As an adolescent, and into my early teens, I used Paul’s fear of cumberbuns, a very real fear that my older brother and I had happily and cleverly instilled in him, as an effective tool. Whenever I wanted to dissuade Paul from following me or tagging along when I went to meet my friends I would tell him that I was going to kill cumberbuns.
As an older brother, the responsibility naturally fell on me to protect the homestead from roving packs of cumberbuns that may have been sighted in the area. Paul bought it. It worked every time. Although Paul had never actually seen a cumberbun, he was sure that he didn’t want to.
Listening to the talking heads on Fox News over the past couple of days I couldn’t help but be reminded of Paul and the dreaded cumberbuns. Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly and others have teamed up with Rush Limbaugh, right wing political hacks and libertarian kooks like Ron Paul to create and unleash a rabid pack of snarling and snapping cumberbuns on the public. The objective? Defeat all efforts to reform health care. Amazingly, an enormous number of adults are falling for the same ploy that worked so well on my little brother when he was five years old.
It’s all entirely made up, of course, but who wouldn’t be afraid of the vicious and blood curdling things they say will happen if health care reform is passed into law? Here are just a few Fox News Cumberbuns, together with their scientifically determined “Scary Scores.”
“The Government Is Gonna Kill Grandma” Cumberbun: Government bureaucrats, mostly pimply young men with pasty complexions and old women with mustaches and waxy, pencil thin eyebrows, will be determining who gets care and who doesn’t. Doctors won’t be involved in the decisions. Particularly, not your doctor. “Who cares about your grandma?” the heartless, brassy bureaucrat will say. “The old broad’s gonna die pretty soon anyway. Might as well be now, eh? Save the system a buck.” (Scary Score 89)
Somehow people forget that bureaucrats are already deciding who gets what treatment and when. It’s nothing new… they’ve been doing it since at least the Nixon administration. It’s just that most of the bureaucrats work for insurance companies. Talk about an incentive to cut benefits and save a buck!
Other bureaucrats work in hospital administrative offices. Primarily, they are gate keepers. Their jobs mainly involve keeping the uninsured and under-insured on the outside of the emergency room door. Should any uninsured folks make it into the ER with emergencies for which the hospital must by law provide treatment, the bureaucrats’ duties switch to pushing the uninsured out the door quickly and with as little treatment as the law will allow.
“The Government Is Gonna Kill You” Cumberbun: Health care will be rationed, kinda like designer shoes in Cold War Budapest. Need your prostate yanked out? Aortal aneurism about to pop? Get your ass to the back to the line. Even if the surgical procedure you need to save your life is ultimately approved, it will come too late. The delays will allow your condition to worsen to the point that treatment will no longer be effective, and you will die! Die! Die! Die! (Scary Score: 99)
Sweden, Germany, France, Norway… all of these countries offer universal health care to their citizens. What’s more, they all have a better doctor to population ratio than the United States. This means that there are actually more doctors per 100 people in these countries than we have here. In the U.S. there is 1 doctor for every 390 people. In the other countries the ratio averages 1 doctor for every 305 people. Gee, that sounds like rationing would be less of a factor.
And, oh yeah… let’s not forget Cuba. Notwithstanding that Cuba is a communist country, it still has one doc for every 170 people. Cubans also have a lower infant mortality rate and longer life expectancy than in the U.S. In fact, just about every medical performance indicator shows the Cubans doing better than us. Okay, I know they’re a people enslaved by those damn communist Castro brothers. On the other hand, Fidel and Raul seem to be taking pretty good care of their slaves.
“The Great Big, All-American Everything’s Great Already” Cumberbun: The United States, being the greatest country on earth, already has the greatest health care system in the world. (The absolute best is in Texas, of course.) The anti-American health care reformers want to tear that system down and lower the quality of health care for everybody. They’re evil bastards who want people, yes even good hard working Americans who have jobs and money to pay for quality care, to get third rate treatment! Our health care system is the envy of the world. Leave it alone! (Scary Score: 90)
As you know, there are lies, then there are damned lies. The American health care system comes in at the 30+ ranking for many important health care indicators. We have fewer doctors per thousand than many countries, higher infant mortality rate, lower life expectancy, and less desirable outcomes for a wide range of chronic illnesses. People abroad loved Michael Jackson, and throughout Eastern Europe folks want to buy Levi jeans. But, get ready for this… ain’t nobody coveting our health care system!
