En Tequila Es Verdad/progressive conservatism/post/2009/05/15/1207

May 15, 2009 12:07 PM - Woozle
Woozle said...

Well, I hate to jump on someone when they've admitted they don't know something, but if you don't really understand the way the current system works, how can you argue that you know it's fixable? I don't have any special knowledge of US healthcare either, except for my direct experiences of its shortcomings whilst trying to find services for an autistic boy. This is someone who will (probably) never be capable of having a normal job. He doesn't speak or communicate in any reliable way. Yet it took us years to find out that he qualified for our state's version of Medicaid (though probably not for the Federal version, which has a lower "poverty level" limit on income), and several months of back-and-forth with paperwork after discovering this. Once we got Medicaid, we found that it got us... well, nothing much, really, except that once Josh's number comes up on the waiting list for a group home, it will help pay his expenses. Though it would really be better, we're told, if he could get CAP-MR/DD (funds currently frozen; governor's budget allocates more money for it, but republicans tried to kill the budget) or SSI. We tried to get him SSI 2 years ago, but were turned down because his mother has more than $2000 in savings, so she's obviously a sponge trying to bilk the government. ...never mind that group homes do not and will not accept private payment, because they'd much rather deal with the government. ...and never mind that her savings are emergency money only and totally swamped by $165k in debt (and growing), which they don't count. I could go on and on -- don't get me started about how conservative attempts to "streamline" the system here in NC (by taking various administrative tasks which had all been handled centrally and "outsourcing" them into individual agencies which capitalistically "compete" with each other for "clients") ended up making it cost 4 times as much, and probably cost Josh several years of services -- but the point is this: You have totally failed to convince me that government-paid universal healthcare isn't a really good idea -- much less that it's nothing more than a "brilliant" solution-du-jour which liberals only support because it is trendy and they are bored. --- And it sounds like you're basically throwing your hands up as far as the financial mess: Who could have foreseen the exact events which led to this mess?, you seem to be arguing. There are no known preventative measures worth bothering with.This is the same tired old Republican mantra for whenever some totally preventable crisis happens. Who could have foreseen that a major hurricane would devastate New Orleans? Who could have foreseen that we would actually need volcano monitoring? Who could have foreseen that Bin Laden was a threat, and that the World Trade towers were a target? And what's the point of trying to prevent any of these things, anyway? All of these things were foreseen, and solutions were offered, but Republicans passively failed to act or actively worked against action in every case. Yes, that is "real-world" and Republicanism, not "ideal conservatism" -- but your version of ideal conservatism seems to be defending that same do-nothing attitude towards crisis prevention. If you're not part of the solution, then get out of the way.

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