Sep 01 2009
U.S. health system is a ticking time bomb, says Jack Bauer
Couldn’t let this next story go by without a comment. Jack Bauer believes in universal health care.
Well, Kiefer Sutherland does anyway, and on this he’s joined by an association of Canadian churches. You will also note in the story that Kiefer comes by his views naturally — he’s the grandson of Tommy Douglas, the Baptist minister who brought Medicare For All to Canada. For his efforts, Douglas was declared by popular vote of Canadians in a 2004 Canadian Broadcasting Company poll to be “History’s Greatest Canadian.” Note the top 10 list in that poll — Douglas, who never served as the country’s prime minister, outranked three former prime ministers including John Macdonald, Canada’s George Washington.
But back to Kiefer, or should we say Jack Bauer. When you consider the numerous ways that his hit show “24″ has been used to support neoconservative fever dreams — good grief, the Heritage Foundation approvingly used it as a hook for a seminar, complete with boner pill advocate Rush Limbaugh as moderator — it’s absolutely a hoot that Kiefer would stick a thumb in the right wing’s eye by coming out for the signature initiative of a liberal president. And since the right wing appears to be incapable of distinguishing between fact and fantasy, either regarding the issues raised in “24″ or those regarding our defective health care system, it seems to me they should be falling in line behind Jack Bauer’s opinion about the need for universal health care in the United States. (Yeah, I should live so long.)
By the way, if you read deeper into that Washington Post blog post I linked to at the top of this post, you discover there’s a spread of religious opinion as to the need for health care reform. The National Council of Churches just released a letter Aug. 14 in support of the idea. The National Association of Evangelicals is concerned about too much government influence in the health care sector — another bit of irony, as a fair sampling of evangelical Christians have tried to get the government to promote Christianity in law over other religions. And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops used to be in favor of health care reform, but now they’re worried that health care policies will cover abortion and euthanasia and enable stem cell research. (The evangelicals’ group shares that concern as well.)
They’re all entitled to their opinions, but the specific objections of the bishops and the evangelicals tend to demonstrate why there’s a growing drift away from organized religion even in this, the most religiously observant country among the Western democracies. Decades of polls show that Catholics do not follow their church’s teaching on birth control and abortion, and recent polls show they don’t agree with a blanket proscription against stem cell research. The evangelicals, as well, host multitudes of opinions on all sorts of public issues — they’re not the doctrinal monolith they are painted as by the media.
On the topic of reforming the U.S. health care system, all supposed Christian organizations should be operating on the Christ-like premise that “whatsoever you do for the least of my children, you do for me,” which includes “rendering unto Caesar” the additional taxes that might be needed to bring about real reform. Once the benefits of timely and effective health care are made available to the 47 million without it and the 75 million or so more people who are underinsured — more than 60 percent of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills, and 75 percent of those bankrupted by sickness had health insurance — then they can quibble over abortion, euthanasia, stem cells and socialism.
LOL. Talking about fantasy. A liberal actor supporting a liberal president. Total shocker. Maybe both of these coke heads can get together and come up with a better action plan for health care reform than H.R. 3200? Always enjoy your point-of-view Sal
You’re clearly not aware of the degree to which “24″ worship swept the right-wing blogosphere a couple of years ago, or the degree to which actual neocon pundits have cited “24″ as proof of their discredited beliefs. Which is why the laugh is on your side, which is why I wrote the post in the first place.
And given the way people like Craig T. Nelson, Ted Nugent, Kelsey Grammer and Chuck Norris are being lionized on the right just for offering their bankrupt views a celebrity echo chamber, I’d keep the “LOLs” about actors with political beliefs to myself if I were you.
Well Sal, since I can express my opinion, I will LOL all I want because all that you responded with had nothing to do with my response. I’m glad all those actors speak their minds and the only bankrupt views we are looking at today are from the ones who follow Obama blindly into bankrupting our country with his free-spending and entitlement programs that benefit those who got him elected…wall street, big banks and the unions. That is the fantasy land you liberals tend to live in.
Tailback…lol. Thats all I have to say.
P.S. I’m a registered Libertarian with conservative views, just so you know and I’ve only been blogging for about a year.
The fact that you can type “nothing to do with my response” simply demonstrates your lack of reading comprehension. You’re the one who brought up “liberal actor” and “bankrupt views” in regard to Kiefer, so I dropped a few “conservative actor” names into the mix whose views are even more bankrupt. In the case of Grammer, those views are hurting his choice of roles — oh, you didn’t see the execrable wingnut fairy tale “An American Carol” he starred in? Neither did anybody else.
Tailback — no problem, you’re welcome here anytime.
Sal, nice work as usual.
Scotty, interesting to note that you enjoy reading sal since your comment, as always, seems to reflect that you dont understand him.
Dean,
I agree compleetly, minor budget adjustments would be all that is needed to pay for health care reform and I like where you are dropping the axe. Brilliant way to put a bullet in all those cry babys who claim we just cant afford to do what every other industrialized nation does, ie provide health care to ALL their citizens.
As for HR3200- This is a piece of shit bill. It is not health care reform it is insurance reform. This is a rediculously dense bill designed to save insurance companies and I believe designed to be unpassable. Those who truely want reform will reject because it wont provide coverage for everyone it simply mandates that we use insurance companies, and those who dont want reform will find it over reaching by the government.
Dig this provision;
‘‘Sec. 59B. Tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage.
18 ‘‘SEC. 59B. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE
19 HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.
20 ‘‘(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual
21 who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at
22 any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed
23 a tax equal to 2.5 percent … DO WHAT!
HR3200 is a con game. I can find nothing in the bill that will insure universal coverage. And radical as it seems, (in this country anyway) I think ALL of our citizens should have access to health care not just those who can afford insurance or those who are so poor they qualify for some nebulous indigent care program. Nor can I find anything that would keep costs down. But it does protect insurance and drug companies profits. Additionally I see no reason that investors should make money on health care. That to me is parasitical. The “free market” is not the solution to all problems and it fails miserably when it comes to providing essential services. Who wants private ‘for profit’ fire depts, police or water dept, so why should health care be a for profit industry?
HR 676 on the otherhand would be real health care refrom and would insure that ALL of our citizens were covered. It has a viable approach to reducing costs by changing our system to a not for profit system. Designed to provide quality care rather than to make investors money. Furthermore the bill is comprehensible unlike hr3200 which seems designed to be obtuse.
http://www.pnhp.org/nhibill/nhi_bill_final.pdf