So, are you worthless f*cKs happy now that you have had your pointless gesture?
What follows is a retelling of what we all already know: health care reform repeal is a ticket back to a system that was long ago recognized as a disaster, a ride powered by zombie lies and a damn good media machine.
Oh, and for the record, it never was a “government takeover of health care”-its just that the overweight specimens of Americana showing up at town halls didn’t know any better:
PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections.
The phrase is simply not true. Said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: “The label ‘government takeover” has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a ‘takeover.’ ”
What’s really interesting of course about today’s show of intellectual petulance is the list of things our glibertarian overlords seem to forget-like that whole thing of “replace”:
What’s not as expected, however, is that the GOP gave up on “repeal and replace” so early. Throughout the election, that was their message. If you look at their press language, it’s still their message. Being on the side of the status quo is, according to the pollsters, a bad place to be. But that’s where they are. They voted for repeal despite offering nothing in the way of replacement, save for the vague intention to have some committees come up with some ideas at some future date. Barry Goldwater might have wanted the GOP to offer a choice, not an echo, but Speaker Boehner saw more upside in a shout than a choice.
There’s a reason for that: Opposition is easy, governing is hard. You have to get your members to agree on a single piece of legislation. You have to make the tough tradeoffs that are the hallmark of governance. You have to explain how you’ll do things, rather than merely what you want done. You have to own the popular parts and defend the unpopular parts.
But of course it never was about replacing or fixing our incredibly flawed health care system. It was about proving how “superior” our tri-corner hat wearing village idiots companions are to those of us who actually know a thing or two about the world. Slogans count more to these people. They certainly don’t have any compassion.
The amazing part of course is that these morons folks actually have the balls to believe that going back to the old way will somehow save money or reduce health insurance premiums-because it won’t. For people who pretend to care about the defict-they have some pretty strange ways of showing it. But that is kind of the point-today’s Republican party and their tea sucking mongrels are not really serious about improving the financial status of the federal or state governements. These, after all, are the same assholes who spent twenty two months decrying stimulus spending and then turned around and gave the “socialist” President a boatload of it, only to get an extension of tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts that demonstrably failed at doing what they were supposed to in their first decade.
But don’t kid yourself-health care costs will rise without insurance reform and so too will government taxes-eventually. The evidence is there-especially when you look at the balance sheets and payroll statements of the leading health care providers.
Because , a majority of your elected representatives seem to only wish to return to the health insurance companies the power to deny you healthcare if you’re already sick, cancel your coverage if you GET sick. In other words, the Teabagger plan for healthcare is
Don’t get Sick
If you Do Get Sick, Die Quickly.
Because-after all, if you do get sick-you must have done something to deserve it. Unless you are one of the overweight, tri-corner hat wearing loons. Then it is all someone else’s fault or a liberal conspiracy. But God forbid the country would actually advance and move forward in the world.
That , in my opinion, is what has changed. It used to be both sides believed in wanting the country to move forward-all they did was disagree on how to get there. Now, however, we actually have a group of people-not a majority, but large enough. to cause trouble-who actually want the country to return to some pretty bad times.
And yet-I am not supposed to lash out at these people for their stupidity, because if you do-then you are just a political opportunist who hates “real murrika”.
WELL FUCK THAT! AND FUCK ALL THOSE IDIOTS SUPPORT REPEAL.
In case you haven’t figure it out yet-this is a more than slightly angry, incoherent ( but sadly NOT drunken) rant. I’m allowed a few of those from time to time. There will be no comments on this post. I’m right. I know I am right. And I am not going to argue tonight with anyone. It’s my party and I will rant if I want to.
One final point-I used to side with these idiots. But no longer. Because John Cole is right-they are fucking stupid.
One thing that is different from when I was a Republican is that they really are just that much dumber. Sure, the policies might have been bad, and I have no doubt that many of them were evil, and yes, there were some Dan Burton types shooting watermelons, but overall, the mean iq of the public face of the GOP has just plummeted in the last 5-7 years. What else is there to say about a party whose base honest to goodness thinks that closed captioning is a government plot to generate applause?
And again, I’m sure many of you will want to say “They were always this dumb.” They just weren’t though. It’s been a noticeable shift in both stupidity and meanness. Somehow or another they’ve managed to take the old stupid/evil continuum and figured out how to get stupider and more evil.