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Senator Nelson,
I appreciate
your comment on
how you voted
for health care
and why.
Dismissing the
Republican
idiocy and/or
their policy of
total
obstruction, the
Senate remains a
dysfunctional
disgrace to the
taxpayers, and
the supposed
Democratic
majority has for
nine months been
a farce of
inaction,
obfuscation and
thumb-up-the-ass
failure to
prevail while
the tiny
Republican
minority has
made you look
like a bunch of
ineffectual
idiots.
Now that you've
got this
hopelessly
bastardized,
diluted
monstrosity of a
minimal
healthcare
reform bill
passed, the
entire
Democratic
majority and the
Administration
have luxuriated
in an orgy of
self-congratulation.
Okay, so it may
be a tad better
than the
nightmare that
existed before,
but our health
care is still
not only a
national
disgrace for the
richest nation
in the world,
but we may have
moved from #47
among civilized
nations up to
#46 or so. Big
deal.
You brag about
how the
insurance
companies have
been tamed. B.S.
They're going to
make more money
than ever, and
so is every
Congressman and
Senator who is
on their payroll
(read “sucker
list.”) It may
have escaped
your attention,
but civilized
countries adopt
healthcare
systems that
have no need for
insurance
companies,
period. Our
particular
millstone is our
inborn American
paranoia over
any whiff of
socialism, which
admittedly is
not the fault of
the Congress or
the Senate but
which will
continue to
prevent us from
joining the real
world.
Where is it
written that
social capital
can be used to
build elaborate
interstate
freeways but
cannot be used
to save our
people from
dying or perhaps
simply
bankruptcy?
I have three
friends who
have, in the
past two years,
rung up hospital
bills in the ICU
as a result of
catastrophic
illness totaling
$900,000.
Naturally, the
taxpayers paid
it. I call that
socialism.
But I'm wrong.
If we pay the
bill BEFORE the
illness, it's
socialism. If we
pay it after the
plug is pulled,
it's the
Republican
solution. Which
now 216
Democratic
Congressmen and
51 Democratic
Senators have
endorsed.
Thanks, Senator
Nelson. But no,
thanks.
I really have no
vested interest.
I have VA
coverage,
diminishing
annually though
it may be. And,
as Jonathan
Swift wrote in
his “Modest
Proposal,” my
wife is past
child-bearing.
Bill Annett
Disgusted
citizen
Addendum: LBJ, Thou Shouldst Be Living At This Hour (apologies to John Milton)
________________________________________________________
I had a dream that Lyndon Johnson was in the Whitehouse in 2009. Here's what happened:
(1) He looked at John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the gaggle of Republican leaders and concluded on national television: "Them boys are outside the tent, pissing in."
(2) Next, he fired Rahm Emmanuel as too namby-pamby, and packed David Axelrod off to form a Committee to Re-elect The President in 2012.
(3) Next, he told Kathleen Sibelius to confine her healthcare activity to obtaining $2 billion in refunds from Big Pharma for all that useless swine flu vaccine.
(4) Then he bipartisanly named Charlie Crist to head FEMA and prohibit insurance companies from raising premiums in Central Florida while simultaneously declaring tornados to be a pre-existing condition.
(5) Finally, In one afternoon, Lyndon placed a conference call to 435 Congressmen and 100 senators, telling them what he expected. Televised nationally, he fondled as he spoke a Texas chaiun saw.
(6) As a result, the Healthcare Reform Bill was passed unanimously in both houses by June 1, 2009. Not only did it have a public option, it was entitled "The Public Imperative," and the small print specified that on an ascending scale the books would be stacked to render insurance companies either insolvent or as takeove targets for AIG.
As I awoke, I reflected that it's great to have a president who is cool, but there are times in the affairs of men when human discourse and "come, let us reason together," should be accompanied by a Texas chain saw.
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