to what many of us Americans will accept as an entitlement because the perception is that it doesn't cost us anything.

Sorry. :o

Yes and no.

You are quite right that driving is a privilege, not a right. But, as a condition of that privilege the state requires that we buy a product from a vendor, and that's what EW was describing as a mark of fascism.

Meanwhile, you say FICA is another tax for government service. Others could just as easily and reasonably characterize it as requiring that all employees purchase insurance (Medicare) and a pension vehicle (Social Security) from a vendor, which in this case happens to be the government.

My point was not that either of these is exactly comparable to the requirements of the health care reform bill. (Which does not actually mandate that everyone have insurance -- at least not to the extent of imposing criminal penalties. The "mandate" is that you have to pay a penalty if you don't have insurance. Perhaps a small distinction in the mind of some, but a distinction nonetheless. I can choose not to drive and thereby not have to have auto insurance; I can choose not to be insured and just pay the penalty instead.)

My point was directed specifically and only to EW's assertion that the health care bill is fascist because it "forces an individual to purchase a certain thing from a certain industry." I was simply making the point that it can be reasonably argued that has been happening for decades. Nothing more. No judgment pro or con.

Good points all but think how this can be played out. Say I decide to pay the penalty. It cost me yearly $75.00 to $1000.00 according to the current law. The insurer cannot disqualify me for preexisting conditions so I wait until I get sick to buy insurance and now the insurer will have to pay my medical bills. Ultimately I see the insurers either going out of business or raising premiums so high as to be a problem for many. Who will have to step into the void? I am guessing the "Feds".

We have our Government running huge segments of the auto, financial, insurance, health care, retirement, etc areas and while not Fascism it is most certainly a movement towards Socialism. This may all work out great and my fears may be unfounded but I do not see any long term good coming out of this "over reaching" by our Government.

^^^ All of which is completely irrelevant to the point I was making.

^^^^ Understood.

Guess my point should have been that American Socialism has been infusing itself incrementally into our system for several decades. It has now taken firm root and I believe the ramifications will be dire.