As you know, I lurk on the Right-Wing blogs (as much as I can bear to). I used to comment, on the few blogs over there that allow comments (many of them do not, which I speculate has to do with their authoritarian natures: no one is allowed to speak in this house but Daddy), except, well, no matter how polite and reasonable I attempted to be (and I swear! I swear! I tried polite and reasonable!) I always ended up being banned, almost always for the high crime of using that evil tool, reason, against them.
Anyway, now I mainly just lurk.
Here is what I have discovered about socialized medicine.
(1) It will "be like the post office," by which they mean, well, I don't know. What's wrong with the post office? I love the post office. For less then fifty cents they bring letters from anywhere in the country right to my door. For far less than ten bucks, they bring books, DVDs, toys, exotic foods -- well, you get the picture -- again, right to my door. They don't require me to be home, either, as UPS and Fed Ex frequently do. They'll leave the package in my parked car, if I leave it unlocked, or tucked out of sight behind my stoop wall.
When I go into the post office, my post office folk are friendly and efficient. They remember not only me but the kid and that she likes science and manga. If the line is getting long, as it always is around lunch and three o'clock (redneck rushhour, mr. delagar calls this) they do what they can to sort things and move them along, though of course they can only do so much -- at lunch, some of them are eating, too, and at all times, only so many of them are on shift.
And I am living in a small city, less than a hundred thousand people. Some of the Right-Wing folk might be living in bigger places. I suspect, though, that their main complain is that, where they live, the post office is staffed by "those" people. You know -- N.O.C.D.*
Which is what they're afraid of -- that if socialized medicine comes, why, Black and Brown people might easily get put into positions where they could be telling good White People to stand in line! What to Do! Denying WHITE PEOPLE the right to -- to --
Well, it doesn't matter. World Turned Upside Down, that's the point here.
(You can tell this is what they're worried about by reading between the lines of their screeds. They almost never openly say "black people" when they're speaking about their experience with the post office or their experiences with public hospitals. But watch for code words -- "fingernails this long," or "that hair," or "popping that gum the way they do"-- dogwhistle terms they all understand.)
(2) Poor people will get medicine too. This is bad. Some of them come right out and say this. We can't give the poor access to medicine because then they'll survive and who wants this? Others pretend to care about the poor, but, as in Doctor Wife Mom's blog, you can see she really only wants medicine going to her tribe -- rich white people with health insurance. (In other posts she's been snitty and angry about nasty slutty women -- she's careful not to say black women -- who have dozens of abortions, using abortions, she claims, as birth control. She says she's seen plenty of these women in her years as a doctor.)
People without health insurance, or people without money? Well, they're really not on Doctor Wife Mom's radar. I'm guessing she doesn't even really consider them people. They're not in her Tribe, are they? How could they be people, then? People in her Tribe need the Best Medical Care Evah, which means no rationing, no Socialized Medicine, no sparing of any attempt to squeeze even an extra second, damn the cost, full speed ahead....but those poor (brown) people over there across the county that can't afford to pay the $1500.00 it would cost for a day in the ER, and so can't get this nifty wonderful care that's been keeping her Daddy going? Well, she just can't see them at all.
(Which this is what's been happening to one of my students -- I'm not drawing that figure out of a hat. She's a black woman with three kids, two hers and one a niece she's taken in. She had chest pains back in May, went to the ER, because she has no health insurance. She works a minimum wage job 30 hours a week and goes to school part time. They work her up, run some tests. She gets a bill a few days later for just over 1500 dollars, which did I mention she's got three kids in the house and is working for minimum wage? So the next time she gets chest pains, guess what she does? She lies down and waits for them to go away.**)
(3) It will cost a lot of money, which will raise taxes. Waaah! Those Lie-brals are so stupid for calling it "Free" health care! Okay, first, who is saying that socialized medicine is "free"? Second, yes, taxes, boogah-boogah. You know what else we pay taxes for? Roads, the FDA, the military, National Parks, the Supreme Court, hundreds of other things we want and need. Socialized medicine is something most of us want and need. Also, does anyone think we are not paying for medical care now? Some sources I've seen say we're paying one-fifth of our GNP for the lousy medical care we get now. I know a huge chunk of my personal income goes straight to medical care -- first the insurance, that comes off the top, and then I write a dozen checks to the various doctors I owe money to, around town (the surgeon who did my shoulder, the three separate dentists we are always in hock to, the orthodontist, the anesthesiologist I am still paying off, for my surgery which was done in December, the check to the clinic for my daughter's test, from three years ago, I'm still paying those off...) -- and this isn't counting the money for our prescription drugs and the little incidental medical expenses that keep coming up: mr. delagar needs a new CPAP machine, or the kid loses a filling...so you know what? Slightly higher taxes? Do you think I actually care?
What they're really worried about, of course, is Brown people getting something for nothing. Brown people don't pay taxes -- it's a Right-Wing article of faith. So if we have socialized medicine, well, all those NOCD people will be getting a free ride! Bad enough they get a free education and all that free welfare! Now they'll get free X-Rays and free chemotherapy, oh, you can just see steam coming out of the wingnut ears.
*In England, this was Not Our Class, Dear. In America, of course, it's Not Our Color, Dear.
**Our school has a clinic for students; I set her up with this.
No comments:
Post a Comment