Duane Lester, a Missouri Blogger who for the last few years has worked to spout his right-wing screed decided to respond this week to the campaign for Medicaid Expansion in Jefferson City this week, and his take is... interesting at best.
http://themissouritorch.com/...
That’s what a sign I saw in the Missouri State Capitol said as it was held aloft by the loud, self-righteous shuffling masses being directed around the building by their orange vested union handlers.
How obscene.
Here’s the Paradigm Shift.
Medicaid is, at its root, immoral.
Lester continues his rant, at one point arguing:
Think of it this way: Would it be moral for you to demand from me that I surrender my money so that you could give it to someone else to pay for their medical needs? Not ask for a donation, but point a gun at me and demand that I cough up a portion of my property?
Of course that isn’t moral. That’s called armed robbery.
This argument, of course, is that all taxation in the end amounts to robbery.
This belief, which has often been used by tax dodgers and those who have refused to pay taxes of any forms has resulted in an interesting set of volleys from advocates on both sides of the issue in Missouri.
Timothy McBride, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis found himself struggling with reason as the basic argument of the opposition has boiled down to: everyone on medicaid is a thief, or beneficiary of thievery.
Lester continues that by moving to Medicaid expansion, we should expect poorly trained doctors and roach infested hospitals.
.
Causing the innovative, highly trained and effective health care system in the world to become a third rate shadow of its former self is heartless.
Turning the health care system my children will someday turn into an Americanized version of a dirty, roach-filled third world clinic isn’t compassionate. It’s cruel.
As we debate the issues, we have to sometimes look at the mindset that drives the wild-eyed conservatives.
Lester gives a few key ideas:
First of all, there’s no compassion at the point of a gun, and I’ve already made it clear that’s how Medicaid is funded. People aren’t “donating” to it. They are being plundered. You can’t be compassionate if you’re not given a choice.
Second, where is the compassion is a program that offers treatment, adding millions to the rolls, but can’t deliver because government intervention in medicine is creating doctor shortages across the country, especially where Medicaid patients are concerned? There’s no compassion in putting someone on a waiting list.
Anything you do without a choice - ie, a tax - is at the point of a gun. This, I assume, would as Prof. McBride argues above also include funding for any other government initiative of any form.
The Government, you see, is responsible for doctor shortages - and it is because Doctors are trying to avoid the government. There are a few timeline issues with that problem, but more importantly there are also issues with an overwhelming fear of the government and an assumption that people make career path decisions based on perceived government plans years in advance (medical training can be up to 10 years timeframe, long before ACA/Medicaid expansion/etc.)