The real issues with health care Brent Pollard Sports Editor, Columnist
include the possibility of businesses paying a fine from the government by not meeting health care standards, and thus may no longer offer health care benefits. Possibly the most feared outcome could be the power of the federal government. Congress would end up regulating all things related to health care, citizens would rely on the government to pay for their health care subsidies, and the possibility of private health care institutions eroding leading to a government health care monopoly. Due to these circumstances, rasmussenreports.com states that the disapproval rate for the health care reform was 55%. Although the government plan could be suitable to help health care, the effects are just too risky. However, there are many other options to decrease health costs. Brian McAfee on orangejuiceblog.com suggests that the government should attempt to prevent health care fraud, use the cheapest and most efficient health treatments, and invest in scientific research. Without an official health care bill, it is hard to say whether the positive will outweigh the negative effects or vice versa. However, the federal government has grown in power in recent years, and President Barrack Obama seems to be continuing the trend. The power the government could receive from the bill should cause reconsideration, and instead a more conservative route should be taken. Capitalism has worked well thus far in our history, there is no reason to change that now.
Connor Swiney Opinions Editor
Hey conspiracy theorists! You’re not helping. As a nation, we are in the middle of a debate over healthcare reform the likes of which haven’t been so seriously discussed since the Clinton plan in 1993. And while that plan had its share of opponents, the kind of negative rhetoric being spread about the new bill is almost unprecedented. From Sarah Palin’s “death panels,” to the slippery-slope government takeover scenarios, to good ol’ Glenn Beck’s ‘Obama is a racist Joseph Stalin’ argument, more scare tactics, half-truths and outright lies have been used to rail against a public-option than any major issue in recent history. This “disinformation jihad” as Time columnist Joe Klein put it, has led to a new kind of destructive nihilism from the right over the health care issue. Members of Congress heckled and laughed at President Obama during last month’s address to Congress. “You lie!” Burst Joe Wilson(R-SC) after the President claimed that his health care plan wouldn’t cover illegal immigrants. Representative Wilson’s outcry was quickly circulated throughout the network news rooms and took precedence over most everything else. This excessive coverage and one can assume, pressure from Republican party leaders, led Wilson to issuing an apology to the President. Americans saw a similar outburst less than a week later from another guy that was disgruntled and didn’t care who knew it: Kanye West. He went through the same basic cycle of being chastised by everyone from the
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people to the press to the President (“He’s a jackass,” said Obama when asked about West’s VMA spectacle) and then making a public apology (or in West’s case, being shamed by Jay Leno.) Are American policy makers really that uncouth? Aren’t we supposed to hold them to a higher standard than say, a RAPPER? Joe Wilson’s yell is nothing more than the signs that the trickle-up theory to political discourse is working in the favor of Republicans. It started with your neighbor with the “nobama” bumper sticker always going on about how our President is the next leader in a line starting with V.I. Lenin. Then that neighbor got a national TV show where his lobbyist friends could spout the party line on a massive scale, spreading untruths and creating an uninformed populist machine. Soon after, this country’s elected leaders started watching the same show. Wilson’s outburst was just the first of what’s to come, and what that is, no one really knows. It’s one thing if the shoes are being thrown from the outside, but quite another for them to be thrown from within the same government. Senator Wilson and the rest have an infinite right to disagree with the president, but that disagreement should be held to a respectful level. More respect should also be given to the public. Citizens deserve to know what this bill is really about, not the lies that come from both major political parties. With this mutual respect we can ensure that all three branches of Government are pursuing the same thing: progress and prosperity for America and its citizens.
Editor-in-Chief Mashaal Hashmi
Associate Editor Christine Mounce
Managing Editor Ale Valeriano
Graphic Designer Brandon Nowell
Opinion Editor Connor Swiney
Reporters Ashley Bryce Hayley Bupp Kelly Calame Heather Wolff
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Photographers Cecilia Reyes Esteban Reyes Adviser Mrs. Natalie Brown
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Op i n i o n
Right now, the talk of the entire nation is the health care issue. However, many of you may be wondering what is it that is causing all the debate and disagreement. The background of the health care issue is the enormous increases on expenditures towards health care, which as stated on kaiseredu.org, was around 2.2 trillion, more than triple the amount in 1990. The government’s plan to slow down increasing health care costs is to ensure that every citizen is covered by some form of health care. Why is this necessary, some may ask. The reasoning behind it is that when everyone is covered by insurance, the costs charged by hospitals or other health treatments will decrease, because once everyone is covered by health care, everyone will be able to pay for their own health treatments. With the system in place right now, the people with health care are paying for other peoples’ without it, which causes higher costs, which is a major reason of the increase in health costs. According to centeronbudget.org, Medicare will go bankrupt in 2017, causing a greater increase of rates or a decrease in benefits. Another statistic on perotcharts.com shows that the rising health costs will increase the overall representation of Medicare on GDP, which by 2080, could be close to twenty-five percent, which is almost hard to conceive. The government’s plan makes sense then, right? Costs go down, and everyone will be covered by health care. That’s what the government wants its citizens to think, but they also try to hide some of the hidden effects that could stem from such a bill. Spectator.org states that the health care bill worth almost one trillion dollars is meant to cover 46 million Americans without health care. However, what people overlook is 9.7 million of the uninsured are not even legal citizens of the United States. Secondly, 14 million citizens are eligible for Medicaid, but just refuse to sign up until an actual emergency occurs. In addition to that, 17.6 million could afford health care because their salaries were all over $50,000, they just choose not to. Basically, the trillion dollar health care bill is designated toward 8.2 million Americans. Other major faults in this huge health care reform, as stated on heritage.org,
What happened to decency?