On Monday, the 18th, the Washington Post reported that Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina was readying attack ads on the public option. The paper had the storyboards. The ads depict the medical choices Americans would make for their individual doctors being rejected, and having no choice but to linger months for care.
According to economic Nobel laureate Paul Krugman (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/opinion/22krugman.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print), the ominous-tone voiceover to the ad insists “We can do a lot better than a government-run healthcare system.” To which Krugman responds, “if that’s true, why don’t you? Why deny Americans the chance to reject government insurance if it’s really all that bad?”
Ask your grandparents if Medicare is “all that bad.” The fact is that it is not. Another fact is that Medicare is a lifesaver for this country’s senior population as well as for non-seniors who qualify for it. But that’s not what the country is talking about today. The country is talking about waterboarding and torture and Dick Cheney, all the while the House and the Senate and the administration — until it demonstrates otherwise — are all falling in line, are empathetic to the crocodile tears and the bellowing by the insurance industry. We’re being juked.
— Ed Tubbs
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