Apparently, Senator Clinton believes that forcing everyone to fork over their hard earned money to the government so that the government can provide healthcare to everyone for free is not the same as socialized medicine.
During a forum at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Las Vegas, Clinton was asked why as a candidate for president she is “still insisting” on bringing “socialized medicine” to the United States, when people are “pulling away” from similar systems in Canada and Great Britain. Worse, the questioner said, such systems hurt rather than help poor people.
“That was a string of misrepresentations about me and about the systems in other countries,” Clinton started. “Number one, I have never advocated socialized medicine, and I hope all the journalists here heard that loudly and clearly because that has been a right-wing attack on me for 15 years.”
Clinton’s plan, which died in Congress in 1994, would have required employers to provide health-care coverage to employees through health-maintenance organizations. Insurance firms opposed the proposal, as did political conservatives who thought it removed health care — a huge portion of the nation’s economy — from the competitive marketplace.
This is classic Clinton-speak tactics — looking the public in the eye and bald-face lying to them. Remember Bill and his wagging finger denial of a sexual relationship with a much younger White House intern? This is exactly the same. The problem for Senator Clinton, however, is that there is so much evidence from so many sources regarding the state of socialized medicine in Canada and Britain, her claims of misrepresentation are almost funny. A quick search on Googlefinds this, this, this, and this. There or 17,500,000 hits on a Google search for “canada healthcare problems” alone.
“Do you think Medicare is socialized medicine?” Clinton asked her inquisitor, who did not identify himself.
“To a degree,” he responded.
“Well, then you are in a small minority in America,” Clinton said to applause, before explaining that Medicare allows patients to choose their doctors even though the federal government foots the bill with money deducted from workers’ paychecks.
Of course Medicare is a form of socialized medicine. The government decides what benefits you are entitled to, it decides what treatments it will pay for, and everyone who earns a paycheck is required to fund it.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I receive Medicare benefits due to my End Stage Renal Disease. Currently, these benefits pay for the majority of the cost of my dialysis treatments, while my private insurance pays the remaining 20%. Otherwise, the Medicare generally picks up the tab on office co-pays. Oh yeah, I also have to pay a premium every few months to continue to be covered, even though I am still paying into the system through my employer.
Clinton then asserted that “on balance,” countries with uniform national systems of health care, including Japan, Australia and Canada, offer better health care than the United States. The answer left her questioner shaking his head in disagreement.
“I can give you the statistics, and you can shake your head,” Clinton said sharply. “You come and introduce yourself to the staff. And we’ll try to give you some information if you’re interested in being educated instead of being rhetorical.”
Again, where is her proof? Simply inferring that someone who does not agree with you is un-educated is a typical tactic used by liberals when they are on the losing side of an argument. It would also be interesting to hear what her definition of the term “on balance” is. These countries have people who are dying while waiting for critical medical treatment, and she says this type of healthcare is better than what the United States offers. This is liberal logic at it’s finest.
Stay tuned. If The Hildebeast™ manages to win the 2008 Election, one of the first things she is going to do is try to cram this junk down the American Public’s throats. They’ll lie to convince elderly people that unless they back her plan that they’ll never get the care they need, and by the way, its all free! There is a real chance that she’ll get this passed, and we have to be ready to make sure that it doesn’t happen.
