Alistair Taylor’s column on America’s universal healthcare being the “new red scare” shows his lack of investigative journalism.
He is merely repeating the uninformed comment that is spun out by much of the Canadian press.
As a Canadian who lives half the year in the U.S., I have found there is much more to the issue than the convenient Canadian explanation that “it’s those crazy right wing Republicans trying to stop the poor and downtrodden from receiving medical care.”
Yes there are crazy right wingers in the U.S. and there are also crazy left wingers, but the majority of U.S. citizens do not understand the new healthcare proposal. This includes the politicians who passed the more than 2000 page act without reading it. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, made the comment “We will need to pass it to see what’s in it”.
There are a number of problems, such as substantial increases in medical costs for most people, the ability for members of congress and some businesses to opt out, and the huge bureaucracy required to implement an unknown system at an unknown cost, while the U.S. is already trillions of dollars in debt, with no plan to address it.
The majority of Republicans favour a one year moratorium to allow time to see what’s in the bill and what is the fairest way to implement it. Democrats are worried that they might lose control of the senate next year, and therefore control of the healthcare plan. No matter which view you favour, it has nothing to do with a “red scare”, unless you are a journalist still living in the fifties.
Ron Runte
Campbell River