Thursday, August 13, 2009

Glenn Beck must go.

Glenn Beck's opposition to health care reform, which started as a campaign of deceptive fear-mongering, has descended into an insane attempt to grossly distort the history of the Holocaust and spread an anti-liberal libel. In one shocking hour, of which the following is a highlights reel, he implicated as Nazi fellow-travelers the Progressive movement, environmentalists, Democratic presidents, and a range of individuals whom he considers liberal. He literally blamed them for the Holocaust, then stated unequivocally that liberals intend to put Nazi eugenics policies into place in the United States.

This extremist propagandizing clearly puts Glenn Beck beyond the pale of rational political discourse. Fox News simply must remove him from the air and apologize for broadcasting this.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you want to hear a particularly feeble example of opposition to national health care insurance, take a listen to this podcast, called Shire Network News.

The main interview, which is on health care, is with a blogger who's a regular contributor to the podcast, Meryl Yourish. She seems to think that all national health insurance will lead to inferior health care, and she seems to make a very common mistake: confusing the quality of medical research (i.e., "we've got the best medicine in the world") with the distribution and quality of medical treatment.

Here's the link: www.snnsite.com

It's in the current podcast, #168, "Podcast Dissects Obamacare."

Joanne

(sorry, I can't seem to get past the password-username thing on this system)

Adam Holland said...

You're right, Joanne. She completely confuses funding for clinical care and research.

She also claims that "Europeans are paying, probably, as much as we are, but they're paying it in taxes and not in health care costs. Well, not in visible health care costs."

Wrong. The U.S. pays much more in health care costs than any other nation and that health care is less equitably distributed. That's because the U.S. is paying for a grossly bloated private system from which insurance and medical industry corporations take huge profits. There is nothing comparable in any other nation.

As to the medical research issue, my understanding is that funding for research largely comes from the pharmaceutical industry, federal government and foundations. I don't think that the insurance industry is a major part of the funding stream for medical R & D. I'll research this a bit an post a follow up.

Yourish can't see a better alternative to the current U.S. system for purely ideological reasons. It would be one thing to say that reform needs to preserve the best aspects of the current system, but for her or anyone to deny the urgent need for action to dramatically reform the system is simply to deny a very obvious reality.

Oldguy said...

Why do we automatically have to knee jerk to government funded health care?
For decades the health care industry, all of it, has made itself exempt from the normal supply and demand marketing pressure of competition.
There is no ability to "shop around" for services with doctors or hospitals.
When has anyone ever seen a hospital advertise "the most reasonable billing in town"?

How about for a start the government just require health care providers to reveal their fees to the public and then see how it affects prices and availability?
Insurance companies also, give the free market a chance before the government seizes another industry.

Adam Holland said...

OldGuy,

To state the VERY obvious, the health care industry and the so-called "free market" have already been given a chance. It's time for a change.

Oldguy said...

>To state the VERY obvious, the health care industry and the so-called "free market" have already been given a chance. It's time for a change.<
Actually that's not true, government has interfered for decades.
http://www.jpands.org/vol9no2/gervais.pdf

Anonymous said...

Yes, government has been "interfering" in health care for decades, and it's just as well it has. Take a look at this recent column from Paul Krugman, in the New York Times:

www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/opinion/31krugman.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=paul krugman health care&st=cse

Joanne

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