but mainstreamers like our
House Minority Leader John Boehner.
Who seriously declared, with a straight face no less, that...
"It's ARAMAGEDDON!
This New Health Care Bill
Will Ruin Our Country!"
(Note the serious look of concern on his face. One can obviously tell he really cares.)
Then there's The Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele who attempts to explain to a skeptical Shepard Smith on Fox News that - "Yes, this Really is Armageddon!" (Please note, when you're the chairman of the party, the one man who is actually authorized to speak on behalf of the Republican Party, and your right wing inflammatory rhetoric, becomes so bizarre that even Fox News has to challenge it. Well then, you know you've gone too far.) Click play and check out the video. It's only about a minute long - it's worth it - it's fun!
All of this over a rather minor health care bill. A bill whose key provisions won't even take effect until 2014. Yet that didn't stop, the Wall Street Journal from publishing an Opinion Piece that declares it to be a disaster from "Day One". An opinion page that has apparently gone viral around the net.
This is of course the same exact WSJ opinion page that just one year ago. In March of 2009 boasted screaming headlines like "Obama Liberalism Is Killing the Dow". Well, need I tell you that the Dow Jones industrial average has gone up about 65% since then.
It's actually up 70% if you go back to the lows in the last year of the Bush administration. Have the WSJ editorial writers, given the Obama administration any credit for that? No, of course not! But you can damn well bet when the Dow falls back down again (as it inevitably will). Obama, if he's still in office, will take the blame!
It's important to remember that this is not the Wall Street Journal of old. The staid and reliable, albeit business conservative publication, respected throughout the world and that most of us grew up with.
Ever since the paper was purchased by Rupert Murdoch in 2007. Its opinion pages have become just another tool in his foreign-owned (he's Australian, you know), right-wing political propaganda machine. Which of course includes Fox News, numerous tabloid trash publications like the New York Post, and the many right-wing radio stations he either owns or partially owns throughout the English-Speaking World.
Now don't get me wrong, as I've blogged about in the past, this is not at all, the health care reform I was hoping for. I am no big fan of this bill. Although, I can't even imagine what the Republicans might be saying, if the Democrats would've had the votes and the courage to actually pass real health care reform.
Heck, the initial features of this bill, don't even provide some of the basic coverage that John McCain himself was campaigning for during the 2008 presidential election. The truth is, Republican President Richard Nixon back in the 1970s, proposed and failed to pass a far more progressive health care bill than this even pretends to be. And yet no Republicans called it Armageddon, they just (most of them anyway) voted against it.
The real problems with this bill is not what it does. But what it doesn't do. It provides No Public Option. No Medicare Expansion or Buy-In. No Tort Reform and No Prescription Drug Price Controls. All of which were negotiated out by special interest groups. And all of which are necessary, if we ever hope to get health care costs under control.
While this bill does provide some immediate relief for young people (26 and under), the truth is, this new health care bill does absolutely nothing for me and my current situation. The only benefits in this legislation that might be of some potential help to me won't kick in until 2014. And I turn 65 that year and will be eligible for Medicare anyway.
Besides, who knows what changes this bill might undergo between now and then. None of this, after all is written in stone and is obviously subject to the whims of future members of Congress.
What I do know is that this bill, with all of its flaws (most of which were created by special interest oppositions) is at the very least - a start. And it's hardly "The Armageddon" that Republicans and Big Business are making it out to be. This type of Inflammatory Speech, Republican Hype and Sensationalism is just Pure Political Theater. Designed and Created to try and get out the Republican vote in 2010.
Just Thinking
Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word "Comments" if the panel is not open). Or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted.
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