September 9, 2012 by David K. Sutton
Medicare: Universal Health Care So Evil, We Gave It To Senior Citizens
Since 1965, the United States of America has experimented with a crazy, evil and potentially nation-destroying idea of universal health care. See, that was the year congress enacted Medicare under the Social Security Act. Medicare is a government-run universal health care insurance program for people 65 and older, as well as younger people with disabilities. This program is so bad for America that it polls at greater than 80% and it’s helped lift millions of senior citizens out of poverty and give them the peace of mind of knowing they have access to health care in their advancing years. What a horrible idea!
If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m spreading on the sarcasm pretty thick.
With all the vitriol from Republicans and conservatives during the health care debate in 2009 and all the calls to repeal Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) since, if you were foreign and didn’t know much about the United States you might be surprised to learn we already have a single-payer, government-run insurance program. If Obamacare is socialist (it’s not) then Medicare must bring on a full-scale red scare within the senior citizen community each time they glance at their Medicare ID card.
I’m still waiting for somebody on the right who has a problem with the Affordable Care Act to explain to me their opposition. Explain to me how — in a reality where Medicare exists — the Affordable Care Act is going to destroy America? Or the Affordable Care Act means less freedom? If the Affordable Care Act meant either of those two things, then your predictions should already be reality for senior citizens on Medicare, right? Do you not see the cognitive dissonance? I don’t know how else to explain how a person can simultaneously accept Medicare at the same time they think the Affordable Care Act is bad for America.
To explain it coarsely, Medicare is a much more extreme version of the Affordable Care Act. On the scale of health care reform — where socialized medicine sits on the left and a total free market solution sits on the right — Medicare sits further to the left than the Affordable Care Act.
Can anybody tell me how they can support Medicare and be against the Affordable Care Act? And to be fair, I’m not a huge fan of the Affordable Care Act, but that’s because I think it needs to slide further left towards Medicare. In fact, I think if we are ever going to get our health care costs in check and properly extend basic health care coverage to all citizens we will need Medicare-for-all.
But I’m still waiting. I’ve yet to hear an adequate explanation. All I hear are criticisms fueled by fear of change and not the facts, and I have to say, that’s not good enough. Society will stand still and there will be no progress or improvements in life if fear of change was an adequate reason to do nothing.
So I ask one last time, can anybody explain to me how the Affordable Care Act is bad when Medicare is good?