There is an inevitable trade-off between rising health care costs and things liberals really care about, like access to college and good wages for working Americans. We cannot have it all. The health care reform act will help us save — mainly by changing how physicians and hospitals are paid and delivering better care to our most expensive patients. But more can be done: for starters, we could speed up the implementation of payment reform, stop Medicare payments for tests and treatments that provide no benefit and endorse competitive bidding for medical goods and services.
Or we could shift to true universal health care, like single-payer or socialized medicine, but that doesn't 'adhere to traditional American values,' to use the asshole's own fucking words. So we have to preserve American values, even at the cost of American lives. Spoken like a true neoliberal thug.
I am growing extremely weary of these well-dressed professionals who peer down the rims of their glasses at the average American's increasing desperation and conclude that no direct action is needed. This is not to knock dressing well, which I am a fan of- but in the case of the good doctor Emmanuel, his finery and his degrees are mere chitin holding back the terrible poison in his stinger. How he can see the numbers- the thousands of Americans that die each year, the worsening life expectancy of United States citizens- and conclude that we must steadfastly refuse the same path that has improved the lives of people in every nation that has trod it is cruelty on an almost Stalinist scale.
Ezekiel Emanuel is a modern Mendele conducting a barbaric experiment on the people of the United States, and it is grounds for, at least, stripping him of his medical license. If I had my druthers, it would also be grounds for clapping him in irons and chaining him to the busiest intersection in Los Angeles to suffer the Santa Ana winds without water or food. It would be grounds for redistributing his entire fortune and robbing him of all esteem and privilege he has amassed through his professional career of spitting on the poor.
No human can be so callous and cruel in the face of mass suffering, so I submit that you, Dr. Emanuel, are not a man, but a beast, a jackal, a viper, a vulture who preys on the dead. God willing, you will pay for your butchery in this world or the next.
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Interesting Piece
I think what is most interesting is the fact that the so-called "liberal" NYT provides space for this man's opinions. That says a lot lot me about the NYT. I followed the link to the Boston Review piece, also written by Mr. Emanuel, and it became obvious that his ideas have long been held. I don't think that his arguments about "traditional American values" hold much water - he is just using his interpretation of them to bolster his argument. I'm not well-versed in the "health care" debate (more like health care system reform than a true debate), but I've read plenty of polls which say that Americans, by a huge majority, want to see single-payer. If that is true, then it exposes Emanuel for what he is: a shill for the elite. I don't think he is a sociopath, but he certainly is a beneficiary of the system as it is currently set up and he isn't going to do anything to change that.
How do we get there from here? If we started by turning off the TV and stopped reading the mainstream media, that would be a good starting place. Re-reading Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent would also be helpful. But who knows how to read any longer? Outside of Correntians, of course!
The important thing is to never stop questioning. - Albert Einstein
Say what you feel!
Stop holding back, jumpjet!
Neoliberal technocrats, they suck.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
I agree again with alcuin.
I agree again with alcuin. E. Emanuel is a shill of the elites and a soldier of kleptocracy. His job is to propagandize and rationalize the looting by the elites to which he belongs.
"We cannot have it all." But the rich are certainly trying to have it all. When the top 20% own 93% of the country's wealth, the bottom 80% not only don't have it all. They have jack. This is the Big Lie the Emanuels of the world are propagating. There isn't enough money. There aren't enough resources, but this is only true when it comes to the needs of the 99%: jobs, homes, pensions, healthcare, education, infrastructure. When it is trillion dollar tax cuts and wars or multi- trillion dollar bailouts, the money is always there for them.
Hugh