Salma Hayek's Breasts (Being a Serious Discussion on Healthcare Reform)

¡Hola! Everybody...
I have a series of posts documenting racism in a variety of areas of American life... but this health care “debate” really has me flummoxed. What follows is an attempt to put an end to all the health care myths being spouted by your uber-conservative brother-in-law, internally racially oppressed siblings and cousins, and 99.9999% of the Texas population....

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-=[ Everything Bad is GOOD for You ]=-

War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Fox News is Journalism!

[shamelessly ganked/ adopted from The Nation]

I am an avowed political junkie. I watch/ read/ analyze news like some guys watch sports. But I gotta tell ya: the recent, so-called “public dialog” on healthcare makes me sick -- literally. and I was thinking that if it makes me sick, then the average Joe/ Jane Six-pack has either tuned out, or is drinking the undiluted conservative Kool-Aid yet again (You betcha! *wink*). To say that there’s been a lot of misinformation about proposals to reform the health insurance industry and provide (near) universal coverage is to put it mildly. However, this is understandable. Health care is a complicated issue that simply couldn’t be put up on American Idol and voted on willy-nilly. One has to understand the nuances -- the intended and unintended consequences, for example, -- of social policy reform. I will attempt to simplify the issue in the following...

Is it true that all of the bills currently proposed would end the practice whereby health insurance providers refuse to treat customers who’ve paid their premiums simply because they’ve become ill?

Are you stupid?!! No! That’s a common misunderstanding. Why would we actually propose such a measure and cheat the rich from their rightful due?!! That’s socialism! Actually, all of the bills would legally bar surgeons from performing surgery until a panel of gay illegal immigrants signed off on the procedure. And then only if you agree to a sex change operation.

Is it true that health care reform would ban insurers from refusing to insure people because of pre-existing conditions?

OMG!! Wrong again! In order to achieve health equality, the bills will actually authorize that every American be given a pre-existing condition. A National Pre-Existing Condition Commission (A Branch of the Death Commission), with liberal academics appointed from Harvard and Berkeley, will assess each citizen, and based on their demographic profile, choose their illness. Each disease or syndrome will be scored on a Lichter scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most severe. White Christian men will automatically receive pre-existing conditions of eight or higher. Black people, “Wise-assed Latinas,” and ACORN members will, of course, be exempted.

Are proposals currently under consideration providing seniors with option of free counseling sessions under Medicare, where they can discuss a living will and end-of-life care.

That’s a terrible idea and a huge misconception. The bills require all senior citizens (who are non-union members) be euthanized on their 70th birthday. Rev. Sharpton, using a satanic version of the bible, will perform all last rites.

I’ve heard the bills being proposed would require insurers to provide preventative care, like mammograms, free of charge.

Wrong!! However, all lactating mothers will be forced to watch Salma Hayek videos on breast feeding and forced to breast-feed all poor black and Latino/a children.

Will the current bills propose to kill children with severe cognitive disabilities?

Absolutely not! New legislation, however, will pay for the sterilization of Sarah Palin (as a preventive measure against the dumbing down of America), and teens will be forced to practice the Bristol Palin “pull-out-and-pray” technique of birth control.

There! Now you have all the facts you need to make an informed decision. Please be sure to visit the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and watch Fox News to get in-depth, shameless and unbiased cheerleading for our corporatocracy.

Remember: bad things are good for you!

Love,

Eddie

Neoconomania

¡Hola! Everybody...
I wrote a few months back, but it needs re-stating... Some people, when faced with evidence refuting their frame of reference will eschew the evidence and keep the frame. After years, I am firmly convinced such people will never be able to think in an original manner. I have my own special pet name for such people...

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-=[ Necons & Healthcare ]=-

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. Broad, wholesome, charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth.
-- Mark Twain

It never fails: whenever the national dialog comes to the issue of universal single-payer health care for all Americans, neocons predictably spew out the usual myths.

Any talk about changing one of the most expensive and least effective health care systems in the industrialized world brings on the cries of “socialist!” These are usually the same people who blame blue-collar working stiffs (instead of predatory lending practices and derivatives) for our financial collapse and who most likely voted for a dimwit like Palin.

In other words... idiots.

First, they tell me that health care is not a right. They say it’s each individual’s responsibility to provide for his or her family. “Don’t take my money!” they squeal. This is just another excuse for neocons to look down on the poor who cannot afford the “luxury” of medical insurance. It makes them feel superior. But the irony is that it isn’t just the poor who can’t afford medical insurance. You might have insurance and the muthafuckas running the show won’t let you get life-saving treatment!

In any case, my response to the cunts and twats (aka neocons) is to point out that health care is indeed a basic human right as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the United States is a signatory.

Article 25(1) of the UDHR states:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

But human rights standards don’t tend to sway the cunts and twats. After all, these are the same people who praise and defend the practice of torture. Nah, rights don’t mean a damned thing to neocons. That’s why they’re cunts and twats in the first place.

Their favorite rallying cry is the accusation of “socialism,” as if that’s a bad thing. The radical right (aka cunts and twats) too often (and very stupidly) equate socialism with Communism or Marxism, which are not the same as socialism. They fail to see that national single-payer health care managed by the government would not be much different from our current system of socialized libraries, socialized fire departments, and socialized police departments. These services are paid for with our tax dollars, and they’re readily available to us when we need them. It’s all for the greater good. Not just for the corporate good, but the greater good.

But what the cunts and twats love to do the most is wave the flag and tell us that we must not change our health care system because the U.S. offers the very best health care available.

Huh?!!

Here, too, they need a bit of education. In fact, the United States ranks 37^th in the World Health Organization’s rankings of the world’s health systems (below Malta, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, and numerous other countries that would surprise you).

Additionally, as a recent report suggests, “the costs and performance of the U.S. health care system have put America’s companies and workers at a significant competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.” Simply put, Americans spend a lot more on health care than other countries, but along with getting an inferior product, we aren’t as healthy. In addition, we put our industries at a disadvantage. How would automakers in the US, for example, have fared if they had the same advantage of universal healthcare systems of foreign automakers? That seems to confirm the World Health Organization’s assessment of our less-than-stellar level of care, with the added issue of how we’re paying so much more to get so much less. Corporate profits over the health of the people. God bless America and Corporate KKKhristianity!

That brings me to my final point: many neocon types describe themselves as “Christian.” Well, wasn’t Jesus all about healing the sick? And, I’m far from a scholar, but from my take on how the bible describes his ministry, I don’t think Jesus ever charged a penny for his healing services. (Lazarus would still be payin’!)

I have yet to see a valid, logical response from the assorted twats and cunts to this last point.

And I don't expect to.

Love,

Eddie