WSJ op-ed makes wrong turn with claim that Obama is on a "drive to socialize health care"
SUMMARY: Wall Street Journal editorial board member Kimberley Strassel trotted out the oft-repeated falsehood that President Obama is on a "drive to socialize health care," a charge that echoes the baseless attacks conservatives have made against other progressives' health care reform proposals since the 1930s.
In a May 8 Wall Street Journal op-ed, titled "Republicans and ObamaCare," editorial board member Kimberley Strassel trotted out the oft-repeated falsehood that President Obama is on a "drive to socialize health care." Strassel's claim echoes a charge conservatives have used since the 1930s to baselessly attack progressive health care reform proposals. In fact, Obama has not proposed to "socialize health care."
As PolitiFact.com noted in a March 4 post, "Obama's plan leaves in place the private health care system, but seeks to expand it to the uninsured," and "the plan is very different from some European-style health systems where the government owns health clinics and employs doctors." Indeed, during a March 26 online town hall, Obama explicitly rejected the notion of eliminating the current employer-provided private health insurance system. When asked, "Why can we not have a universal health care system, like many European countries, where people are treated based on needs rather than financial resources," Obama replied, "I actually want a universal health care system; that is our goal." But he said a "universal health care system" does not have to be a "single-payer system." He continued:
OBAMA: And so what evolved in America was an employer-based system. It may not be the best system if we were designing it from scratch. But that's what everybody is accustomed to. That's what everybody is used to. It works for a lot of Americans. And so I don't think the best way to fix our health care system is to suddenly completely scrap what everybody is accustomed to and the vast majority of people already have. Rather, what I think we should do is to build on the system that we have and fill some of these gaps.
Additionally, one of the "eight principles" for the health care reform plan put forward in Obama's budget outline is "Guarantee Choice," meaning the plan "should provide Americans a choice of health plans and physicians. They should have the option of keeping their employer-based health plan." That principle is reiterated on the White House's health care Web page.
As Media Matters for America has documented, this is not the first time the Journal's opinion pages have misinformed on health care reform. The Journal has provided a forum for the false claims that Obama is seeking to implement a government-run health care system similar to that of European countries and that Democrats are aiming to nationalize the health insurance market.
NATIONALIZED HEALTH INSURANCE, otherwise known as expanding the Medicare Health Insurance Program to include more Americans than it does presently.
If you receive Medicare benefits, you do not go to a Soviet-style hospital, or to a socialist medical clinic or a socialist Doctor: if you did, then the issue would truly be about Healthcare... what you do when you receive Medicare benefits, is you go to any hospital or any clinic or any Doctor you like, and your HEALTH INSURANCE is Medicare... simple, true, direct, not confusing, not vague, period.
That's their talking point and their intentional confusion of the issue: make it seem like it's all about Healthcare and hospitals and clinics and Doctors, when in fact it's all about HEALTH INSURANCE, and whether or not Medicare coverage should be expanded to include more Americans, maybe as many Americans as might want to be under that coverage...
If it's called any bogeyman name, then it's called NATIONALIZED or NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE, and not "socialized healthcare" or really not even "healthcare" at all.
It's not much of a bogeyman if you think about it... unless you're in the private for profit middleman industry of health insurance, then it's worse than a bogeyman, it's maybe the Grim Reaper to you.
We don't need nationalized health insurance. All it is going to do is raise my taxes to pay for irresponsible people to go to the doctor when they get a sniffle. Read the hippocratic oath. That is all the healthcare you need. I have owed hospitals a sum of money that seemed insumountable when I needed health care. Strangley enough they treated me despite my lack of health insurance of any kind. With my health restored (benign tumor on my lung) and a sense of gratitude I went back to work. I didn't even start paying it back for ten months. I recieved the bills and kept in communication with the hospital. (ignoring them just makes them mad). Eventually I was able to pay them some money every month. As time went on I got better jobs, my pay increased and I was able to pay them more and more each month and week. I never denied my family any neccesities. I even stopped paying for a while to buy a motorcycle (yes, irresponsible I know). But I always communicated with the hospital at least once a month and either paid them or gave them an excuse, bogus or otherwise, why I couldn't. Then, one day, nearly five years after my illness. I paid them the last $213.67 I owed them. I still have the cancelled check in my records. I didn't keep it for any particular reason at the time, but now I realize it is an illustration that I took responsibility for my own health care. I didn't need Barrack Obama or any one else to take care of me and I don't want to be forced to supply less motivated people with some thing that I could not at the time afford myself. The Liberal argument is that all people are "entitled" to Health care. All you have is the inalienable right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property. The federal government has no right to provide health care at the expense of the taxpayers. You can argue that the states have that right. However, if it's all the same to you I would rather pay for my own health insurance and care. If you really want to reduce the cost of health care introduce tort reform and give doctors and pharmasudical companies protection from frivolous law suits and rediculous malpractice insurance premiums. Let the free markets determine health care costs instead of government interference and prices will come down. Hmmm, funny, that would work for just about every problem this country faces right now.
