Health
I don't know whether this will help her or hurt her, but good for her: Hillary Clinton has promised to institute universal health care if elected.
It's so far overdue in America that it seems silly to even talk about it. The US is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal system. And yet, as is so often the case, the rightists have for years convinced people to work against their own welfare.
How is it that the public has not demanded a real health care system yet? When Clinton & Clinton tried to work it out after the 1992 election, a massive public relations campaign from the for-profit health system (I won't call it "care") sunk them.
People were convinced that they would lose more than they would gain in such a system. Which is psychotic. But that's how things work in the US - if there's a monied interest, it wins over the public good every time.
And so fearful of this noise machine have the Democrats become, they've allowed the rightists to have their system, no matter how stupid and harmful it is.
It's been documented by greater man than I, but in short a public system is both cheaper and more effective than what is in place now. Today, HMO's burn millions of dollars in administrative costs while trying to get someone else to pay for care. It's an ugly layered system where lives are valued in dollars.
It's just wrong in every possible way, but so are the Repubs. And they're the ones driving the health policies.
This is one of those issues where the polling numbers don't matter. It's identity politics - who are you? The Repubs are great at this. They know their programs are unpopular and that people don't agree with them, but they lie enough to make their ideas palatable and sell their own personalities - also a pack of lies.
Take tax cuts for the rich, for example. Nobody but the rich want them. They are intended to "starve the beast" - wreck the federal budget so the government is forced to cut social programs. Nice.
But they never say that - they say tax cuts for for "growth." And it's not that people believe it or disbelieve it - they just don't care. It's close enough to a reasonable excuse, so they tune it out. They aren't for it so much as they are not against it.
And that's all the permission the rightists need to get. It's off to enrich their cronies and starve some poor people.
Democrats operate on a different principle; they want to figure out what's right, and then do that. And they fear the bite of the rightist noise monster. So if the noise monster cows people into thinking that universal health care is bad - even though it is clearly good - then polls will show that people 'don't want health care.'
The combination of the polls and the noise monster itself keeps Democrats from doing the right thing. It was that same monster that finished Hillary's health care program in 1993, and the lesson has been learned: don't try it.
So rather than say "this is the right thing no matter what" and defying the machine and even the polls, the Democrats just leave it out of their program. Sad and stupid.
But good for Hillary - she's back at it. She'll buck the smear and fear machine, and risk the Fox propaganda network's scorn.
Not that they ever stopped scorning her. Or that they will ever stop.
It's so far overdue in America that it seems silly to even talk about it. The US is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal system. And yet, as is so often the case, the rightists have for years convinced people to work against their own welfare.
How is it that the public has not demanded a real health care system yet? When Clinton & Clinton tried to work it out after the 1992 election, a massive public relations campaign from the for-profit health system (I won't call it "care") sunk them.
People were convinced that they would lose more than they would gain in such a system. Which is psychotic. But that's how things work in the US - if there's a monied interest, it wins over the public good every time.
And so fearful of this noise machine have the Democrats become, they've allowed the rightists to have their system, no matter how stupid and harmful it is.
It's been documented by greater man than I, but in short a public system is both cheaper and more effective than what is in place now. Today, HMO's burn millions of dollars in administrative costs while trying to get someone else to pay for care. It's an ugly layered system where lives are valued in dollars.
It's just wrong in every possible way, but so are the Repubs. And they're the ones driving the health policies.
This is one of those issues where the polling numbers don't matter. It's identity politics - who are you? The Repubs are great at this. They know their programs are unpopular and that people don't agree with them, but they lie enough to make their ideas palatable and sell their own personalities - also a pack of lies.
Take tax cuts for the rich, for example. Nobody but the rich want them. They are intended to "starve the beast" - wreck the federal budget so the government is forced to cut social programs. Nice.
But they never say that - they say tax cuts for for "growth." And it's not that people believe it or disbelieve it - they just don't care. It's close enough to a reasonable excuse, so they tune it out. They aren't for it so much as they are not against it.
And that's all the permission the rightists need to get. It's off to enrich their cronies and starve some poor people.
Democrats operate on a different principle; they want to figure out what's right, and then do that. And they fear the bite of the rightist noise monster. So if the noise monster cows people into thinking that universal health care is bad - even though it is clearly good - then polls will show that people 'don't want health care.'
The combination of the polls and the noise monster itself keeps Democrats from doing the right thing. It was that same monster that finished Hillary's health care program in 1993, and the lesson has been learned: don't try it.
So rather than say "this is the right thing no matter what" and defying the machine and even the polls, the Democrats just leave it out of their program. Sad and stupid.
But good for Hillary - she's back at it. She'll buck the smear and fear machine, and risk the Fox propaganda network's scorn.
Not that they ever stopped scorning her. Or that they will ever stop.
posted by fiduciary at 11:47 AM
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