Earlier today, in my post about Rachel Maddow's excellent report exposing the GOP thuggery at Congressional Town Hall meetings, I wrote:
You'll notice there are a lot of angry older people seen in the video from these events. I hope they've all stopped accepting Medicare. Ha. That's the thing about so many of the angry folk. Many are beneficiaries of the very programs they're complaining about. At the Town Hall meetings, might be worth having members of Congress ask who is getting Medicare (or Medicaid or Social Security.) You'll see a lot of hypocrites in the audience.Surprisingly, we keep seeing reports that many Americans don't know that Medicare and Medicaid are government programs. Nor do some right-wing pundits (supposed "experts") who appear on CNN. Atrios has the quote from Arthur Laffer, an economist who is founder and Chairman of the Laffer Group:
If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.Um. Okay. Medicare and Medicaid are government programs. We just celebrated the 44th anniversary of President Johnson signing the bill into law. Medicare has its own website: www.medicare.gov. (That .gov url should be a clue.)
Media Matters got the video of Laffer being quite smug as he makes that really stupid statement. it's after the break.
This ignorance is another hurdle in the quest for health insurance reform.
