Tea Party

So there was a tea party here in town yesterday. I didn't know about it, there were no signs or really any information that I saw before the event. I would like to have gone, but I did have a thing I had to be at in the afternoon. So perhaps even if I have known about it I couldn't have been there.

There were a series of photos in the local paper. I would guess there were probably a couple of hundred people from the photos. Interestingly enough the only signs that looked professional were anti-health care signs. I guess that it is probably wrong to just look at the pictures and guess the socio-economic back ground of the attendees, but what the hell.

Poor people opposed to good medical care for poor people. How strange. As Mencken said: "No one ever went broke underestimating the American public." People who have the information can explain that health care in countries like Canada, England (oh heck, the rest of the civilized world) is cheaper than in the U.S. by a long shot.

Then the people like those at the tea party tell you that it is rationed in those countries. They completely ignore the fact that it is rationed here. People with money get good health care and the rest of us get the scraps from the rich man's table. When this is pointed out the response is to simply deny it. These other countries cannot have health care as good as us because we are, well we are just the best, don't you know. Even though we all know people (if it isn't us) who have been denied health care because we don't have the money for it. Or we've denied ourselves health care because we decided that we need to spend our money on say food or rent rather than medication.

People generally get good emergency care, because hospitals can't turn people away, but then the follow up can really suck if you don't have money. Yet the fear of any change is so great. It seems that the less one has the more one is afraid to change it or to try for something new.