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Cinema PPC Presents, Geriatric Ostriches Being Tortured

by | 2:01 pm, May 30, 2009 | 11 Comments

At today’s rally for socialized medicine, the dozens of people in the crowd enjoyed the menthol cool musical stylings of the Raging Grannies, who warmed up the crowd with a macerated nursery rhyme, recast here as the ‘Single Payer Jingle’

One theory on the origins of Frere Jacques hold that it was written about an insane monk who was drawn and quartered for regicide.  Does its 2009 retelling make it more sinister yet?  We will let you, dear reader, be the judge.

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Comments

  1.   Colorado Jones
      May 31st, 2009 @ 7:50 pm

    These pathetic, AARP, socialist wankers have no idea what they’re championing for. It seems beyond their grasp to understand that under a government monopoly of health care, that they too will be subject to the rulings of the Federal Government Health Evaluation Board – who will decide what treatments are acceptable for which citizens. And, when these Screeching Grannies are admitted to the ER with a life threatening illness or injury, their age will be a variable plugged into the bureaucrat’s equation; and at 60+ years, these windbags will be refused care and sentenced to die without the life-saving care they could receive under a true free market system. You know, thinking of it that way, maybe socialized medicine isn’t such a shabby idea… what a tragic irony they’re asking for.

  2.   Elizabeth H. Sarfaty, M.Ed.
      June 1st, 2009 @ 12:43 am

    Why do you print a letter such as this from “Colorado Jones” that is so disrespectful – to his female relatives, as all others????

  3.   rose
      June 1st, 2009 @ 7:23 pm

    Colorado, the insurance companies have been running the show for many years, and currently decide who gets what care. They recently told my drug store that I only need to take one of my medications once a day. Mind you, they’re NOT my physician who prescibed it twice a day. Also, should you become HIV infected, it would be illegal for your health care provider to give information to someone like an ambulance worker, but MANDATORY to give that info to your insurance company. In fact, your insurance company may know more about you than any gov’t agency. They have big bucks, and lobby to keep single payor health care from happening.

  4.   T.L. James
      June 1st, 2009 @ 9:55 pm

    Why must everyone be forced into a single government-run healthcare system, when there are such specific shortcomings with the industry as currently constituted? Why not find ways to fix the shortcomings you describe, rose? Why must everyone join a “single-payer” collectivized medicine scheme?

    I personally have no problem with my medical insurance, and I’m sure that is the case with a large majority of Americans. Even if I were the only one satisfied with my healthcare arrangements, why do you expect me to give up what I have? How does my giving up my satisfactory plan in exchange for a government-run bureaucracy and its attendant and unavoidable inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, mediocrity, stagnation, and micromanagement of my lifestyle choices help someone with HIV or without health insurance of their own?

    Why does everyone have to join the system, whether they want to or not?

    Why do you want to take away my health insurance plan, rose? Envy?

    By chance have you read Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom?”, rose? (Rhetorical question: I know you haven’t, or else you wouldn’t be in favor of collectivizing the healthcare industry.)

  5.   T.L. James
      June 1st, 2009 @ 10:51 pm

    As for the insurance company knowing more about me than any government agency – fine. Since they lack the government’s monopoly on force, they are neccessarily limited in what they can do to me with that information, even if they take a disliking to me for some reason. Where a particular insurer might deny me care for a particular condition, I am still free to contract with another insurer, pay out of pocket, persuade a charity to assist me, or otherwise obtain the care that I need – it may not be easy, or cheap, but it can still be done.

    If you would set aside your paranoia about the malevolent power of Evil Corporations™ for a moment, you might discover that that same information in the hands of the State is what you ought to find disturbing. In a collectivized system, those alternatives will not be available to me should the government healthcare bureaucracy declare that my condition is not covered. And since all of that information is in the hands of the same entity in whom we entrust the monopoly on force, there is no end to the mischief they can engage in if they take a disliking to me for any reason. Imagine you’re a good Progressive Democrat, you vote for Obama both times he runs, work with the grassroots to promote Progressive causes, etc. — and then another Nixon gets elected in 2016. What is there to prevent the collectivized healthcare system from being used to silence you after you end up on the new President’s enemies list, in the same manner Presidents have been known to employ things like IRS audits to harrass and intimidate those with whom they disagree politically? How long would you continue to organize your community or champion a suddenly-out-of-favor political cause or agitate for unionization after your doctor informs you that the simple, widely-performed surgery your loved one desperately needs suddenly – inexplicably - cannot be scheduled for several months? Or the common medication that keeps you healthy and functioning is suddenly – inexplicably - on backorder?

    It’s easy to dismiss this as paranoia on my part, but it isn’t – it’s merely one readily-foreseeable unintended consequence of the healthcare socialization you claim to want.

    When it comes to your medications, what makes you think that the government healthcare bureacracy won’t second-guess your physician? They won’t be your physician either…but they will be his employer. What is it that persuades you that, when the collectivized medical system’s costs inevitably begin to spiral out of control and cost-cutting and rationing must be performed, the bureaucracy won’t cut you off of one – or both – of your medications in the interest of saving money? Why do you believe that a socialized medicine Leviathan won’t have to decide at some point who gets what care – a decision which, without the alternative options of the free market no longer available, amounts to a death sentence for those affected? And when that bureaucracy makes decisions on what to cover and what not to cover, what is your guarantee that those decisions won’t now be politically motivated, based not on objective medical concerns but on which conditions have the largest and loudest activist groups demanding ever-expanding coverage – groups which can usefully turn out large voting blocs in November?

