Apparently taking their leadership from Karl Rove who warned that the Republican candidates must focus on healthcare because the issue is "on the mind of a lot of swing voters," the Republican candidates for president have now latched on to healthcare.
But in the true spirit of their mentor Rove, it appears they think our biggest healthcare crisis is the potential election of Hillary Clinton.
Hearing their fulminations about "socialized medicine" and "Hillary care" almost makes you wonder what they've been drinking.
In a new report, George Lakoff's Rockridge Institute aptly describes the approach of Clinton and the other top tier Democrats as the "neoliberal mode of thought" in its dubious reliance on regulation and technocratic changes to an industry that needs to be dismantled, not tweaked.
But at least Clinton and company are talking about comprehensive reform. The Republican candidates' healthcare policies recall the words attributed, probably erroneously, to Marie Antoinette whose infamous solution to mass shortages of bread was "let them eat cake."
The GOP debate in Orlando Sunday night showed the Republicans' complete disregard for the plight of the tens of millions of Americans who are either uninsured, denied the care they need by insurance companies, or facing bankruptcy or self-rationing due to medical bills.
Front runner Rudy Giuliani thinks the answer is the Bush administration scheme of tax credits to encourage people to buy insurance. But given skyrocketing premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and rising drug and hospital charges, only the most well-off will actually benefit from the tax credits -- much like Bush's other tax cuts.
Sunday night Giuliani unveiled his approach to runaway costs -- getting or forcing more people to buy insurance which would "cut in more than half" the price of healthcare, he claims. If you believe that, next he'll try to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, the commercialization of healthcare has had the opposite effect, driving premiums up 87 percent nationally this decade alone. But Guiliani's approach will do wonders for insurance company profits.
Mitt Romney, when he's not prattling on about Clinton, can't seem to decide if he should embrace the Massachusetts plan he engineered or run away from it as a symbol of a "government-run" system that is a supposed anathema to GOP primary voters.
What Romney won't say is the problem with the Massachusetts scheme is not that it's "government-run" (it's not), but that it's a fiasco. The law forces the un-covered to buy insurance. But most have been willing to risk the tax penalties because with no limits on what the insurers can charge the cheapest, junk insurance is for many still out of reach. "Anyone not covered for free, is not buying," says Ben Day, director of Mass-Care, a vocal critic of the law.
John McCain said Sunday that healthcare will be "one of the defining issues of this campaign." Why? The need to oppose "Hillary-care resurrected" and stop the "efforts to raise your taxes." Well thank goodness he stands for something.
Tom Tancredo has an opinion on healthcare too -- hospitals are closing because "they've had to provide care for illegal immigrants and cannot be reimbursed." But facts will always be the enemy of inflammatory rhetoric. Immigrants use 55 percent less healthcare, and immigrant children 74 percent less, than U.S.-born residents.
Finally there's the new darling of the race, Mike Huckabee. "We don't have a healthcare crisis, we have a health crisis." This is a common thematic of conservative ideologues; it's your fault for getting sick for not exercising enough or not eating enough fish oil. And, if you developed cancer for breathing polluted air or eating contaminated spinach, that's probably your fault too.
In the seven years of the Bush administration, the number of people uninsured during a two-year period has grown by 17 million. One in six adults with insurance have "substantial problems paying their medical bills," says the Kaiser Family Foundation. Consumer Reports says that 70 million Americans are under-insured, with coverage that "barely covers their medical needs and leaves them unprepared to pay for major medical expenses."
Yet somehow and entire field of Republican candidates for president has missed those little problems, and adopted positions for solving our national healthcare nightmare that range from more tax breaks for the rich to denying care to immigrants to lecturing us to do more push ups. Oh, and keeping Hillary out of the White House.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/hillary-learned-the-wrong_b_64905.html
Something change her mind? Conditions on the ground now different?
Ohg
http://thefireside.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/abortion-conflicting-messages/
The current system is unsustainable. The profit motive must be removed from medicine.
