A Belgian Comments on the US Weirdness when it comes to Healthcare and Socialism

It's a comment on Michael Moore's Blog:

GeertVDP

Posted March 22nd, 2010 1:33 PM

As European (Belgium) it completely eludes me to why nearly 50% of the Americans are against the principle of universal healthcare.
I can’t find any plausible argument to why, you, Americans have that obsessive fear towards the concept of “socialism”, other then post-McCarthyism.
A lot of you (mostly republicans) seem to be stuck in the 50’s rhetoric’s where everything left (or even centre) is “evil” and will destroy your society…
Why wouldn’t you want to have every one benefit of healthcare and keep so many people from sliding into poverty?

I find it puzzling to hear a Republican say that “freedom has died a little”… What good does it do to preserve your absolute (and theoretical) freedom, if you no longer have the pragmatic freedom to live a comfortable life with healthcare that wont drive you into poverty, have the financial means to celebrate your freedom of movement or have the financial means to provide your kids a quality education?
In my country I’m centre-right, mainly because I’m self-employed and run my own business.
So yes, I am all for developing personal initiative, but I also realise there have to be structures in place that provide protection for those who risk dropping out of the social network. I have no problem with socialist parties defending the rights of the working class.. their interests must be protected, just as mine…It is the only option for a well balanced society…Same applies to government involvement in providing healthcare for everyone...

America’s main problem is its extremely polarised political landscape where the winner takes it all and goes almost unchecked (with all the aberrations and corporate involvement). This applies for both republicans as for the democrats. What you need is a 3rd or even a 4rth party so that you’re forced to have a bi-party government and decisions are no longer made unilateral but grow out of consensus and negotiation.

a succinct prediction for the effect of the current health care reform package

I'm afraid this is probably accurate.

From the comments to a post in Tiny Revolution.com:

The Republicans are in absolute opposition to health care reform because:

1.) They don't need to vote for it for it to pass. The health insurance companies are going to get their guaranteed profits that the "reform" gives them.

2.) The current bill with mandates is going to drive a wedge between those Americans who can still afford to pay for health insurance and those who can't or are being denied it. That means that while there may be more Americans getting some health care in the future, it also means that every health insurance increase is going to be blamed on the Democratic brand. You might as well print Obama's picture on every bill going out from Aetna or Blue Cross. That means that if this health care reform plays out as it looks to me, the Democratic brand will be reviled by most of what's left of working class households. When liberals fail, that's what makes fascism attractive to the underclasses.

This piece of health care reform will thus accomplish a government safety net for insurance companies instead of the probability of the whole industry collapsing in a few years (as it would without "reform"). It will so destroy the Democratic Party as to clean away all the underfunded candidates (generally more liberal and independent Dems), thus leaving only the well-funded corporate Dems or their corporate-funded Republican opponents in office. Those progressives who think that the Dems can pass this piece of crap and then clean it up down the road won't have many corporate-free Dems in Congress in a few years to do much of anything, as if they had any power to ever do it right.

Bad.

Posted by Bob In Pacifica at December 26, 2009 12:14 PM

Two sad sad stories about Healthcare and Healthcare Reform

Here's the blog I was trying to post when the previously mentioned incident occurred.

I was up late last night reading two related stories. Both sad. Both about our "healthcare industry." One about apparently doomed attempts to rectify it, and one about a doomed attempt to navigate it.

Cynthia McKinney's aunt falls victim to the US healthcare system:


Matt Taibbi tells just how screwed we are because we're stuck trying to use a failed system (Congress) to try to fix another failed system (Healthcare)