BCT Editorial – 9/21/07

This page was last updated on September 23, 2007.

Debatable; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 21, 2007. At the time I wrote this critique, the editorial was no longer on the Times website.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“It didn’t take long for critics to stamp the title ‘Hillarycare’ on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s health-care proposal, bringing up memories of her failed health-care plan in her husband’s first term in office.

“But this derisive attitude is a huge mistake. The inevitable can’t be postponed much longer, and the time for presidential candidates to be talking about what they would do about it is now. After all, health care accounts for one-seventh of the U.S. economy.”

[RWC] Translation: Ignore Mrs. Clinton’s previous attempt at socialized medicine.

“If nothing else, Clinton’s plan moves this topic into the presidential arena, which is where it should be because the next chief executive is going to have to deal with a health-care crisis of epic proportions.”

[RWC] I guess we know which horse the Times is riding. John Edwards is a presidential candidate and he released his plan seven months before Mrs. Clinton.

“The current, employer-based system of health care has become more expensive, both for employers and employees. Costs keep going up and show no signs of abating. (The Kaiser Family Foundation reported earlier in the month that the average cost of family coverage in 2007 is $12,106.)

“The number of uninsured and underinsured Americans continues to climb, and Medicare and Medicaid are in need of serious reform to lower costs before the baby boom generation busts them.

“Instead of reacting with taunts like ‘Hillarycare’ and ‘socialized medicine,’ Clinton’s critics need to put forth proposals of their own that detail what they would do to address the problem.”

[RWC] I really get a kick out of people who don’t like accurate labels. “Socialized medicine” is not a taunt. Just review Mrs. Clinton’s 1990s healthcare proposal and her current proposal and try to conclude they are anything but socialized medicine. Mrs. Clinton is not alone, of course. In the plan proposed by Mr. Edwards, he recently said he would mandate – yes, mandate – checkups. Use of terms like Hillarycare and socialized medicine bothers the Times because the Times knows we understand what those terms mean.

Of course, the editorial ignores the fact the current problem didn’t crop up until World War II and the government’s first meddling in the healthcare market.

Finally, is it just me, or does this editorial appear to defend socialized medicine proposals? I ask because the Times editorial board claims it does not support such programs. If the Times really does support something it calls “a market-based approach to health-care reform,” why was it not mentioned in this editorial?