Health Care Reform Protests: Send Me Your Tired, Ignorant and Stupid.

With the recent town hall events of August and the bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee, health care reform is as contentious as ever.  People are mad and dammit, they aren't going to let ignorance get in their way!  So what are the critiques of universal health care?  People are claiming all sorts of things.  A big one is that this is socialism.  Socialism!  Just when you thought we'd defeated that back in the 80s, it rears it ugly head.  Another critique is that it will cost too much and another is that well, Obama is a fascist. 



So, what about his whole claim that bringing universal health care to all is socialized medicine?  Well, yes, it would be socialized medicine.  People would pay in their taxes and get health care in return.  Seems simple, right?  Those socialists always want to keep it simple, that's how they fool you!  But speaking of fools, all those older people who are screaming about how the government is messing with their health care already have government health care!  Medicare.  Run by the government.  For about forty years now. 

But wait, you're thinking, "I dont' want to pay for someone elses health care.  I work hard for my money for my family and we pay enough."  Well, that is certainly understandable, I wouldn't want to pay for someone elses shopping trip, but with health care, you already pay for the uninsured.  All those people without insurance who go to the emergency room or get in an accident and end up in the hospital, their fees have to be paid for by someone and you see those costs in increased hospital bills which then flows down to your insurance premiums.  Craziness. 

The latest figure out of Congress is about 850 billion dollars over ten years to fund a health care plan.  That is a lot of money, but over ten years that comes out to about $85 billion a year which is far more reasonable.  Rolling back the Bush tax cuts would easily take care of $85 billion.  Puggling remembers the 90s and man, they were a good time.  A good time and an upper marginal tax bracket of 39.6%!  Good times. 

Okay, so now we've paid for this health care plan, but what about the calls that Obama is a fascist?  Well, fascism is a loosely defined concept at best, but they fall on the opposite end of the spectrum as socialists.  Italian fascists routinely went around beating up communists in the 20s, so weird protesters, pick a political ideology to label your opponent and stick to it!  Just because it's easy to paint a Hitler moustache on Obama's face doesn't make him fascist, it makes you look like an idiot.