Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Simplest Justification for a Public Option


Though not the least bit surprising, Republicans have been manipulating the current health-care debate with incessant partisan posturing, lies and deception and endless anti-Obama/liberal propaganda. But consider the following very simple case for a truly meaningful public option:

-Americans expect and receive government-provided free education: Democracy
-Americans expect and receive government-provided free police protection: Democracy
-Americans expect and receive government-provided free fire protection: Democracy-Americans expect and receive government-provided free sanitation: Democracy
-Americans expect and receive government-provided free libraries: Democracy
-Americans expect and receive government-provided free criminal defense: Democracy-Americans expect and receive government provided free food stamps/welfare: Democracy
-American veterans expect and receive government-provided healthcare: Democracy
-If average Americans were to receive government-provided health care: SOCIALISM!!??

What's wrong with this picture? Need I say more...


On another note, the film I produced, SERIOUS MOONLIGHT, which was written by my late wife Adrienne Shelly (WAITRESS), will have its U.S. premiere and afterparty December 3rd in NYC. This event will also serve as the 2009 Adrienne Shelly Foundation fundraising gala, and proceeds will go towards helping ASF achieve its mission of supporting women filmmakers. Tickets are $150. Please join me, our stars Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, our director Cheryl Hines and others at this red-carpet event. Tickets are extremely limited (only 30 left!). To purchase, please call Jessica at 212-381-1716.

ASF is a 501 c 3 tax-exempt, non-profit organization which provides scholarships, grants, finishing funds, screenwriting fellowships and living stipends at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts/Kanbar Institute of Film; Columbia University; American Film Institute; Women in Film; IFP; the Nantucket Film Festival; the Tribeca Film Institute; and the Sundance Institute. Your generous contribution will go a long way towards helping us achieve this very important mission. Please click here to make a donation. Thank you.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you miss the point, vis-a-vis the Republicans: they think ALL those things -- Free Education, Free Food Stamps -- are socialistic!

Anonymous said...

What wrong? The conservatives are still running the show even though the Dems control the White House, Senate and House. They still control the corporate media which feeds the lies hate and scare tactics of the Repubs.

I voted for change. I did not vote for continued Repubs being elevated above the Dems. How did we lose control of what is going on? Low poll numbers have more to do with frustrated folks like me than being against the Obama agenda. Why are the conservative Dems given so much power?

Athena Smith said...

There always has been an ignorance concerning the term, here in the US. Besides the services you have already mentioned, let me add that the state (to use the Marxian term)does own quite a few means of production.Highways, schools, ports, airports, nuclear plants, NASA...

Mark said...

The public (health-care insurance) option is not "government-provided health care".

As proposed:
1) It would be a government launched insurance company, that does not receive ongoing government subsidies.

2) a person voluntarily buys into that option in order to cover the costs of their health care.

3) My insurance provider is no more a healthcare provider than my home owners insurance provider is a home builder or mortgage lender.

Anonymous said...

Holy mother...except for the GIANT, mother-of-all facts that you miss..

Those things are not free! They have a cost, a cost that is covered by tax dollars!

I blame the lack of economics classes in schools behind the plight of the ignorant liberal.