Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Truth will out -- if you let it

Most of the important political debates going on this country right now have something important in common -- there happens to be truth on one side or the other and we could just do the necessary experiment to prove it.

Republicans are screaming and yelling about a "government takeover" of health care and how they're going to confiscate your money to take care of the shiftless and then let you die. Well, there's an easy way to settle the question. All the Democrats have to do is pass a decent bill and then soon enough we'll all know who was right. And they wouldn't be taking much of a chance -- as we all know they really did have a government takeover of health care in the UK, and that country is now a totalitarian dungeon where the enslaved people live longer and healthier lives than we do, pay half as much for health care, and are forced to eat their french fries off of old newspapers. In Canada, they had a government takeover of health insurance, but not health care, and the enslaved population is forced to live longer and healthier than us, to pay about 2/3 as much for health care as we do, and to continually dodge flying hockey pucks.

In Switzerland, they regulate insurance products -- which is actually similar to the commie death panel legislation we are actually talking about -- and the slaves are forced to live longer and healthier lives, to pay just slightly less for health care than us, and to blow giant wooden trumpets. So the worst that can happen, it seems to me, is that we end up like the Swiss, and how is that going to be bad for Democratic political prospects? Unless, of course, they don't pass the legislation, in which case the Republicans will be able to continue to claim that they were right. So what do you think will happen?

Same with same sex marriage. It happened here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, and so far, no fire and brimstone. In fact we have an unusually low divorce rate and only a normal level of fabulousness. So all you have to do is try it!

Climate change, I'm sorry to say, works in the opposite way. If we continue to do nothing, we'll know soon enough what the consequences will be.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Having only recently found out that I am a liberal neo-monarchist I would respectfully like to sign up to be a member of the soon-to-be-formed commie death panels. While we're on the subject, we're going to all black scrubs at work and think it would be a fabulously appropriate look.

Cervantes said...

You should try the Grateful Dead themed do-rags with the dancing skeletons to go with those scrubs -- they're really cool.

Ralph Dratman said...

Distracted by shiny objects:

I've been appointed Commissar in charge of the Death Panels. If all comrades pledge to rededicate themselves to the birth of a socialist state guided by the doctrines of Marx and Lenin, we can have the panels up and running within 2-3 weeks. Then on to the great Liberal, Progressive work of condemning the elderly to death!