BCT Editorial – 5/1/06

This page was last updated on May 1, 2006.

Priorities; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 1, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“How is it that Americans are outraged that the price of gasoline is hovering around $3 a gallon but aren’t a bit upset that 45.8 million working Americans did not have health insurance in 2004?”

[RWC] Give the Times credit. Once it finds a myth it likes, editorials keep repeating it. Please read my critique of “Unfair and unjust.”

“Or that workers who do have employer-paid health-care coverage are seeing more money coming out of their wallets to pay for it, which means that many are working for less than they did a few years ago?”

[RWC] This comment displays a little ignorance. Premiums – just as the “employer’s” portion of Socialist Security taxes – always came out of employee pay; the premiums just didn’t appear on pay stubs because the government doesn’t consider healthcare insurance premiums taxable income.

“Or that millions of Americans, many self-employed, are underinsured or have policies with such high co-pays and deductibles that they can’t afford to use it?

“America’s health-care system is crumbling all around us, and all we can complain about is gasoline. Talk about misplaced priorities.”

[RWC] Don’t Times editorials constantly rail against scare tactics?