They’d rather die than have health care
by digby
Here are some quotes from today’s Koch sponsored Americans For Prosperity rally in Washington:
Mother, wife and breast cancer survivor Tracy Walsh:
“It’s [ObamaCare] about controlling who gets medical treatments and which medical treatments they get.”
“It seems we learn something new and awful every single week since ObamaCare passed.”
“None of these things promote freedom or liberty.”
“I believe this court will and they must side with Liberty,”
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson:
“This isn’t about healthcare, it’s about freedom.”
Florida Rep. Allen West:
“This healthcare law is not in concert with the Constitution of the United States of America.”
“The Supreme Court needs to make the right decision.”
“No matter what the Supreme Court decides, come November of this year, we are going to send Barack Hussein Obama, back to Illinois.”
“We are going to restore this constitutional republic.”
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint:
“Don’t believe for one minute we can fix ObamaCare.”
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul:
“Hang in there, we’re going to beat this bill.”
AFP Pennsylvania President Jennifer Stefano:
“Hands off my family, hands off my work and hands off my healthcare, or as we say in Philadelphia, yo President Obama don’t tread on this mama.”
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey:
“Remember, if the federal government has the power to force you and buy the health insurance plan that they dictate, if we accept the idea that is a permissible power by the federal government, trust me, it doesn’t end there.”
“The president to the United States let us down by pursuing and enacting this.”
AFP President Tim Phillips:
“Anywhere in the world when you’re in trouble, medically speaking, where do you come? You come right here. Why do you come, because we have the best choices.”
Canadian Shona Holmes, survived brain cancer but nearly died due to waiting on the Canadian government system:
“I was in a lot of trouble in Canada where we have government mandated insurance.”
“The one thing that I have learned from all that I have seen that it is impossible to undo this once it is done.”
“It’s up to you to stop this.”
President of Concerned Women for America Penny Nance :
“Are you on the side of liberty?”
Former GOP presidential candidate and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann:
“The crown jewel of Socialism is socialized medicine. You understand the importance of this issue.”
“We see before us a bill that will change the United States forever.”
“Power comes from us, not from this marble building behind us.”
“We will not wave the white flag of surrender when it comes to liberty and our healthcare.”
“We stand united.”
Rep. Steve King
“This American liberty is a precious thing, it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world.”
I would love to know why anyone thinks that the result of the Supreme Court striking down Obamacare will be a rush to pass single payer. I’d love for that to be true, since today’s oral arguments certainly indicated that the court may very well strike it down, but the other half of the country would rather die — literally — than have any kind of government involvement in health care. I certainly hope that people aren’t bullshitting themselves on this point.
I would say that it’s far more likely that the Democrats will be hard pressed to even defend Medicare from getting the ax at this point. This country is in the grip of some people who have been so brainwashed that they have lost their relationship to reality itself. Even nations run by right wing dictators aren’t this self-destructive. We are the most powerful nation on earth — and we’re basically at the mercy of a group of primitive paranoids:
Update: From TPM:
[I]t sounded and looked exactly like every other AFP-backed tea party rally on health care has since the 2010 wave election. The protesters were bused in from around the country and most of them held the ubiquitous pre-printed “Hands Off My Healthcare” signs. Though there was a smattering of the nastier stuff on handmade placards, including at least one birther sign and another reading simply, “Obama Terrorist,” for the most part was a slick, well-organized gathering of middle-aged and senior conservative Americans — nothing like the fiery, chaotic town hall events that came to characterize the health care debate in 2009.Phillips said there’s good reason for that: The tea party health care fight was always about politics, and whatever happened at the court Tuesday isn’t likely to change that.“No matter what the court does, [the health care law] will be an issue in November,” Phillips said. “The president is embracing this legislation. Good. We’re going to help him do that.”
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