Did you know that the Affordable Care Act is a job killer? I know that, because the TV told me, like 1,000 times. If jobs are like the people of Baltimore, the Affordable Care Act is like Chris and Snoop, out there just murdering all of them for President Marlo and throwing the bodies in vacant row houses for Lester to eventually find. So many senseless job killings, and for what? So some poor people can go to a doctor? If they wanted to see a doctor, they shouldn't have decided to be poor in the first place!
Luckily, the Republicans know what to do about all this murdering, so they're shutting down the government. I mean, sure, shutting down the government will put actual people out of work right now instead of hypothetical future people, but if you want to talk about facts, you're sort of missing the point. The point is Republicans are going to hold their breath until everyone has no health care and 14 guns, and you can't make them breathe because you're not the boss of them. So there.
I don't really want to talk about the government shut down though. It's all silly political theater. Either they'll come to an agreement today or tomorrow, or maybe never and we're all going to die, but I don't care a lot either way. I do want to talk about job killing a little though, because the TV has been lying to me.
If I worked somewhere and they told me that I was being laid off because the government says they have to give me health insurance now and they don't want to pay for that shit, I wouldn't blame the government for my situation. If my employer would rather lay me off than meet the basic social responsibility of providing me with health care, that's on my employer. I realize it's easy to blame government, especially if you're a Republican and you blame government for everything, but that doesn't make it true.
What else are we supposed to do? We're stuck with this employer-based health insurance system. It isn't the best system, just ask Europe and Canada, but apparently it's the only one we can have because if I suggested single-payer health care for America Ted Cruz and Rand Paul would show up at my apartment later to kill me with their bare hands. I mean, what do those stupid Europeans know about anything? Some of them can't even drive on the right side of the road.
So in a country where we don't have other options, all we can do, before we even start to figure out what to do with unemployed people, is force employers to provide insurance for the people who work for them. And we only have to force them because too many weren't doing it on their own. I know it's expensive, and that sucks, but you couldn't get 20 votes in Congress for a bill with real price controls because that would suggest we don't have blind faith in the magic power of the free market. So, once again, we're stuck with our own stupidity and without a lot of good solutions.
You can make all the excuses for businesses that you want, but look, since the Reagan administration, big businesses in this country have been allowed, if not encouraged, to be robber barons. Now we're asking them to do one simple thing, and they're threatening to cut jobs instead of doing it. "We can't afford it" is not a good enough reason to not give people access to health care.
When the President was first elected and started talking about finding a way to get millions of people health insurance, one of the arguments against it was "won't that mean I'll have to wait longer to see a doctor?" Yes, yes it will. Not if you're bleeding from your eyes, but yes, you might not be able to take your whiny, hypochondriac ass to the doctor 15 times a year for no good reason. Sorry. Eat a fucking apple or something.
And this is the part Republicans aren't being honest about. They don't really want cost controls because that would be socialism. They also don't want people who already have insurance to have to share their doctors, because that would be inconvenient. Republicans are cool with the way things were, which, come to think of it, sort of sums up the Republican position on everything. But I'm not cool with the way things were, and the Affordable Care Act is a tiny little bit better, and that's better than nothing.
If you're so worried about jobs, do something about jobs. Like a real stimulus bill with spending for fixing roads and bridges. And high speed trains. I don't really get the high speed trains thing, but Chris Matthews won't shut up about them and I feel like we should probably throw him a bone. Or, even easier, just stop cutting things like food stamps. Did you know food stamps are specifically designed to both feed poor people and stimulate the economy, because people who get food stamps tend to spend them immediately at a local business on, ya know, food? True story.
Republicans want to make everything about jobs, except bills that could actually create jobs, those are about spending for some reason. But health care bills aren't about jobs, they're about health care. Just like environmental protection laws aren't about jobs, they're about environmental protection. Everything has a downside, that doesn't mean you don't do anything. It means you do the right thing and then you do other things to mitigate the downside. That's how grown-ups solve problems. Then again, our country isn't really run by grown-ups at the moment.
If you're so worried about jobs, do something about jobs. Like a real stimulus bill with spending for fixing roads and bridges. And high speed trains. I don't really get the high speed trains thing, but Chris Matthews won't shut up about them and I feel like we should probably throw him a bone. Or, even easier, just stop cutting things like food stamps. Did you know food stamps are specifically designed to both feed poor people and stimulate the economy, because people who get food stamps tend to spend them immediately at a local business on, ya know, food? True story.
Republicans want to make everything about jobs, except bills that could actually create jobs, those are about spending for some reason. But health care bills aren't about jobs, they're about health care. Just like environmental protection laws aren't about jobs, they're about environmental protection. Everything has a downside, that doesn't mean you don't do anything. It means you do the right thing and then you do other things to mitigate the downside. That's how grown-ups solve problems. Then again, our country isn't really run by grown-ups at the moment.
