Thursday, April 01, 2010

April's Fools

Yesterday the Republican majority in the state legislature voted to join 14 other states in a courageous battle to keep health care for Arizonans from being forced down their throats.


Here are some examples of the incisive Republican analysis of the dangers of health care reform, as reported in the Arizona Republic:

Rep. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, said the health-care law is a death sentence for elderly Americans because, he predicted, it will lead to rationed care.

Apparently Barnes wants to return to the good old days when 30 million Americans had their health care rationed into near non-existence by their inability to buy insurance.

"This really is about much more than health care, and much more than cost," said House Health Committee Chairwoman Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix. "It's about freedom."

The federal law, she said, gives Washington, D.C., complete control of health-care decisions.

No...federal law leaves almost complete control of health-care decisions in the hands of the insurance industry.

The loopiest justification of the the proposed legal attack on health care reform comes from Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise:

“We're seeking to protect the citizens from this unconstitutional socialism that is under way. The socialists of today are only a gun confiscation away from the communists of tomorrow.”

Wow! How’s that for a slippery slope? Insurance by private corporations...to socialism...to gun confiscation...to communism.


Oh, comrades, if only it were that simple.



Cross Posted from TucsonCitizen.com