The Lamron recently ran an op-ed article entitled "Obamacare: learn the facts people." The author claims that those vocal, well-covered town hall protesters represent a sector of society that opposes healthcare reform. To characterize these people and by extension the political right as opponents of healthcare reform is either dishonest or simply ignorant.
There are opponents of Democratic-led healthcare reform, true, but few oppose reform in general. Those that argue for the status quo do so only in response to proposed legislation that appears to contain few efficient cost-cutting measures and that threatens to crowd out the private insurance industry. Conservatives and libertarians acknowledge that the health insurance industry needs to be fixed but are looking to use free market solutions, rather than government intervention, in order to lower costs and allow for greater coverage. The basic contention on the right is that the government has artificially inflated the cost of healthcare through the use of mandates and regulation. Rather than create new bureaucracies that would be involved in a public option we can instead give tax cuts/rebates for Americans to purchase healthcare policies.
I don't want to appear as Sean Hannity's lapdog, but the concerns on the right and the proposed solutions seem to have some legitimacy. Why increase government control if there are alternate solutions and why trust them to reduce costs when Medicare and other government-run programs are in financial crises? Unfortunately, the debate over healthcare reform has been characterized by extreme rhetoric and ad hominem attacks, leaving the general public to choose one form of Nazism over another. Call me crazy, but I think Nazism is totally lame!
- Tom Bluhm, 2010
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