Last night on the way home from my weekly gaming event I was listening to local conservative talker Dom Giordano. Dom’s a local guy heard generally at night on Philly’s conservation station 1210 AM.
He’s pretty typical for a conservative but of late he’s gotten a bit …. shall we say …. testy?
Last night he was flustered by a myriad of callers who wouldn’t buy into his spiel on health care. He kept trying to say that the new health care plan tagged as “Obamacare” absolutely must be repealed at all costs. His biggest case in point was a news story that, in response to the legislation had decided to stop offering a limited-coverage option it has for its employees—one that’s optionally chosen by 30,000 of its workers.
Caller after caller would not agree with his view that Tea Party candidates should be able to run solely on the “travesty” of this legislation and ride that to victory. The callers were almost entirely conservatives.
Giordano also kept going on about how everyone knows we flat-out have the best health care system in the world. This is yet another case of delusions getting in the way of progress. What these types of supporters don’t get is that, yes, we may have the best facilities. Yes, we may have the best doctors. Yes, we may have the best equipment. Yes, we may have the best research. Yes, we may have the best practices and solutions. However not one bit of that matters if it’s not accessible—truly accessible—by the masses.
Our system today leaves tens of millions out in the cold. It leaves millions of others only very partially covered. I write this today while having an issue with my arm. When I put my arm down at my side the circulation in my hand gets cut off. I clearly feel a lump in my armpit where you don’t want a lump. I went to my doctor. They want to wait 4-6 weeks to see what happens. I want an x-ray. Now I can go get an x-ray but due to our wonderful system I’ll be on my own and I’ll end up having to pay a fortune out-of-pocket if I go it alone.
Waiting weeks for a solution…. Where have I heard that before? Oh, right, from the Right about how things are in those “socialist” countries. As I’ve said before my background has exposed me to a wide array of citizens of other countries—Germany, England, Canada, France, Belgium, South Africa, Australia, Italy and many others. I’ve yet, in even a single case, to find anyone outside the US who’s told me they’d prefer our system to their own. In nearly all the other cases these people have been absolutely shocked at what we put up with here and the levels to which many of us vehemently defend a clearly-broken system. If these other systems are so broken then why am I not falling people saying it’s so bad?
The most important factor in the discussion last night is today’s news that McDonald’s has said that these reports are categorically false. Color me not surprised.
