Worst health insurance argument ever

[kodalai]

I don't normally like to do all that many politics on this blog, but this really just took my breath away:

1. Health care. You've heard all the pretty phrases from Obama and Biden about how health care should be universal. And we all feel bad for the uninsured guy with a bad hip, emphysema and diabetes. But here's the problem: He's not you. You're not going to be that guy for another fifty years.

In one breathtaking paragraph, this guy has managed to combine outright falsehoods, misleading implications, faulty logic, and vile amorality. I just... wow. I can't mock this. It speaks for itself.

Comments

[catzero.livejournal.com]

*sends an e-mail**twitch* He can take my next fifty years and shove it. I have scoliosis I fucking NEED health care.

[joisbishmyoga.livejournal.com]

That bastard is obviously laboring under the mistaken assumption that any illness worse than a cold is strictly reserved for senior citizens. How about young adults with diabetes? Or scoliosis, like my roommate who's only starting at college now, five years "late", because she had to pay for surgery. Cancer, broken bones, appendicitis, hypothyroidism, pregnancy (those ultrasounds don't pay for themselves!), infections, food poisoning, clinical depression, anaphylactic shock... and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

I don't even want to talk about the rest.

[aging-parents.livejournal.com]

In addition to its other faults, it will be totally ineffective. Though Republican strategists don't realize it, most people do not think like them. Even if the economy were not tanking, most students would still feel vulnerable to the perils of negotiating life (Republicans of course are born with both silver feet in their mouths & do not expect to have to deal with economic uncertainty, unaffordable sickness or the need to risk their lives in war); though they are poor enough that they are likely to avoid buying insurance, gambling on good health, they do not want the social safety net to disappear.

The one substantive point was the concern about nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists; but the ad assumes that its audience hasn't already figured out that our war in Iraq increases the likelihood of this (by serving as a recruiting ground for the next generation of terrorists and by diverting us from making a serious attempt to go after Al Quaida and the Taliban).

[kodalai.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think he was attempting to play on the particular stupidity of youth that leads teenagers (and young adults) to think that they are immortal, that they will never sicken and never get old or die.

I think that today's atmosphere isn't a good one to try to foster that illusion in, though.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Wow. I didn't know my fingers could clench so convulsively that it would leave dents in my laptop.

[kodalai.livejournal.com]

Poor laptop!

[windandwater.livejournal.com]

Looks like it's expatriate time!

[diatomacearth.livejournal.com]

I suggest setting fire to him and then asking him how he feels about health care.