Keep Your Hands Off My Medicare!

Perhaps the most amusing (or depressing, depending on how you look at it) part of the current health care 'debate' is how outraged people can get over things they obviously have no understanding of.

From the Washington Post:

In other pockets of the state, the reaction to Democratic proposals has been strong, too. At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville, a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to "keep your government hands off my Medicare."

"I had to politely explain that, 'Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,' " Inglis recalled. "But he wasn't having any of it."

Scenes such as that repeat themselves all over the country - and in fact, a new study finds that 39% of Americans want just that: for the government to stay the hell out of their Medicare.

One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ‘stay out of Medicare,’ something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.

Which isn't even counting the 15% who said they were not sure. I wonder how many of those people are the same seniors who Fox and the right have actually convinced to be afraid of death panels, 'pulling the plug on grandma', and other demagoguery.

The same poll shows that 38% of Americans either don't believe or are unsure about Obama being born in the United States. Which is distressing until you realize that 10% either don't know or aren't sure that Hawaii is in fact a state in the union.

In fact, most people seem to forget that Medicare, in addition to being a government run program, is an extremely good one. On MSNBC, when Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) began enumerating the benefits of Medicare, Maria Bartiromo childishly responded "how come you don't use it? You don't have it." To which Rep. Weiner responded, “Because I’m not 65. I would love it... Medicare for someone age 45? I would take it in a heartbeat, and frankly so would you."