You are ignorant. That isnt my fault. Try for once to have some dim idea what you are talking about before continuing to humiliate yourself by parading your ignorance.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/healthcare/2002-05-22-insurance-deaths.htm
WASHINGTON — More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care, researchers report in a landmark study released Tuesday.
The 193-page report, "Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late," examines the plight of 30 million — one in seven — working-age Americans whose employers don't provide insurance and who don't qualify for government medical care.
It is the second in a planned series of six reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) examining the impact of the nation's fragmented health system. The IOM is a non-profit organization of experts that advises Congress on health issues.
You really need to stop just parroting what you have been told to think or what you WISH were true. You are embarassing yourself
Mr SELFISH if you dont want to pay your fair share to be part of a society one that has made a huge investement in everyones ability to make money then go live on an island or in the forrest, let those of us that like having a civilization get on with it withoug dragging your selfish dont want to do your part butt along kicking and screaming. Taxes are not theft anymore than the electric company demanding payment for electricity is theft. Your brainwashing is thorough. The problem is you have NO ability for higher brain function whatsoever. Your arguments are childish and ludicrous on the face of them. The constitution says directly that congress can levy taxes for them wellfare of the United States. IF you dont LIKE that, tough. It isnt UP TO YOU. You dont know what I have done and what I havent. I am not listing all the good things I have done for poor people. I find doing so tawdry. I do my part however. I flat dont believe you. You whine and snivel so much at the very THOUGHT of doing something for someone else I just dont believe you have put yourself out in any way for anyone not in your family or among your friends. Grow up and try to remember that things dont become true just because you say them. 18,000 people a year DIE from lack of access to healthcare they die whether you refuse to believe reality or not whether you deny any FACT that blows your silly talking points out of the water or not. You either care about such deaths or you dont and you deny it to maintain the talking points you have been brainwashed with
Amendment XVI [Adopted Feb. 25, 1913]
The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
How, exactly, is Washington in the way, and, likewise, how could Washington get out of the way?
"If there ever was a time when Christian love for neighbor could be expressed simply in person to person terms or by founding some institution like a school or a hospital, this is no longer the case." [What Christians Believe, by Richard Harries, p. 141]
I think most people who would find themselves in the situation you claim you were in, would have been crushed by their medical bills, and could never have reasonably paid them, and perhaps even been driven into bankruptcy (instead of driving around in a new motorcycle).
What kind of medical bills did you rack up? $15, 000 or more? $25,000 or more?
Most uninsured people would sell their souls for Medicare coverage in such circumstances.
I'd guess that at least 99 out of a hundred uninsured people who rack up medical bills in those dollar amounts, don't come out of it all as miraculously financially solvent as you claim you did, tooling around on your new motorcycle in the process...
Of course, maybe you're talking about medical bills less than $5,000 (which is like 3 MRI's, or which wouldn't even cover a minor surgery today)...
Your story is so unusual unique and rare, it's unbelievable.
You know what. I'm out shopping for mother's Day and this place is packed. The restaurants are packed too. If it wasn't for the government causing the loss of half a million jobs a month I would wonder if we we're even in a recession.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html
February 3, 2005
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.
The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.
Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.
Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.
Families in bankruptcy suffered many privations -- 30 percent had a utility cut off and 61 percent went without needed medical care.
You are selfish. You arent even MARGINALLY informed on this issue. You really dont care even a bit about anybody but yourself. I have top notch medical insurance. I want that for ALL my brothers. You only care about yourself.
Say thank you then for shrubonomics which lead to it. You think it'll get better if we just continued his strategies for the market place? Self regulating captitalism? Give an example.
Please explain, if you can.
Nationalized health insurance works everywhere it's tried. The US has the worst care for the most money among all first-world nations. Your thought experiment, your anecdote, and your philosophy of who owes who what is drowned out.
You are an "I'm alright Jack" person. You think you've got yours so everything and everyone else can rot. You don't realize how tenuous your grasp on your life really is. Get cancer, real cancer..not a 'benign' growth... and live/fight it long enough and most Americans would be financially ruined.