Rudy Can Fail
I might take Rudy Giuliani seriously if he said things that proved he actually thought before he spoke.
Stumping in Iowa he managed to come off like a high school student chewing his pencil to a nub while facing the SAT. First, there are these brilliant lines about health care, and why the government shouldn't be part of it (not sure what he thinks about Medicaid and Medicare, then, either):
He likened the health care industry to that of plasma televisions, saying that if the federal government had required all Americans to own a plasma TV and paid for those who couldn’t afford it, lower quality televisions would cost upwards of $15,000 today, instead of higher quality ones now being available for only $2,000.
“The free market operated, lots of consumers got into the market, they bought TVs, and manufacturers realized that if they reduced the price they’d get more customers,” Giuliani said. “How do you get health care providers to start thinking that way? The only way you do it is to have 70 million customers bring the price down and the quality up.”
After all, you can't live without a plasma TV. Those requiring health care aren't customers buying a product, Rudy--they're getting something we all need, for if you aren't healthy, eventually you aren't. Period. Despite what society might say, I can make it to a ripe old age without a 42" flat screen on which to watch the latest news about Lindsay Lohan. Meanwhile the insurance companies, in our current poorly functioning, inefficient system, have us with our hands on our knees and they aren't doing prostate checks.
And don't tell me health care shouldn't be a right. First, if you're all so religious, you're supposed to care about other people. I missed the part where Jesus/Allah/Jehovah/Buddha/FSM said, "Sink or swim, losers." Second, just think about it selfishly, if appealing to your altruism doesn't work (hey, I feel altruistic towards others without a religiously imposed moral system, what's your problem?). Do you want tons of sick folks surrounding you? Do you want to have to pay for their more drastic emergency care because they aren't insured and don't get to prevent ill-health in the first place? I guess you want to be sure there's something that separates you from the hoi polloi. Once upon a time the rich were pale as the poor worked in the fields; then the rich had tans as the poor worked in factories; now the rich have health, and the poor be damned.
Unfortunately for Giuliani, his inability to reason extends beyond economics and health care to global security.
Citing past examples of conflict where the United Nations had not been a driving force for peace, Giuliani said the organization was often “irrelevant” to international conflicts that it was intended to handle.
“We’ve got to be realistic about the U.N. – it’s a place to go talk,” he said. “It’s not a place you’re likely to go to solve really serious problems.”
After all, no serious problem was ever solved by talking. Can't get along with your wife, Rudy? Divorce her. Can't deal with a foreign nation? Bomb it. How manly and decisive and utterly stupid of you.
Stumping in Iowa he managed to come off like a high school student chewing his pencil to a nub while facing the SAT. First, there are these brilliant lines about health care, and why the government shouldn't be part of it (not sure what he thinks about Medicaid and Medicare, then, either):
He likened the health care industry to that of plasma televisions, saying that if the federal government had required all Americans to own a plasma TV and paid for those who couldn’t afford it, lower quality televisions would cost upwards of $15,000 today, instead of higher quality ones now being available for only $2,000.
“The free market operated, lots of consumers got into the market, they bought TVs, and manufacturers realized that if they reduced the price they’d get more customers,” Giuliani said. “How do you get health care providers to start thinking that way? The only way you do it is to have 70 million customers bring the price down and the quality up.”
After all, you can't live without a plasma TV. Those requiring health care aren't customers buying a product, Rudy--they're getting something we all need, for if you aren't healthy, eventually you aren't. Period. Despite what society might say, I can make it to a ripe old age without a 42" flat screen on which to watch the latest news about Lindsay Lohan. Meanwhile the insurance companies, in our current poorly functioning, inefficient system, have us with our hands on our knees and they aren't doing prostate checks.
And don't tell me health care shouldn't be a right. First, if you're all so religious, you're supposed to care about other people. I missed the part where Jesus/Allah/Jehovah/Buddha/FSM said, "Sink or swim, losers." Second, just think about it selfishly, if appealing to your altruism doesn't work (hey, I feel altruistic towards others without a religiously imposed moral system, what's your problem?). Do you want tons of sick folks surrounding you? Do you want to have to pay for their more drastic emergency care because they aren't insured and don't get to prevent ill-health in the first place? I guess you want to be sure there's something that separates you from the hoi polloi. Once upon a time the rich were pale as the poor worked in the fields; then the rich had tans as the poor worked in factories; now the rich have health, and the poor be damned.
Unfortunately for Giuliani, his inability to reason extends beyond economics and health care to global security.
Citing past examples of conflict where the United Nations had not been a driving force for peace, Giuliani said the organization was often “irrelevant” to international conflicts that it was intended to handle.
“We’ve got to be realistic about the U.N. – it’s a place to go talk,” he said. “It’s not a place you’re likely to go to solve really serious problems.”
After all, no serious problem was ever solved by talking. Can't get along with your wife, Rudy? Divorce her. Can't deal with a foreign nation? Bomb it. How manly and decisive and utterly stupid of you.
Labels: can't spell UN without "un", giuliani, health careless
posted by George at 10:56 AM
3 Comments:
You don't get it, George. He means we should all go to China to get health care, because labor is so cheap and skilled and they make such fine, flatscreen TVs.
There's a great piece on Giuliani's wife in the latest Vanity Fair. She's from Hazleton, PA, which just about says it all. (Hazleton, PA is hands down the creepiest town in the entire East. One recent example: it's where the two elderly Lous -- mayor Lou Barletta and CNN's Lou Dobbs -- are heroically tag-teaming Aztlán.)
One of the best bits in the article is a Giuliani suck relating how it was the wife (then a girlfriend) who realized the city might want to consult with psychologists re how to announce to the world that everybody in the World Trade towers was dead.
Why should you love Judith (born Judi) Giuliani? Because of 9/11, bitches!
You read Rudy's comments and wonder why people still think Democrats and Republicans are the same.
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