It's Attack Time for Democrats

Why We Need a Single Payer System;


We recently decided to switch our Medigap Insurance policy. So, after some investigation, we moved to Mutual of Omaha. Our policy is scheduled to begin within a few days, on the first of February.

Today, in the mail, we received from Mutual of Omaha a pamphlet designed to get us to apply for, of all things, a supplemental cancer protection policy. The policy doesn’t cover anything but cancer-related expenses. Oh, and, of course, it won’t cover you if you happen to have a pre-existing cancer problem, or if one shows up within 30 days of applying for the policy.

I assume that this type of insurance is a signal from our network of private insurers of their next strategy. Currently, they make money by not insuring people who are actually sick—they exclude people with any pre-existing health issues. Under Obama’s very limited health insurance program (we can no longer call it “reform”) the carriers won’t be allowed to deny coverage to people who actually need health insurance. So, presumably, they now intend to begin providing disease-specific policies. Perhaps then, the health insurance of the future, as envisioned by our republican, i.e., non-socialist, friends is cancer insurance . . . and stroke insurance . . . and heart disease insurance (probably too broad, so it will be subdivided into mini policies). Perhaps, after designing twenty or thirty disease-specific policies, the industry will design some kind of umbrella policy for everything remaining after their specific policies.

And, of course, with genetic testing now available, the companies will no doubt want you to be tested prior to applying for any of the more serious disease policies, to, you know, dump you if you show any sign of actually needing, say, a stroke policy, or, an Alzheimer’s policy.

All of this is courtesy of a currently unrestrained private sector insurance industry, the one that is strenuously resisting any attempt at reform of their system, with the help, of course, of their republican henchmen and their Faux News attack dogs run by Mr. Murdoch.

I have begun to think that it is past time to release some attack dogs from the political Left. Mr. Obama and his democrat friends seem unwilling or unable to strike back when they are attacked by Republicans and their Faux News dogs of war. But, they need to understand that the Republican Party has officially issued a full declaration of war against the democrats and, really, against America. They want to “take back America”, by which they mean to return us to the 19th century days of the robber barons, when there was no middle class in the country. We were two classes—the wealthy and everyone else, and they mean to remain among the wealthy. For the rest of us, “let them eat cake” is their new motto.

So, I am proposing that the Democrats develop their own attack message and begin selling that message to the American people. The mess inherited by Obama and the American people from the Bush tribe needs to be classified formally as Republican Detritus. That includes these unwinnable wars, the economic ruins in which we find ourselves, and the malfunctioning government.

And the American people need to understand that, when Republicans assert that Government is not the solution but is instead the problem, they will in fact deliver that, should they regain control. That is, ever since Reagan, republicans, when they gain power, have set out to cripple government in any and every way they can, mainly by placing in office executives who are aggressively opposed to the missions of the various agencies in which they will be working. It is akin to placing representatives of PETA in charge of the nation’s slaughterhouses. If we the American people want inept and corrupt government, then by all means elect republicans. But we really do deserve better than allowing ourselves to become the largest Banana Republic in the world.