Originally posted by VinceP1974
Thanks for the answer. Your implication was that the lobbying was resulting in the public reaction against the plan.
I was looking for figures that stated how much money was going into that effort. Because I assert public opposition has nothing to do with any group
whatsoever. It's a genuine opposition on principle.
The real, meaningful opposition to this is the opposition from the people. That is what will kill it.
I don't think that the lobbyist are busing in fake protesters, or paying people to raise concerns at the town-halls, and such was certainly
not my intent, impliedly or no. But I can see where you might get that idea, so I'm glad we could clear that up.
That said however, I do believe that while the protesters' opposition is genuine and in most cases truly based on principle, I also am afraid that
it is based, in many instances, on false premises which have been promoted by the insurance lobby and their wholly owned representatives.
I am of course referring to the cries of the vast majority of the protesters claiming that "their Country" has been hijacked by socialists and
Nazis. I will grant you that these are real citizens whose concern is real, but that concern is nonetheless based on a falsehood, i.e. that the
United States has been "overrun" by Socialists etc.
I would submit that Senator Joe McCarthy genuinely was concerned with the promulgation of Communist principles spreading throughout America, but was
gravely mistaken about not only the extent of such spread, but moreover, about who was responsible and involved in such Communist activities. This
"red scare" lead to one of the darkest times in modern American politics and destroyed more than a few good Americans in the process.
Now, before this goes any further, I'm not comparing the protesters to Sen. McCarthy, but only pointing out that carrying around pictures of
President of The United States of America in an SS uniform and sporting a Hitler mustache is a slippery slope none of us should be foolish enough to
slide down. I was no fan of GWB and even felt betrayed after having been a supporter in 2000, but I still did not think it was ok to characterize him
as a Nazi, and I won't accept that it is OK to do so now to the current administration.
I agree real "meaningful" opposition will kill the proposed reform, but what is "meaningful" In other words, calling the plan that would ensure
that insurance companies had to pay doctors/nurses for their time spent in counseling patients on end of life care options (such as living wills) -
"death panels," was a way to stir the emotions of real Americans. And those real Americans showed up at meetings to protest, but that does not mean
that the premise which they were protesting was based on reality, and, in fact, they were the unwitting tools of the insurance lobby that had started
such insane rumors to begin with.
As evidence of this I submit the following: a woman named Betsy McCaughey is most often named as the first person to start the rumors about death
panels. She is also on the board of directors of the Cantel Medical Corporation. This is a multimillion dollar medical corporation which went from
trading around $3 in 2000, to over $30 in 2005, under the Bush administration. It would appear to me then, that people like this woman have a vested
self interest in seeing heath reform of any sort fail.
If you follow the money the lobby is spending, and the bloggers who spread the lies concerning the actually proposal, it becomes apparent: the people
protesting are genuinely angry, but they are genuinely mistaken about who it is that has been lying to them.
If the debate were about small business and middle class being unfairly burdened I would be all for it, but as long as it is based on name calling and
banner waving by people unfortunately too blind to see that they are being used, it will only serve to divide the people.
