Sleazy peazy pudding and pie

We'll take your money and let you die.

Neil Davis over at the Health Care Morass blog points out that the health care swift-boaters are at it again with those Harry and Louise ads that sank the Clinton attempt to better our health care system (admittedly a flawed proposal--mostly, as I understand it, because it tried too hard to compromise with the money people). Davis is much more circumspect than I am in my assessment of this kind of ad. I find it enraging. These people are advocating for a system that is proven to be inefficient, expensive, and very bad for our collective health. People die because of our stupid private insurance coverage system. And these selfish idiots want to privatize it even more. People, OUR SYSTEM DOESN"T WORK!

You want fiscal efficiency? Single-payer or socialized medicine is far more economical for everyone.

You want better health? Even Dominica's got better health care than we do. We're ranked at #37 by the World Health Organization.

You want convenience and choice and no waiting? Well, you won't get that here--insurance paperwork is nasty, our health care is rationed on the basis of ability to pay, and getting in to see a doctor can take quite a while. Or not. It's just not very predictable. But that's not the case in, say, France or Canada, no matter what the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies will try to tell you.

I don't get it. People are so afraid of the big bad boogeyman of socialized or government anything, that they can't seem to see past the hype and look at the facts: government really does do some things better (and single-payer isn't the same thing as socialized medicine anyway). But no: out come the same stupid mind-wipe ad campaigns. It's truly weird. Or diabolically money-grubbing.

Man, am I glad I don't have a TV.