Tuesday, November 10

The lyingest lie ad of all lying liar liefests?



Let's face it, this health care reform debate has seen its share of lies. Death Panels, economy destroyed, veterans want vouchers to buy Blue Cross (really) have all been told and not challenged, not ever, on FOX and other news outlets.

This ad is full of lies, as is pointed out by the Kaiser Foundation far better than I could do.

And nevermind that it "raises the specter of "government-run health care" to increase concerns among both young and old. But at the same time it extols Medicare – which is government-run health care for people 65 and older."

Because that is the ever-living elephant in the room. If only the debate had been based upon "anyone under 65 can buy Medicare at cost plus a percentage" we'd have rioting in the streets in favor of it.

But apart from the statistical lies is a far more pernicious lie about generational politics. The "seniors" appearing in this ad, if they are of the generation they say they are, are older than the average senior. Their "greatest generation" is, sorry to say, dying out. But their legacy [of being really truly entitled to our gratitude for the sacrifices they made from 1929-1945] is being land-grabbed by those lobbyists who think expanding that entitlement will help big insurance and big pharma maintain their hold on profits.

My parents were, like many many seniors, born during the Great Depression. Beaches of Normandy? Mom and Dad were 9 and 5, respectively. Sure they're in their 70's now, receiving government run healthcare and a government sponsored pension as well they should. But they didn't earn that by fighting in World War II. So stop it.

Let's assume that every single soldier on D-Day was sixteen years old. A stretch, but even giving the other side that argument, the seniors this ad extols are 82 and above.

Philip Spooner, an actual D-Day veteran, is 86 and publicly supports gay marriage. There are approximately 45,000 D-Day veterans still alive today. The generations not old enough to be on on Medicare? Every 2.3 days, 45,000 of them lose all, all, all, all, ALL OF their health insurance, not just the Medicare Advantage sop to insurance companies that health care reform advocates cutting over the next several years.

A conservative group calling itself "60-Plus" is consciously and perniciously arguing that "seniors" deserve special treatment because of the tremendous sacrifice they made to our nation in World War II? I'm too young to reap the benefits of being a boomer but my folks are too old: sigh, Dad was an ancient, fully-employed homeowner at 27 when the Beatles came to America.

By the way. 60-Plus is almost entirely funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

Surprise.

5 comments:

  1. Yikes!

    My hands are definitely off.

    Thanks for the math lesson, BG.

    S

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  2. BG -

    Well said.

    The thing I've been saying forever is that Obama needed to get in front of this thing and campaign for it as being Medicare for everyone, and then let the GOP try to bash it, especially how they have been trying to dismantle Medicare since about 10 seconds after it passed.

    My father - a Greatest Generation WW2 certifiable hero and a life-long GOPer - always told us that they fought the war for all of us, not just for some of us. And while, yes, they deserve all the honor and glory for that sacrifice, he never believed in pulling the ladder up after he made it into the treehouse. He had an on-the-field blood transfusion from a black Marine on Guadalcanal, and I think that was a turning point for him. But I digress...

    There's something about this "I got mine, you get your own" attitude that the GOP now has as its central theme that seems so uncommonly selfish, and I think it is too easy to pin in on the navel gazing and self-entitled Boomers meme.

    However, I do NOT think it is too easy to pin it on the "Ronnie Reagan was the second coming of Christ" meme - I really think that's where the callousness and unabashed greed of today comes from. And yes, he was a Greatest Generation, but more so he was a snake oil salesman.

    Regards,

    Tengrain

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  3. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the argument that we should not cut a government run health care entitlement program, from people that say government run health care entitlement programs are bad.

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  4. Anonymous2:17 PM

    Off Topic but important

    Senate says NO to Stupak

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/boxer-senate-has-votes-to_n_352064.html

    The House vote was all political theater. It was cover for Dems from conservative districts.

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  5. I am on the run, I can only say that that ad fills me with rage. Public relations and so-called political action are just veiled ways of saying complete bullshit and propaganda.

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