Town Hall HealthScare Angst Explained

Members of Congress seem truly shocked to find that most citizens have not read the 1,000 page or 600 page HealthScare bills in Congress and the Senate respectively. Both the hapless (Spector/PA) and the remarkable (McCaskill/MO) were amazed to hear the anger out there. Clearly some of these citizens on both sides of the issue were encouraged to portray angry individualist colonial patriots by people who make several million a year working for large corporations like Newscorp, GE, or Time Warner.

Thirdgarage offers this reasoned explanation for this anger, which Congress, the President and the millionaire Talk-Heads might have missed, during their marathon jab-fest:

1) Roll back the clock. Leaving aside the citizens who are clearly deranged, most of us know that the "Recession" was not the usual cyclical result of market forces; it was the direct result of banks mistaking recklessness for risk and moving trillions of dollars among themselves, skimming billions from the top, while regulators slept. Reasonable citizens know that Wall St. and Washington forced this false recession onto their backs. Guess what? They are really mad at that and want an apology.

2) Leaving aside the usual wackos, many reasonable people have a legitimate fear of having the government run another healthcare agency. They not only know that the recession was manufactured by corporations and government, but they also look at this thing called Iraq. Remember that one? They know that the government mismanaged its Iraq foray, no matter how they feel about the right or wrong of it. The government dropped trillions of borrowed dollars there. Guess what? People are upset about it and want an apology.

3) Citizens may not have read the HealthScare bills, preferring War & Peace this summer, but they know that the states will take part in any new government/corporate health scheme. That means that politicos in places like Albany, Sacramento, Harrisburg (PA) and Jefferson City (MO) will help to manage the system's billions. Citizens have several terms for this possibility: Espada, Rudy the B, Sanford and Espada again. Not to mention Corrupt and Stupid. Every time Mr. Espada, the Dem/Rep/Dem, gets his picture in the paper, Mr Obama's plan takes a nosedive. The guy and his son have government jobs and make great dough running healthcare clinics! Hello! People are really angry when a politician rubs his own corruption in their faces every week!

4) Here is the Smoking Gun: some people do fear the government running healthcare and some people really do mistrust corporate America to do it. But what just about everyone fears is a secret combination of government and Corporate America colluding to run something. Like SubPrime, like Iraq, like Auto-Wrecks or AIG-eeze!

5) Let's end on a high note by getting back to Sen McCaskill. She actually made Bill O'Righty have a civil conversation about healthcare. Why isn't she taking the national lead on this!? She's your sister, your mom, your lawyer and your girlfriend all wrapped up in one! I'll bet that deep down she knows that Americans were set up to expect much more on healthcare. I'll bet she knows that asking Congress and Lobbyists to invent something really cool and affordable would be like asking AT&T to invent the iphone or NBC/GE to invent Tivo. They couldn't and the Lob-Cong in D.C. can't either. Sen Claire, we're begging, take charge! We trust you to get those apologies so that we can move on.