How do Democrats who make their careers appeasing business interests allow Republicans to portray their most recent corporate giveaway as impending socialism? Ron Johnson on health care reform:
"It is designed to lead to a single payer, Canadian style, British type system. Obviously, Senator Feingold, that's exactly what he wants. I have no idea why anybody would want to move in that direction."
How? By making the same health care insurers even more powerful than they once were?
And where does the notion that the health care bill will lead to more rationing come from? From the provisions that prohibit discrimination (rationing) based on pre-existing conditions? From prohibiting companies from throwing people off plans (rationing) when they become sick?
Rationing in health care has been an American tradition since the doctor on the Mayflower first instructed the crew to toss the guy with small pox overboard (my knowledge of American Indian medicinal traditions is more limited). It is absolutely central to the survival of the insurance industry, where decisions are made exclusively on protecting the bottom line from costly, sickly patients. Rationing takes place in the board rooms of major insurance companies every day.
And here's another question for RoJo: If socialized medicine is the last thing we want, then why the hell are we providing it for our veterans? I remember when Bill Kristol told Jon Stewart in the same interview that socialized medicine was a threat to the American people and that veterans deserve it because we owe them the best health care possible. Similar logic from two men with similarly nepotistic routes to fortune and fame.