I just read an article at www.americanthinker.com about “rationed” health care. Bollocks.

Here’s the link:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/call_it_what_it_is_rationed_he.html

Since this issue is one I take very seriously, I will spend most of the following dispelling American Thinker’s cute little quips than introducing my own. And I do so because this is what is wrong with the health care debate: no one really knows what the new health care plan is or what any of its components mean (I don’t even!). So instead of really partaking in intelligent discourse, we indulge in propaganda, scare tactics, out-of-context information, and flat out misconstructions of the truth intended to lead you in one direction while blinding you to the other half of the fork in the road. As such, this article and I are going to have a debate in another edition of Dear God it’s what Rachel Thinks

Article:

“Any or all of these will lead to a government takeover of the health care industry.”

DGIWRT:

Health care should not be an industry. No one should be profiting off of someone’s poor health, and decisions certainly should not be made with profit in mind.

Article:
“Should your grandmother get a hip replacement? Go down the hall to the queue outside Office 37-B and fill out more forms. We’ll let you know in a few months. Hey, you with the brain tumor. Get back in line.”

DGIWRT:

Speaking as someone with a brain tumor, I can’t tell you how many doctors I had to see, referrals I had to beg for, insurance forms I had to fill out, monstrous copays I had to pay, and overall shitty treatment I received even on double coverage from the health care industry. Or maybe I can tell you. Oh wait, I don’t have a year of your time.

Furthermore, people who can’t afford insurance don’t even get to be in line

Article:

“A centralized system would give the government the power of life and death over America’s families”

DGIWRT:

How is government having the power over life and death any worse than an HMO having this power? The government is no more impersonal, the government is no more profit-seeking, the government is no more frugal, the government is no more misinformed.

Article:

“Such a system also reinforces the idea that government is God.”

DGIWRT:

You’re a paranoid propaganda peddling fuck

Article:

“Often treatment is not withheld altogether, but it is delayed, sometimes with the result that the patient’s condition worsens. … About 50 per cent had to wait over a month and 20 per cent more than three months. Over one in three of those waiting said that their condition had got worse while they were waiting and 14 per cent claimed to be ‘in a lot of pain.’”

DGIWRT:

I waited 9 months for a shoulder surgery. 9 months. You need to look at the present facts before peddling future fears

Article:

“Randy Stroup, 53, a cancer patient, applied for aid under Oregon’s state health plan in 2008. He got a letter denying payments for chemotherapy, but offering money to help him kill himself.”

DGIWRT:

This statement is strikingly misleading. First, the Oregon Health Plan was introduced in the 1990’s, at which point it was far more comprehensive than it is today (or in 2008) due to cutbacks because we would rather give subsidies to Portland General Electric than pay for chemotherapy. What this article doesn’t tell you is that the OHP expanded healthcare for thousands of Oregonians who were in a terrible limbo between not qualifying for medicare and not affording their own insurance. Furthermore, this man had less than a 5 percent chance of significant recovery. This was not a man that was denied arbitrarily. Yes, it would be wonderful if the state could pay for his chemotherapy. And since you agree, I’m sure you’d also agree to taking a small bite out of pentagon funding to do so.

Also, the fact that they would offer assisted-suicide is pretty irrelevant

And ten bucks says he petitioned the government because his private insurance wouldn’t cover his chemotherapy either. Or he didn’t have any to begin with.

Gimme more gimme more…gimme gimme more