South Carolina’s Republican Representative Joe Wilson showed his true feelings yesterday during President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress concerning healthcare. As the president affirmed Congress that his public option for Americans would not insure illegal immigrants, the congressman abruptly shouted “You lie!”
Wilson’s rude behavior was quickly denounced on both sides of the aisle. “I was embarrassed for the chamber and a Congress I love. It demeaned the institution,” Vice President Joe Biden said on ABC’s Good Morning America.
Wilson later apologized to President Obama in a statement, “This evening I let my emotions get the best of me. While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.”
Wilson’s behavior gave credence to the president’s assessment that Republicans are more interested in killing any health care package instead of an amicable solution for all Americans.
Social Security benefits may shrink next year as a result of decreased consumer prices and expected low inflation. The combination of the two factors means there may not be a cost-of-living increase for the millions of elder Americans who rely on them for their subsistence.
Reducing benefits is prohibited by law so the actual shrinkage won’t be reflected in money senior citizens receive in monthly checks. Instead, as a result of rising healthcare cost, especially in Medicare Part B premiums, which are generally deducted from Social Security payments, recipients will have to pay more.
Elderly people face higher prices because they spend a vast amount of their monthly income on healthcare. This year’s average monthly benefit for retirees is $1,153. According to the Associated Press, average monthly premiums are set to go from $28 this year to $30 next year, though they vary by plan.
This data is just another reason why Americans need a public option. Republicans’ fabrication of “death panels,” which served as a rallying cry among conservative dissidents of the president’s healthcare reform, may soon become a real option for our incompetent politicians as a cost-cutting measure.
A number of defamed Barack Obama posters have surfaced throughout Los Angeles depicting the president as Batman nemesis “The Joker.”
With a painted white face, dark circles around the eyes, and two red scars curling up from the corner of the mouth, the posters also have the word “socialism” printed below the president’s head, which many believe was prompted by Obama’s recent healthcare and stimulus spending.
As Republicans and Democrats battle it out over healthcare reform, many feel that this is the beginning of a government-run healthcare system. It is unclear who is producing and distributing the posters as of yet.
As a Canadian by birth who has spent all of their adult life in the United States, I am accustomed to egregious stereotypes, insipid jokes, and unbridled ignorance from Americans towards the land of my birth. After much exposure to all of these, nothing really surprises me anymore when it comes to the misguided nationalist zeal of many jingoistic Americans on the right (and left might I add).
However, in light of the recent debate on health-care reform in the US, Canada has once again been brought into the fray by proponents of the current privatized order as an example of everything wrong with a socialized system of medicine. Despite the fact that most of their claims are complete falsehoods, if not out and out fabrications, take it upon partisan hack, and professional liar/demagogue Bill O’ Reilly to take statistical dishonesty to a new plateau of horseshit.
