Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Bootstrap Mentality

From the Pacific view

"One of the things he found most outrageous was how Americans weren't held accountable for causing their bad health. (And, of course, Bush agrees.) After all, the individuals had a choice in living healthier lives and if they didn't, well, why should the insurance industry be held accountable for the fact Americans didn't have as long life expectancies as other countries? Never mind the fact that Cuba, a country that is god-awful poor has a higher life expectancy and many fewer babies dying in the first few years of life than the United States. Or that France (as Michael Moore noted) has more people smoking and drinking and having sex and still they have better life expectancies. Somehow, it is only Americans that have bad habits that lead to earlier death - but that's because Americans are especially culpable for their bad decisions.

Last week NOW had a piece on how Georgia's PeaceCare is leaving the people behind and even being incapable of supplying insulin to type one juvenile diabetes patients whose parents run into trouble. According to the governor, it isn't the state's responsibility to cover these people, it's the federal government and if you are unhappy, please contact your congressman. Then we get to see the fact that it really is the fault of the parents (the adults) who should not have gotten into this situation (lost job, have kid who has juvenile diabetes) and then expect others to cover their failure. In fact, our country is being severely compromised because we don't demand that individuals take care of their selves or their families. It is far, far better that their kids die than we pick up their health care costs. Besides which, that would be a really bad example and then every Tom, Dick and Harry would expect us to help them as well. Well, we can't have that kind of country, can we?

And now we know it is even worse than what NOW's expose showed: after all, if our country succumbs to universal healthcare, the terrorists win! Damn."

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