The issue, as always, is cost. If you only talk about the extent of coverage and not about cost and how healthcare is delivered, then that is just a perscription for a massive new entitlement program with an even more massive new tax bill. There is not enough money anywhere to give everyone all of the healthcare they may want (and no system out there provides that) -- so where do the lines get drawn and how much will those lines cost you ,me and every other citizen and business?
All day long Rush was going after her on the fund raising issue. Wrestling 500 dollars out of Chinese dishwashers is not kosher! we have other choices. Hillary ain't the ONE! J R
"Let them eat cake" is almost as widely quoted out-of-context as the old "fire in a theatre" thing.
The context is that Marie Antoinette was so ignorant of the living conditions of the common people that she literally could not conceive that they could lack for something so common as bread because of poverty, and apparently assumed that the lack of bread was simply a temporary shortage; the the people, as hse herself, wouls have cake on the tablke if the bread ran out...
Any proposed health-care reform which retains the health insurance industry is a SWINDLE organized by that very industry to perpetuate and enrich itself. The only reason any candidate wants to retain the insurance industry in their health-care plan is because that industry has given them money for their campaign. Any other excuse offered up is a smoke-screen, since it's a proven fact that health-care WITH insurance company involvement costs several times the amount for the same care as paid by MediCare. The insurance companies do not add value, they are parasites which take large percentages of premiums to line their pockets while denying care to those whose money it is.
Health-care reform should, in fact, be focused on the elimination of the insurance industry, just as other government reforms should be focused on eliminating or regulating the other parasitic corporations which have been running the show since Ronald Reagan snoozed in the Oval Office.
De-regulation was a disaster, just like everything else Reagan did as either President or Governor. The Republicans' insistence upon comparing themselves to Reagan is very telling: they are announcing that they too will be looting the treasury for their cronies, working to eliminate all civil liberties, ignoring the Constitution, starting wars on a whim, perpetuating conflicts despite Congress' rules to the contrary, ignoring and/or belittling United Nations resolutions, and enriching themselves at the taxpayers' expense.
BINGO!
... at least, the health insurance industry. This is the elephant in the parlor, and nobody will deal with it directly.
On the street, the word for an intermediary who arranges an assignation between a customer and a provider is "PIMP". The reactionaries who wail about 'socialized medicine' (a complete misnomer -- providers would remain private, only the payment would be 'socialized') have no problem utilizing the police services we all pay for, or the highways we all pay for, or... you get the idea.
It remains a matter of great hilarity that the right-wing screamers are, in fact, screaming for the privilege of paying 50-to-60 percent more than necessary, at the very least, for their health care... all in the service of some paper-thin, slogan-laden ideology for which they haven't ever done the math.
Why not introduce a plan of their own? Well, in order to introduce a reform to something, there must first be an acknowledgment of some sort that there is at the very least a health care problem, (which is actually a crisis) and clearly none of the Rep. candidates believe that. As long as they and their wealthy class are insured, that's all that really matters.
Of course acknowledgment of problems, or lack thereof, fits into a pattern for the GOP. They deny the science of global warming; they deny the potential of stem cell research; they deny a problem in Iraq; they deny evolution; they deny problem with eavesdropping, huge tax cuts for the rich, addiction to oil, and the list can go on and on. So the latest is of course, health care. They seriously don't believe it's a problem, because it's not a problem for them and the wealthy class that votes for them.
http://www.minddisorders.com/Br-Del/Delusions.html
Really?
To respond to Rose,...I liked your post, except for the subtle endorsement of HRC...who, in spite of her rep, gets more money from pharmaceutical companies than any repub candidate...
What Hilary IS is an easy mark...easy to dislike, ergo, easy to use to scare people..a favorite tactic of the far right.
I'm not quite ready for truly socialized medicine..but would prefer MY tax dollars going to children...it's not their fault if their parents are irresponsible or just plain poor.
Sadly Huckabee is right on one count..Americans DO bring a lot of illness onto ourselves..McDonalds, Taco Bell...fast food nation..and diabetes, on the rise for one reason..poor eating habits.. hey, I'm a stupid smoker, determined to quit again (I did quit for 14 years)..and yes...I should pay higher premiums for this stupid habit.. but then be credited a bit back because I'm a vegetarian..