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Health Care Opponents Aren't (All) Crazy

They aren't 'delusional' for equating reform with fewer choices

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 11, 2009 12:12 PM CDT

(Newser) – There are definitely crazy black helicopter watchers amongst the screaming masses of health care foes, but most of the people filling town halls are “confused and concerned Americans,” writes Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. “And they have a point.” Robinson’s a self-proclaimed “true believer” in reform—we have a “moral obligation” to cover everyone—but "it is not illogical to suspect that services are going to be curtailed."

Reform is being pitched as a way to cut costs, and that should have been a separate debate. "Out-of-control health-care costs would be a looming crisis even if President Obama had never uttered the word 'reform,'" and if millions more people will be covered, the truth is we will have to spend less. “Citizens are not delusional” for concluding that paying doctors to discuss hospice care is a cost-cutting measure. Ultimately, "it's understandable why people might associate the phrase 'health care reform' with limiting their choices during Aunt Sylvia's final days."

[Images (2)]

[Quotes (2)]

Joan Korman, left, and Dawn Tabrizi, right, hold protest signs during a rally protesting government managed health care in Saratoga Springs, NY, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)

A man holds a sign as President Barack Obama's motorcade heads to a town hall on health care reform, Wednesday, July 29, 2009, near a supermarket in Bristol, Va. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

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It's understandable why people might associate the phrase "health-care reform" with limiting their choices during Aunt Sylvia's
final days. - Eugene Robinson

The unvarnished truth is that services are going to have to be curtailed regardless of what happens with reform. We perform more expensive tests, questionable surgeries and high-tech diagnostic scans than we can afford. - Eugene Robinson

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 40 comments

IndependentThinker

Aug 13, 2009 8:59 AM CDT

@godawgs: Oh man don't I know it. But they are not making money from their jobs (the check they get from our taxes), they are making money from the corruption of their jobs. Or it comes from a trust fund log ago, most of them are legacies. Without money your slander campaign to build fear of your opponent just isn't as good as the guy who is spending the money.

IndependentThinker

Aug 13, 2009 8:14 AM CDT

A free market would be like true democracy. Both are very bad. People like to think that the US is a democracy but it is not, it is a republic. In a true democracy the majority. Rules at any point in time whomever has the largest group of people make the rule. So if say i wanted to take your house from you; I could get a large group of people together and we would rule that I own the house, there is no laws to stop it. The laws on democracy make it into a republic. The founding fathers were very against a true democracy. If we had a true free market then Companies could do anything they like with no recourse. No environmental laws, they could make products that hurt/killed with out recourse; it would be true chaos.

piyrwq

Aug 12, 2009 4:19 AM CDT

@ NewserScooter. Here it is. Bottom of page 2. http://www.economicmobility.or...

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Health Care Opponents Aren't (All) Crazy