March 9, 2010

• Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and rank Hypocrisy

  Earlier I posted an entry on how MediaMatters reported that Rush Limbaugh is promising to leave the country if Health Care Reform passes.  Well more details about that was reported here by the always excellent Jon Walker at FiredogLake:

  Here’s what Rush actually said:

  “I don’t know. I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica“

  As Jon Walker explains the REAL hypocrisy here is that Costa Rica in fact has a Public, Single Payer, Government Run Health Care System.  That is, if anyone has been listening to Rush Limbaugh knows the epitome of what he rants against. It’s the main thing actual liberals and leftists and progressives actually want most. Rush Limbaugh has said and implied, many times, that that very kind of system is the road to ruin and tyranny and naziism and communism. It’s pretty much the same kind of system that exists in Canada and the United Kingdom which Rush Limbaugh rants against almost every single day. 

  Yet, if we pass Health Care Reform for some reason Rush Limbaugh has no problem whatsoever going to Costa Rica to enjoy his government run health care. What does that mean? Does it mean he only wants us to have a crappy health care system.

  If only Rush Limbaugh were the only one. 

  Sarah Palin while giving a speech in Canada said her family used to prefer Canadian Health Care:

  “My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not — this was in the ’60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada“

  Presumably then she believes that Health Care in Canada was better than that in the United States in the 1960′s but judging by her tendency to strongly criticize the Canadian Health Care System today she must think it’s gone terribly down hill.

  However, back in the 1960′s, Canada was already well on its way to a socialized health care system. It was significantly more socialized than the American system at the time or today. Back in 1957, the federal government of Canada passed a bill whereby they would pay for 50% of the cost of all health care systems in any province that set up a prepaid, near universal hospital insurance health care system in the model already setup in Saskatchewan (1946) and in Alberta (1950). By 1961, every province in Canada had setup such a system, including Yukon which did so in 1960. 

  So by time Sarah Palin’s family went to Canada to get health care when she was a kid, health care at any hospital was already prepaid and effectively free for anyone to take part in.  It was socialized by tax payer money at the province level, and 50% socialized at the federal level. No WONDER Sarah Palin’s family found it so enticing!
  In contrast, the United States didn’t even make it mandatory for hospitals to treat people even in emergency situations until 1986 through the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.

  The Canandian system later became even more socialized. In 1966, Canada extended the 50% federal/provincial cost sharing agreement to include not just hospitalization but all universal health insurance coverage programs. This was the beginning of Canada’s Medicare system. By 1972, Palin’s Yukon had agreed to this as well. Finally in 1984 the Canadian Health Act passed which prohibited fees and exclusions making Health Care truly universal in Canada. And the results of all that socialism has been a substantially better system then the one we have here.

  You can read more about this here and here.

  The funny thing is, Sarah Palin fearmongers about the idea of a government run Health Care system all the time. She was even one of the ones who suggested that the Obama Health Care overhall would lead to “Death Panels” an idea politifact rates as a pants on fire lie.

  So apparently Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin both actually like socialism. It’s just fine just so long as it’s anywhere but in the United States. I guess it’s great when you have the money and resources to travel or move out of country to get care but terrible to make it available to every other normal person around who can’t go through such lengths to get care.

  One last example, of course it’s the best of all. Glenn Beck outdoes them both.  But don’t take my word for it, take the Daily Show’s:

  The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
  Rage Within the Machine – Progressivism
  www.thedailyshow.com
  Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

  So apparently public LIBRARIES are great to Glenn Beck even though all socialism, progressivism, and communism are pure evil. Yet he doesn’t even understand the hypocrisy?

  It’s great to know that all socialism is so bad except when it’s things that happen to benefit these boneheads. Then of course in these people’s minds it’s not really socialism at all.

  • 6:04 pm
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