    And finally, why should I pay for your medicines, or your physician, or anyone else’s, if I do not choose to do so of my own volition? I did not give you your illness, nor did I give my neighbor diabetes, or my coworker heart disease, or some stranger in another state a stroke, HIV, or a bad back. Where is the justice in using the coercive power of the state to force me to pay for their medical care if I do not choose to do so?

  6.   T.L. James
      June 1st, 2009 @ 11:08 pm

    It’s not a “letter”, Elizabeth. It’s a blog comment, and it gets posted automatically upon submittal when someone has commented here regularly.

    That said, unless Colorado Jones is related to one of the women screeching in the video above, he is not being “disrespectful” to his female relatives – nor to his “other”, presumably male ones. He was expressing well-deserved contempt towards a group of political activists who sing – horribly - in public as a stunt to attract attention to their pet causes (which used to be opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but since our newly-minted President has withdrawn all troops, tried Bush and Cheney on war crimes charges, closed down Guantanamo Bay, and dismantled the United States military in toto, they’ve retooled their musical stylings in support of collectivized healthcare). The Raging Grannies’ antics do not automatically or unquestioningly deserve respect, nor are they off-limits from derision and scorn – even if that is not the attention they seek.

  7.   Captain Arapahoe
      June 2nd, 2009 @ 11:32 am

    For “Elizabeth H. Sarfaty, M.Ed.” –
    This site “prints a letter” from Colorado Jones for the same reason it “prints” your comment – the inane non-sequitur that it is (disrespectful to who’s female relatives?). It’s a “Comments” section – ‘respecting’ the right of others to express an opinion.
    Some of us take freedoms – such as expressed in the Bill of Rights, including the 1st Amendment – pretty seriously. Some of us have even put our lives on the line to afford those freedoms to others.
    And since you seem so inordinately proud of your title, I’ll sign off:
    Captain Arapahoe, B.S. cum laude; M.A.; CPT, IN: ARCOM, AFCOM, JSAM, AAM, ARCAM, NDSM,GWOT-E, GWOT-S, ASR, etc. etc.

  8.   Frances Griffin
      June 3rd, 2009 @ 3:02 am

    I have single payer now. It’s called Medicare. And I luuv it. It is so much easier and simpler to use than any insurance I had when I had employment based insurance. I can think of ways to tweak it but basically it’s great. it gives me less bureaucracy, fewer hassles, and far more choices than my former insurance plans.
    Plus,the more I study the issue, the more I see how insurance companies waste money, make inordinate profits language and-pardon my language-screw their policy holders.

  9.   Colorado Jones
      June 3rd, 2009 @ 10:22 am

    Frances, you forgot to mention unicorns. Medicare gave you your own personal unicorn, too, right? You enjoy that Medicare and make sure you thank your neighbors and fellow citizens. By the way, you’re welcome! Oh, I did have one question. What exactly do you plan to do when Medicare is completely bankrupt by 2019? (and that’s the trustee’s estimate, so expect the funds to dry up well before then) Free health care and popsicles for everybody sounds like a wonderful, utopian place, but what happens when you run out of your neighbor’s money? I suppose you could steal his car and sell that, or maybe forclose his house and use the proceeds to pay for your free health care for a little longer? Maybe you could raise your neighbor’s taxes to 100% so you and your government can get all of the fruits of your neighbor’s labor – you know, kinda make him your slave? You may not be willing to admit it, but your health care is coming from the government’s use of force to steal your neighbors money. Having your government perform your immoral acts for you is still immoral.

    Your need does NOT equal a claim on any of the products of my (or anybody’s) hard work. Stop being a looter.

  10.   travis
      June 3rd, 2009 @ 11:04 am

    So, Frances, because you luuuuuv your Medicare, you think that everyone should be forced into the same system with you? That I should be coerced into single payer socialism with you because you’re happy with your chains?

    No thanks. I like the insurance I have – voluntariily – and I like even better the fact that if my insurance company ever does “screw me” I have options in the free market to take my business elsewhere.

    You should be ashamed of yourself, Frances, for stealing money from others. Even more ashamed that you don’t even have the guts and drive of a common mugger to steal from your fellow citizens yourself, and instead hire pandering progressive politicians to do the dirty work for you. Coward.

    But even more than ashamed, you ought to be afraid – afraid of what the producers you want to enslave into supporting you and other greedy looters like you will do to you when they finally feel their backs against the wall, and get fed up with being forced to work to support you and the other parasites. They might just learn to see the merits of euthanising the elderly and unhealthy to reduce the burden on society. Worse, they may go vigilante and start killing old people like you, partly out of desperation over the enormous taxes needed to suppprt your ilk, but partly out of pure, blind, enraged resentment over your treating them like slaves and leaving them no opportunity for escape.

    What right do you have to suck the blood from your fellow citizens?

  11.   The Scarlet Letter
      June 3rd, 2009 @ 11:21 am

    I love the health plan I’m on. The government provides tasty and nutritious green cubes for all of my meals. I never have to worry about my diet or making up my mind about what to eat. The best part is, when I’m ready to retire I get to go off to a wonderful retirement center which will show me pretty pictures and even let me select what colored lights and music I want to listen to. It’s pretty sweet.

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