The essay was submitted by Arthur C. Donart, Ph. D. It is first in a series.
“The Wizard of Oz” is a classic, and so is the strawman, Scarecrow. Politicians also love using a “Strawman.” Building a strawman means simply creating an imaginary foil, ie., bad action; attributing it to your opponent; beating that false idea to death. It doesn’t take a brain to win this kind of an argument, and only the brainless fall for it. Politicians who use this device assume a good many voters are brainless, but eventually the truth catches up to them.
The recent election strawman was “Government [plans a] takeover of your healthcare.” Never mind the fact, that no bill has been introduced in either the House or Senate to do that. What has been introduced is expanding Medicare to cover everyone and to pay 100% of costs, instead of 80%.
- HR 1384 has been introduced by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. It was co-sponsored by 117 other members of the U. S. House of Representatives.
- Senator Bernie Sanders introduced S. 1129 with 14 co-sponsors. His bill would cover everyone over a four-year period, rather than two years.
Neither of these bills are a Government “takeover” of health care! What they do is ensure that, if you lose your job, you haven’t lost your health care. These bills eliminate co-pays, deductibles, and in-network vs out-of-network nightmares. They will reduce your cost by eliminating paperwork, profits, and excessive insurance company salaries for CEOs.
You can download and read the bills yourself. Go to senate.gov and type in 1129 and house.gov for HR 1384.
Politicians all promise to reduce cost and fight big Pharma, which is like saying, “I support motherhood and apple pie.” Better to ask them, “Are you supporting Medicare for All (M4A), and, if not, how are you going to lower costs and cover everyone?”
Perhaps they will realize we are not strawmen.