Recently I visited comments to a news story on a mainstream site. The story related to a wingnut media personality and healthcare reform, so the rightwing was out in force to defend their hero and to trash liberals—especially the latter.
I learned a lot about the far right by visiting that circus. Before this, I’d only seen them interacting with each other in their alternate reality or, rarely, in comments on mainstream news sites. But those pale in comparison to the great oozing mass of rightwing nonsense I saw.
Among the things I noticed in the hundreds of comments: They had absolutely no awareness of what’s going on in the world, including the history of their own country. Also, they happily and blindly regurgitate the talking points of the rightwing media without any critical thought whatsoever.
One rightwinger declared that the rest of the world was adopting the US healthcare system. I’d guess the commenter probably believes that the rest of the world is converting from the metric system the Imperial system still used in the US (for the record, only the USA, Myanmar and Liberia don’t use the metric system).
This was the logical extension of the rightwing talking point that universal healthcare is “a failure” everywhere. They declared that the French system had infected thousands of people with HIV and had let old people die in their heatwave awhile back. Another claimed that in Britain people are given a pain relief tablet and told to go home to die.
This is all utter nonsense, of course, as anyone with the tiniest bit of curiosity would find out in seconds. It’s based on the Fallacy of the Anecdote—that because a bad thing has happened to one person, it therefore happens to everyone. So, the rightwing uses isolated mistakes and bad incidents to condemn universal healthcare in general.
Does the right wing really want to go there? It would be very, very easy to find thousands of anecdotes from Americans who have had bad or disastrous experiences with the US healthcare system. But that would prove nothing. Instead, one needs to look at the overall statistics—like the tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance, and so, no access to adequate healthcare. That doesn’t happen in countries with universal healthcare because, by definition, it’s universal: Everyone is covered, everyone is treated.
If someone in the US—even with insurance—gets seriously ill, or has a bad accident, he or she can very easily run up massive bills far beyond what their insurance will pay and they face bankruptcy as a result. That cannot happen in a country with universal health care.
But everybody (apart from the right wing) knows all that, or they should. But the right wing is completely incurious about the world and completely uninterested in finding things out for themselves.
It’s all a distraction and complete joke because this sort of single-payer universal healthcare is NOT going to be the result of healthcare reform in the US (even though I think it should be). Instead, the result will be a kind of mix between the single-payer universal healthcare that most developed countries have and the broken American system.
The stark reality is that healthcare reform in America is facing not only the millions of dollars a day being spent by healthcare industry lobbyists, it also has to take on the massive wave of lies and distortions coming from the right, treated as legitimate debating points by the mainstream media, and mindlessly held as true by far too many people.
This will be a major battle, but one that cannot be lost.
6 comments:
I've long noticed that the wingnut division will show up on ANY news website (but AOL seems to be the worst) and spew venom, even venom that's off topic. (A faux example would be a Walter Cronkite obit; "Walter Cronkite is a commie and so is Obama and his health care plan.") I could probably easily find a real example but it's before 7 a.m. on Sunday, and I am NOT up to it. Yet.)
It is a shame that some Americans are so gullible, to the outlandish propaganda and lies spat in the newspapers, television and radio about Obama’s health care agenda. They have demonized the British, Canadian and other worthy plans. Hidden under a disguise cover, these radical entities are determined to keep the special interest organizations in absolute power. Comprising of the money-draining profitable insurance companies and their rich stockholders. They don't want any changes to the broken system of medical care, because it will hurt the status quo. I was born in England, in the county of Sussex and until the inception of the European Union and the European Parliament dictating to Britain. That they must accept millions of foreign workers, the nations medical system was exemplary. I never had to wonder if I would have to file bankruptcy, to pay my medical bills, or listen to the incessant ring of debt collectors on the phone.
On several occasions I ended up in the cottage hospital and their was never a cost applied to it, never a ream of paperwork. Incidentally, I choose my own doctor where I Lived. The longest I waited for surgery was three months, as it was not an emergency. No doctor, no hospital or specialist asking me for my Social Security number, drivers license or if I was covered by a predatory for-profit insurer. No premiums, no-cops and pre-existing condition clauses. Yes! Didn't have a private room, but who cares? Today the British Isles is being submerged under a barrage of legal and illegal immigrants, who have never paid into the system, have caused some rationing. Prior to the importation of foreign labor my trips to doctor, to hospital, the eye or a dentist was paid from my taxation. Unless we pass a national health care agenda, Americans will never know what it's like to breeze through their lives, without worrying about paying for health care? Tell your Senators and Congressman you want an alternative to the--GET RICH-- insurance companies, before a Universal health care is killed. 202-224-312 REMEMBER THE INVESTORS AND STOCKHOLDERS DON'T WANT THEIR PIECE OF THE $$$TRILLION$$$ DOLLAR PIE DISTURBED. EVEN SOME POLITICIANS HAVE THEIR DIRTY FINGERS IN THE PIE?
AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE PRIVATE HEALTH CARE, A GOVERNMENT SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM WILL ASSIST IN REVITALIZING THE WILTING US ECONOMY.
My my my... finger pointing and the anecdote fallacy, right next to each other no less...
Michael Moore's book Dude Where's My Country had a great section called something like How to talk to your Republican Brother-in-Law and it was full of ways to talk to those at the other end of the political spectrum, about why things like proper healthcare and decent pay are actually good for business. I can't remember what it said about healthcare, but I'm sure it was right, LOL
How can anyone think it OK that directly due to the lack of universal healthcare, the world's richest country has an infant mortality rate that would shame a developing country? Lots of these people call themselves Christians too, which I find odd, as I thought Christianity included stuff about caring for your fellow human beings, dangerous socialist that I am.
Brittanicus - the NHS is not swamped by in-comers. As far as I can see, health budgets are limited so we can bail-out banks and pay for possibly illegal wars.
In fact the NHS is probably kept going by incomers to the UK, as indigenous people increasingly refuse to work stupid hours, often for poor pay.
The NHS is hit by massive drug company charges, if we want to cut costs, I think that's a great place to start.
And Americans do not have a monopoly on being fed lies by the mass media. The good old UK media are just as bad.
Hmm, I was hopeful but now I wonder if Obama has moved too fast. I just hope he's as astute politically as he seems to be, this is too big a battle to cop out on.
Post a Comment