GOP obstructionism has killed 44,000 people in the last year

[csziggy]

If the figures we have been using - that 44-45 THOUSAND people die per year because of lack of health insurance - are true, then we need to frame our argument against GOP candidates the way my subject line reads. Blocking health insurance coverage has killed tens of thousands of Americans. GOP members of Congress have killed over forty thousand US citizens. Republicans care so little for people, they play politics while we die.

Sure, I understand that health insurance is NOT health care and that under the new health insurance regulations, people will still be without health CARE and people will still die. Even knowing that 90% of the politicians calling themselves Democrats will be spineless and not have the balls to go in and do the work to get real health CARE reform, I still believe that our best chance of getting the changes to make this flawed HCR bill closer to what we want is to defeat Republican candidates.

With that in mind, I think we need to frame our arguments to achieve that end and I know damn well the Democratic Party will not come out with anything powerful enough. So let's do it from the ground up.

Republicans KILL Americans by blocking health car reform GOP members of Congress killed over 40,000 US citizens by being obstructionists.

[NightWatcher]

1. if "saving lives" were the goal, OUR Congress would give us Single Payer/MFA

this creates customers for a private industry

[indepat]

2. Something 'pukes will gladly and willingly do time and time again to achieve their

political agenda. :P

[xultar]

3. Seriously? Obama should have pushed for this avenue after he got face palmed

by Grassley and Snowe.

So you can't completely blame the GOP. If the WH would have side stepped the gop bastards last fall we'd have saved some of those folks.

[The_Commonist]

4. I just don't like things like this.

I find this disingenuous and hyperbolic and dangerous.

Over 40,000 people who were not covered by some sort of insurance died this year from auto accidents, heart attacks, cancer, gunshot wounds, diabetes, AIDS, and old age. Those are the things that killed them. If every one of those people was covered, many of them would have died anyway. Many people who WERE covered died as well. That's life in a body on a planet.

What I see here is an excuse to use the word GOP as many times as possible in sentences along with words like "killed" and "obstructionism" and "die" and "play politics" and "thousands." I see the word kill or killed 5 times, and the word die 3 times.

I know you think you are trying to make a clever point. I just think that point is silly and overbearing. I think it cheapens the dialogue, and brings us down to a level where we don't belong. I mean sure, you can take the low road if you wish, I'm not going to stop you. I'm just not interested in playing that game anymore.

I do happen to think you are right, there are people, particularly "conservatives," and specifically whacko dominionist bigot psychopaths who are happily and even lustily trying to kill off as many people on the planet as they possibly can. It's so much bigger than simply the healthcare debate. That's just the internal purge component. Something has to be done, and it ain't just the "GOP."

With that in mind, I don't think it's helpful or productive to frame things in that fashion. It sounds like Glen Beck. I don't intend to start ranting like Rush. It sounds looney. It turns people off. Nobody wants to be in the room with you when you talk that way.

I don't know, or may be they do. Knock yourself out...

[csziggy]

5. The high road has not gotten the results we want

Instead we've gotten a watered down bill that makes no one happy. At this point, I am willing to sink to the GOP level to get more progressives in office. Heck, at this point I will even take more DLC Democrats.

George Lakoff tried for years to get the Democratic Party to frame our issues so we could get our agenda across. Really what I am trying to do is to get people to frame the argument better. The subject line in my OP was over the top - but maybe it is what we need to counter the "Death Panels" and "Unplug Grandma" crap from the GOP and from the Tea Party.

But if the statistics that lack of health care - or even health insurance - have caused more Americans to die, then my over the top subject line is true. Republican obstructionism has killed tens of thousands of Americans just in the year we have been trying to get real health care reform done. How many more Americans will die waiting for our real goal of getting health CARE for all?