In a Wednesday memo to media and scheduling contacts for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, the RNC offered GOP legislators the use of its TV studio on June 24, the scheduled air date of ABC’s planned health care reform special, so the lawmakers could discuss their own health care views in satellite interviews with their congressional districts’ ABC affiliates.
The RNC has offered to pay for satellite time and set up the interviews with the affiliates.
National legislators from the Chattanooga region don’t yet have plans to participate.
“We don’t know all the details of this special, but we do hope that as the media covers this important issue they will present all sides,” said Todd Womack, chief of staff for Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.
I don’t know why Republicans have their boxers in a knot over this. No one clamored to “present all sides” when NBC ran Rick “Medicare Fraud” Scott’s 30-minute infomercial on May 31 that questioned “the effectiveness of government-run health care.”
Rick Scott is a criminal who by all rights should have been sent to jail. Instead he cut a deal and Janet Reno let him off the hook. Big mistake.
Bob Corker is my Senator and his participation in more lies and message manipulation about healthcare will be a huge FAIL in my book.
Look, I wasn’t going to blog about this today but here goes. Every argument I’ve heard against a public healthcare option seems to say it will be too successful, too efficient, too affordable. Yeah, that’s a horrible problem to have. Why on earth would we want that? Those poor, endangered insurance companies. If only they were as cute and cuddly as, say, marsh mice.
At the same time we're supposed to feel sorry for insurance companies and worry about unfair competition from the government, the Republicans and some Democrats are giving us the hilarious talking point about the government inserting a “bureaucrat” between me and my doctor.
Look, I already have a team of bureaucrats between me and my doctor, the only difference being they work for BlueCross/Blue Shield of Tennessee, not the government.
Republicans and Democrats who are putting up roadblocks to a public option need to get a fucking clue. If it’s going to be so horrible, then no one will want it and private insurers can relax. If it’s going to be too good, then private insurers are basically proving our argument that they are parasites on the healthcare system. I suspect that is what they are afraid of.
Oh, and quit picking on the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, postal service and other government operations, Republicans. Those scare tactics just don't work. I can’t remember the last time I went to the DMV, I do all of my business online or at the County Clerk’s satellite office in Green Hills. Today I renewed my car tags, at lunchtime no less. Door to door, including the emissions test at the Craighead station, then schlepping to Green Hills to the county clerk’s office, then actually putting the stickers on my car took 25 minutes. There were no lines, anywhere. Pretty efficient.
The postal service is pretty awesome, too. And you know what? Our military, public utilities, power grid, highway system and other "public" stuff works pretty well most of the time, too. They work better when they have the funds to keep stuff like bridges and roads maintained, but that's another issue that involves mentioning people who want to shrink the government to the size where you can drown it in the bathtub.
Look, these "scary government" buzz words aren't working for me. I don't want the government running everything but neither do I want someone making an obscene profit off of things like my trip to the doctor, my hospital stay, or my monthly prescriptions. I don't want the need for obscene profits to be used as a barrier preventing tens of millions of people from accessing the healthcare they need. That's not right.
The healthcare industry is all in favor of reform so long as it brings them those 45 million uninsureds and nothing more. They want Congress to bring them 45 million new customers, but they aren't willing to do anything to actually make healthcare affordable. They still want to charge obscene amounts of money for stuff that costs a fraction of what we pay elsewhere. They just want to charge this whole new pool of people. That's dishonest.
Here's the thing. Our healthcare system is majorly messed up. It will not be fixed by tax credits, health savings accounts, and other "market" solutions. And by the way: my health is not your marketplace.
(h/t, Kleinheider.)
