Ya know what's so sad about all those Teabaggers with their night terrors over health care,

[Jackpine Radical]

so afraid they'll lose their private plans (or whatever the hell it is that's causing them to rage, scream and spatter their frothy drool on passersby)?

Nowhere in America is there a private health care plan, available to people of ordinary means, that can by any stretch of the imagination be called adequate. 20 or 30 years ago, there still were some moderately good ones, like the Blues before they went for-profit. Today, unless you are a millionaire, there are none. None. Every one of them is bounded by exclusions, copays, rescission policies, annual and/or lifetime caps, and every one of them will quit working entirely once you lose your job and lose your ability to pay for it. The only exceptions are the public plans like Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA.

Any American whose insurance is through a private plan, whether through the employer or otherwise, and who thinks their plan is a good one, is deluded. Most likely they simply haven't put it to a real test, like finding out what happens if they (God forbid!) get an expensive form of cancer. And if they feel comfortable and secure with their insurance they certainly have not experienced what happens when they (or their insured spouse) gets so ill that they lose their job. It is at that point that people discover a cruel joke named COBRA. Sure they can keep their insurance--as long as the COBRA period lasts (I think 18 months), and as long as they can keep up those modest payments of $1200 a month or so.

I mean, good God, what do those people think they're fighting for? What do they think they're fighting AGAINST? If it were legal, I'd like to catch a few and study them in a lab.

Now, I imagine everyone on this board except for a couple of benighted trolls already knows everything I've mentioned here, but I've just been having one of those evenings of deep perplexity, and somehow I had to get this stuff off my chest as I watch our chances for a reasonable health care system in America once more go down in flames despite the fact that two-thirds of the country know better, and have a damned good idea of what's wrong and what needs to be done to fix it.

[the blues]

1. I believe the Teabaggers are fighting against...

...anything the Democratic Party puts forward, even if it works against everyone's best interests. It is sad; it's also sad that the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress can't muster enough collective guts to do what most citizens want anyway and friggin' give Teabaggers their medicine whether they like it or not.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. The same people probably don't have healthcare and will go to the ER

they vote against themselves

[Joe the Liberal]

3. The teabaggers are a very good example of how well brainwashing works. n/t

[indepat]

4. Your assertion encapsulates the sheer lunacy so rampant in our right-wing society

wherein almost all facets of public policy are detrimental to our society and this Republic. :D