Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
We vigorously oppose the Senate health-care reform bill. And we're so glad it was approved for debate Saturday night.
Yes, you read that right. We're glad it got over the procedural hurdle so it can be debated starting next week.
We think it's that bad -- that it should get all the debate and exposure it can.
In fact, in that regard, Democrats did Republicans a huge favor Saturday in mustering the 60 votes needed to begin debate and avoid a filibuster. Think about it: If Republicans had been successful in blocking debate on the bill, they would have become the story, they would be the issue in the media's minds. Obstructionists! Scrooges!
Now, the bill will see daylight, with all the disinfectant that entails. It will be the issue.
For instance, senior citizens may be interested to know just how much of a shift in resources the Democrats want to pull off -- hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to younger people who truly need the money. You old people are living too long, sucking up too many resources.
Indeed, as if to bolster the Democratic position right on cue, 60 Minutes Sunday night aired a segment on how wasteful it is to spend health-care money on the elderly infirm -- and how they should just consider dying instead.
Dying well may be an art form, certainly. But shouldn't that be left up to the "artist," and not the government?
Democratic health care "reforms" include giving the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's recommendations essentially the weight of law. Remember, that's the task force that last week decided -- apparently as a cost-saving measure -- that women don't need to get routine mammograms until age 50, rather than 40.
Consider: If they're willing to say 40-year-old women don't need routine mammograms, how many procedures are they likely to strip from senior care?
You can expect other horrendous aspects of this 2,000-page monstrosity to be seeping forth in the days and weeks to come.
Thank goodness Republicans didn't get their wish! The Democratic agenda need not be kept hidden.
That agenda appears more and more to be centered not around health care but around government control of it. This is a bill about socialism as much as anything. The bill's massive shift in resources from senior citizens -- who have worked and paid taxes for decades and deserve more consideration than this -- is a significant stride into socialism in its attempt to redistribute wealth.
When you think about it, using government to redistribute wealth is one of the president's few campaign promises he's kept.
You might be sickened by how it's being redistributed, too: To buy her vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid included a nearly $300 million earmark for Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's state. Oh, and she'll now be playing host to a fund-raiser for Mr. Reid.
Should we debate all this?
You're doggone right we should.
It'd be downright unhealthy not to.
