Heath Care Reform
I spent a little bit of Monday poking around news sites. The Health Care Reform Bill hadn’t been signed by President Obama yet, but it was on the way to his desk.
Comments I read, left by readers of the sites I was visiting, were mixed. On the pro-reform side you had people leaving this-is-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread type comments.
On the anti-reform side you had a bunch of gloom-and-doom type comments. The Obama-is-a-commie/socialist/tyrant comments (no one said Obama is the anti-Christ in anything I read). The country-will-be-bankrupt comments. Etc.
My favorite comment came from a woman who said this Health Care Reform Bill will be so bad for the country that it will reduce our life expectancy to that of Canadians. And this one caught my eye – I didn’t know what the life expectancy of Canadians was at the time, but I was sure the poster didn’t either. So I Googled it. (It took five seconds.)
Canadians can expect to live to 81. Americans 79.
I included Sweden in the graph as they’re mentioned in the blurb, from NatiionalPost.com, below, which was cut from an article about how HRC will help some businesses.
For instance, nursing homes, retirement-oriented developers and even cruise operators may see their markets grow more rapidly than expected. Why? The typical American has a life expectancy of only 78 years. By comparison, Canadians, Swedes and Australians usually make it to 81. If Obamacare eventually brings U.S. longevity in line with other developed countries, the result would be many more hale and healthy U.S. seniors and an expanded market for any company catering to the silver-haired set.
I’ve drifted a little bit from the point I was trying to make.
The point is that too many people have spoke out against Health Care Reform by saying things that can be too easily disproven.
You’ve got things like Investor’s Business Daily running an editorial that said:
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
And then adding a correction – after Hawking made a statement pointing out he lived in the UK and owed his life to the NHS – that removed the above blurb with a note in the correction that stated: Editor’s Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK. [Hawking isn’t mentioned in the editorial at all after the correction.]
You’ve got Sarah Palin, and others, making comments about death panels.
And you’ve got people I work with saying things like, the insurance we have now [at the place I work] will become illegal if health care reform passes.
These points against health care reform all fall into the category of misleading statements. I’d say “lies,” but in the case of my coworker I think he was just repeating something he’d been fed and didn’t understand. (More puzzling to me was his statement that not wanting to provide health care for the uninsured was in no way unChristianlike. This has something to do with Jesus telling us we should help Christians before all others. I don’t recall Jesus saying this, but I’m not a Biblical scholar. However, it it’s true, and if you’re the type of person who wants to help ALL people, perhaps you’d be better off being an atheist.)
There are probably some rational arguments against Health Care Reform – I work with some pretty smart Republicans and they’re able to make their points without yelling, calling for the overthrow of the government, throwing around the “N” word or saying “faggot” – but I still disagree with them.
I also disagree with the notion that November will see the ousting of a bunch of Dems.
I only wish the Public Option would have made it in.
