Watching the Dixiecrats supposedly impose fiscal responsibility on the "unrealistic liberals," who, in theory, would go off and provide health care to all Americans if someone didn't put a stop to them, you have to wonder if this isn't all for show.
Speaking of shows, the mainstream media is in full-onslaught mode on health care reform now. They're going after Obama and his health care, trouble-making with everything and the kitchen sink. One more poll published today illustrating how "the public" is turning against Obama on health care reform will make an even hundred. How informative, so impressive.
In fact there is some real news out there that mattered: A quick read of the independent press might reveal, as David Swanson reports, "Nine More Go to Jail for Single Payer". [1] These were not hooligans or persons of low moral character; they were doctors and Catholic workers, an 11-year-old child and ordinary citizens who cared enough that all Americans would be entitled to health care that they voluntarily forfeited their liberty.
Or, as Nayla Kazzi reports, "More Americans Losing Health Insurance Every Day". [2] To wit: 46 million Americans are currently uninsured, but that the number is rising at an alarming and accelerating pace. Further, Kazzi reports that many of the uninsured are currently working.
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports, "Percentage of Americans With Private Health Insurance Hits 50-Year Low". [3] So, that's a drop in the percentage of insured Americans from an estimated "nearly 80% in the 1970s and early 1980s", to a 2008 estimated level, according to the CDC, of 67 percent of non-elderly Americans. That's down 2 percent in the past year alone apparently, according to the report.
Health Care as a Wedge Issue
If the corporate news machine isn't good for anything else, they're good at shaping public opinion in favor of corporate profits, even at the expense of the public's best interest. To be sure, Alabama Rep. Mike Ross and his Dixiecratic associates are well aware of the facts laid out above, well aware of the toll of human suffering generated by them and just as well aware of the losses meaningful reform of the health care industry would mean to industry bottom lines.
But how do you convince an ordinary American that health care reform that clearly stands to benefit them, at least to some extent, is something they should oppose, and oppose its advocates as well? First, you need a powerful medium. Broadcast television is a good start, commercial print media helps as well and talk radio really saturates the market fully. But you still need a wedge, an issue that divides.
What if you could convince the majority of Americans that health care reform would actually cost them money? Well. that would sure do it; yes, it would. The reality is a bit different: The American health care industry enjoys not only the staunch protection of US lawmakers, but the enormous financial benefits that follow. The numbers are staggering. [4] These are Fortune 500 people, and they absolutely, positively intend to keep it that way. Take away the enormous profit and health care would serve no other purpose than to ease human suffering.
So, sure, Barack Obama's popularity can be tarnished by a media onslaught and, sure, public opinion can in the same manner be panic driven to a profitably convenient conclusion. People, however, are dying and being left to die in staggering numbers as the Fortune 500 priorities are writ large by the nation's lawmakers.
Let there be no mistake, health care isn't going away.
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