HEALTH CARE REFORM TOO COSTLY – WARS NOT

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Health Care Reform

HEALTH CARE REFORM COST: $940 billion over 10 years (Congressional Budget Office)

Republicans fight ‘to the death’ against this wasteful socialistic spending

IRAQ-AFGHAN WAR COST:  $1.05 trillion dollars over the last 9 years. (National Priorities Project)

Republicans have our military fight to the death for this patriotic spending

RELATED MONDE DANE POST: HEALTH CARE EXPLAINED TO THE JAPANESE

THIS IS IT

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THIS IS IT

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Health Care Reform

THE HEALTH CARE SHOWDOWN

SUNDAY 21 MARCH, 2010

W.H.O. 2009

The character of a nation is about to be defined.

Which will it be, public health or corporate wealth?

Capitalist purity or medical equality?

Unchecked profits or unrestricted treatments?

The health of all the people or the wealth of the few?

Sunday’s vote will be a litmus test on the character of the American people.

Will America choose to join the progressive nations of the  world, or will she remain an anachronism, an oligarchy, a modern superpower that freely chooses the social standing of an unenlightened and underdeveloped nation?

RELATED MONDE DANE POST:  HEALTH CARE REFORM EXPLAINED TO THE JAPANESE

HEALTH CARE DEBATE EXPLAINED TO THE JAPANESE

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GREED, Health Care Reform, Obama, OBAMA-CARE, view from Japan, YUJI DIALOGUES

Dane: So Yuji, what’s with this yuai thing Hatoyama keeps talking about?

Yuji: Who knows? I ‘m not interested in Japanese politics. It’s boring.

Dane: Usually I’d agree with you, but this time it looks like it’s getting interesting.

Yuji: Yeah, maybe so. I might have an answer for you in a week or so. Right now I’m really interested in what’s going on in your country.

Dane: Oh, you mean Ichiro!

Yuji: Ichiro? Forget-about-it! I know all I need to know about the Mariner slugger. What I don’t understand is this crazy stuff about health care. What‘s going on with that?

Dane: Obama is trying to improve it.

Yuji: What’s wrong with it?

Dane: It’s one of the worst of all the advanced countries. W.H.O. ranked the U.S. No. 37.

Yuji: I thought America had the best medical treatment in the world.

Dane: They do. The rich get the best treatment in the world, the insured get decent service, but the poor and uninsured are lucky to get any treatment.

Yuji: So what’s wrong with the system?

Dane: It’s pretty confusing.

Yuji: Make it simple for me. What is health care reform?

Dane: Very simply, it’s a plan to make medical care available to all Americans.

Yuji: What kind of health insurance do Americans have now?

Dane: Private insurance companies, mostly through their work place.

Yuji: What’s wrong with that?

Dane: If they lose their job, they lose their insurance and they can’t get health care.

Yuji: Can’t they buy it on their own?

Dane: Yes, if they’re rich enough.

Yuji: But people who have insurance are OK, aren’t they?

Dane: No. The insurance companies charge a lot and they cut payments.

Yuji: What do you mean, cut payments?

Dane: They have something called “pre-existing conditions”.

Yuji: What’s that?

Dane: They won’t pay for anything you had before.

Yuji: What are you talking about?

Dane: For example; If you had a serious cough when you were a kid, and now you get pneumonia they refuse to pay for your treatment.

Yuji: How do they know you had it before?

Dane: They have lots of investigators who look everywhere for that information.

Yuji: If they don’t find anything they pay, don’t they?

Dane: It depends. They only pay what they think it should cost, not what the hospital actually charges.

Yuji: Who pays the rest?

Dane: The patient. And… they can stop payment any time they think your treatment is getting too expensive.

Yuji: What happens if you can’t pay?

Dane: You die. And that’s the situation for people who have insurance!

Yuji: How many people don’t have it?

Dane: Forty-seven million.

Yuji: 47,000,000? Since when?

Dane: Since forever. Several presidents since Teddy Roosevelt have been trying to make a law guaranteeing medical coverage for everyone.

Yuji: Since World War Two?

Dane: Not that Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt, in 1912.

Yuji: Good God, that’s a hundred years! So what’s the problem?

Dane: Every time they try to make a new law, congress kills it.

Yuji: What kind of monsters would be against health care?

Dane: The insurance and medical industries, the Republican party and the Rednecks.

Yuji: Who are the Rednecks?

Dane: Low income, white, radical Christians, mostly in the countryside.

Yuji: Most of the people I saw protesting on TV sure looked like Rednecks.

Dane: Yes, those are the Town Hall Meeting mobs.

Yuji: What’s a Town Hall Meeting.

Dane: During the summer, congressmen go to their home districts and meet the people at town halls. This year they’re explaining Health Care Reform.

Yuji: Why would poor people be against it?

Dane: What do you think?

Yuji: Cost? They don’t want to pay more taxes.

Dane: Yes, that’s one reason.

Yuji: But if they’re poor they don’t pay much tax anyway. I can maybe understand why the rich people would be against it; but these guys?

Dane: Yeah, that’s the crazy part.

Yuji: And what are all those slogans?

“Down with Big Government”?

Dane: They don’t like big government. But they do support a large military.

Yuji: “Don’t Mess With My Health Care”?

Dane: They don’t trust the government to do a good job. Quality will go down.

Yuji: Pictures of Obama dressed like Hitler or Stalin?

Dane: Obama is trying to take away their freedom with health care reform.

Yuji: “Stop Socialism”? What’s wrong with socialism?

Dane: In America socialism and communism are the two great anti-Christian evils – like Islamic Jihad.

Yuji: What’s Health Care Reform got to do with socialism?

Dane: They agree that government police, firefighters and military are all democratic institutions, but for some reason they believe government health care is socialist.

Yuji: “We Won’t Support Slackers”?

Dane: Hard working taxpayers (whites) would have to pay for lazy welfare people (blacks).

Yuji: “Terrorist in the White House”?

Dane: Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim.

Yuji: Pictures of Kim Jong Il?

Dane: First government health care, then something else, and then one day America will be just like North Korea.

Yuji: “You lie!”?

Dane: That’s what a redneck congressman yelled out in congress when Obama said there would be no health care for illegal aliens. Heckling the president in congress is a big taboo.

Yuji: “Obama Baby Killer”?

Dane: They say Christians would be taxed to pay for abortions.

Yuji: “Death Panels”?

Dane: Obama wants insurance to pay to consult with the doctor when a patient is near death.

Yuji: So, what’s wrong with that?

Dane: They say he wants to decide who can live and who must die.

Yuji: But that’s all crazy talk! Except for maybe the government not doing a very good job.

Dane: Exactly!

Yuji: How many Americans are against reform?

Dane: Probably about half. 45.6% of voters chose McCain.

Yuji: Do you think Obama can get it into law?

Dane: Not unless he stops trying to reason with madmen.

Yuji: Are your boys OK? Do they have medical insurance?

Dane: No, but they have a good ambulance system that guarantees them affordable health care.

Yuji: Ambulance? What kind of ambulance?

Dane: A 747 Jumbo jet that will fly them straight to Japan if they ever get sick.

© Dane Degenhardt, Monde Dane, 2009