Alan: The title of the following Newsmaxx article (linked by The National Review) demonstrates the essential vapidity of contemporary "conservativism."
Although Stuart is crystal clear -- as "all" liberals are -- that Obamacare is far inferior to single payer healthcare, the Affordable Health Act embodies the great good of being"a foot in the door." http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/10/obamas-preference-for-single-payer.html
On the other hand, the "conservative" world view has grown so dependent on fragmented decontextualization that Republicans now grope at any "shard of meaning" hoping it bolsters their case piecemeal, and that spotlighting "semantic smithereens" will help them "make their case."
Truth be told, the rest of the Obamacare "rollout" does not much matter.
It might even be best (from the liberal-progressive vantage) if Obamacare were to fail over the next few years.
Why?
By the earliest date Obamacare could be repealed, 25 to 35 million formerly disenfranchised Americans will have health insurance for the first time.
Since the Affordable Health Act normalizes "universal care," it will be impossible to disenfranchise these new stake holders without 1.) fighting in the streets, 2.) visceral revulsion at the Republican Party, and 3.) a newfound political passion that transforms first-time stakeholders from politically apathetic non-participants to Democratic Party "pavement pounders."
Remember: the only idea Republicans have ever had for "universal healthcare" is "the individual mandate," which, under Obamacare, is vilified as "the worst occurrence in American history."
Lamentably, there is no other arrow in the "conservative" quiver. Nor will right-wing reactionaries entertain any workable plan for universal healthcare.
Why?
American conservatives perceive a sharply-delineated racial and socio-economic threshold above which people deserve some measure of government assistance, and below which people deserve to die - the sooner the better. This is the hard, central fact of contemporary "conservatism." Almost "to a man," these people have apotheosized themselves and now sitting on God's usurped throne are rabid to pass final judgment.
So, when/if Obamacare fails, the GOP has NOTHING to offer by way of replacement. Nothing at all. Nada. Zilch. Niente. Nihil.
The only alternative to the failure of Obamacare will be a form of government-sponsored universal care (like Canada's single payer system), or some similar government-managed system that enables universal, high-quality care at about half the per capita cost that now obtains in the United States.
Here's "The Chart": http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/03/national-geographic-chart-of-per-capita.html
Personally, I would like to see Obamacare modified over time so that it evolves into something like "single-payer" without another round of devastating social upheaval.
Truth be told, Obamacare's failure is probably the quickest path to government-operated univervsal healthcare."
Perhaps Democrats should let Republican opposition slowly kill the Affordable Health Act so that the Democratic Party -- expanded by an additional 25 million members -- drives the final nail into the coffin that Republicans have busily built themselves.
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Jon Stewart a Conservative Darling for Zinging Obamacare (Video)
Wednesday, 23 Oct 2013
Conservatives have found an unlikely hero in Jon Stewart after the host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" continues to zing President Barack Obama, Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, and the glitch-riddled HealthCare.gov rollout this week on his satirical news show.
The rocky introduction of HealthCare.gov has garnered some blunt criticism from Stewart, who again on Monday bashed the website where consumers can sign up for Obamacare.
So far, Stewart has compared Obama to "Gil," the unfortunate salesman from "The Simpsons," freaked out about the site's broken calculator ("The one thing that's been included in computers since 1972 — you couldn't make THAT work?"), and gone toe-to-toe with Sebelius.
"I'm going to try and download every movie ever made, and you're going to try to sign up for Obamacare, and we'll see which happens first," he challenged her last week.
Several conservative news outlets, including The Blaze and Fox Nation, have mentioned Stewart's segments, and Republican political action committee America Rising even highlighted his comments on Twitter this week.
Last week during an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, Republican Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin also cited Stewart, TheBlaze.com noted.
"One issue we have, the media won't ask the question about why are you treating families different than big business," he said. "You need Jon Stewart on Comedy Central to ask Secretary Sebelius, 'Hey, why won't you treat these two equally?' and she won't answer it. That's how pathetic news reporting has come when they won't ask tough questions to the administration."
Obama addressed the problems with HealthCare.gov Monday during a speech in the White House Rose Garden.
"The point is the essence of the law, the health insurance that's available to people, is working just fine. In some cases, actually, it's exceeding expectations. The prices are lower than we expected. The choice is greater than we expected," he said.
"But the problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody... Precisely because the product is good, I want the cash registers to work, I want the checkout lines to be smooth, so I want people to be able to get this great product. And there's no excuse for the problems. And these problems are getting fixed."
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