“Doctor, Shut Up!” Cumberbun: Health care decisions will no longer be between you and your doctor. What your doctor has to say won’t mean crap to the propeller-head government health care bureaucrats. Your doctor will do what he’s told, and he’ll like it or be fired. Or worse. You’ll only get those medicines, therapies and treatments that some bureaucrat decides you should have, and that won’t add up to much, Buster. (Scary Score: 94)
See Item #1 above.
“It’ll Bankrupt Insurance Companies And The Treasury!” Cumberbun: Health care reform will run all the insurance companies out of business and bankrupt the federal treasury. The astronomical costs will leave both taxpayers and the federal treasury flatter than piss on a plate. World economies will collapse, we’ll all be broke and likely starve. People will be eating one another to stay alive. What kinda health care do you think you’ll get then? (Scary Score: 95)
The United States already pays more money for health care than any other country on earth, and by a large margin. All of the countries with universal health care or socialized medicine spend a smaller percentage of the GDP than do we, yet they all have better performing health care systems. As for the insurance companies, I ain’t losing much sleep over what happens to them. They don’t worry a lot about what happens to me… or you.
“My God, It’s Socialism” Cumberbun: That’s right, and we all know that Soviet style communism will be just around the corner. (Scary Score: 100)
Yes… just look at the enslaved peoples of Great Britain, France, Sweden and… Okay, they’re not enslaved yet. It takes some time. They’ve only had socialized medicine for, oh I don’t know… forty or fifty years? But, mark my words, slavery under the iron fist of communism is on the way. [cue dramatic music]
“It’s A Goddamn Obama Conspiracy To Deliver Our Country To Our Enemies” Cumberbun: Well, how else can you say it? If health care reform is passed this will make everything fall apart and soon we’ll all fall into the merciless hands of our enemies. It’s because Obama hates America.
As Glenn Beck might say, “I’m just a recovering alcoholic with a high school education…” Well, yeah, that’s right. Still, if they pass this thing some gnarly sh*t’s gonna happen, dude! (Scary Score: 99)
Yes, of course, it’s a conspiracy. Just like the lies they told us about Neil Armstrong and his moon walk. It never happened. And, Area 51… what about that? Don’t forget, now… it’s Barack HUSSEIN Obama. That’s the way he always signs his name, you know… capitalizing the HUSSEIN part. Well, he doesn’t always do it… but he always does it that way on the secret conspiratorial documents. I have a cousin who’s girlfriend works in a building only 9 miles from the White House. She saw some secret document the President signed. Some bigshot where she works is in on it too, or something… I don’t really remember the details, but my cousin can tell you, man.
“All The Doctors Will Pack Up And Leave!” Cumberbun: Doctors won’t work for the kind of money they’ll get under ObamaCare. They’ll change professions or they’ll move to another country. There won’t be any medical care because there won’t be any doctors! Is there a doctor in the house? “No” will soon be the answer. (Scary Score: 97)
See Item #2 above.
Killing cumberbuns was dangerous business, but I’d made Paul believe that our very lives depended on it. He was only four, five and six years old. By the time he turned seven he’d stopped believing me. He’d figured it out. He’d seen through my ruse.
How old do folks have to be to see through the cumberbuns let loose every day by entertainers like Sean Hannity and how-the-hell-did-they-ever-get-elected kooks like Ron Paul? Thirty? Forty? Fifty?
For God’s sake, people. The vicious cumberbuns aren’t real. We made them all up!
Oh, but maraschino cherries really are made with formaldehyde. So, pick them off your sundae and put them on my plate.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
The tone of what I have been seeing on Fox News is genuinely shocking. It sounds as though the network has been taken over by Joe McCarthy clones. The sad thing is, though, that people could actually die from lack of health care as a result of the “commentators” that command such large audiences.
You can make all the fun you want of it but you won’t think its so funny when you need an operation you can’t get because twenty million illegals are ahead of you in line you won’t think its so funny or that patriotic hard-working citizens are so stupid when your tax refunds are a thing of the past and you have to pay more money every year to pay for all thse people who just freeload off the system and do nothing to make any contribution. You’re probably a liberal slacker yoursaelf whose lookinng for something for nothing and we’re probably all being taxed to pay for this blog and all the propoganda you write about. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOEM LAZY GUYS HEALTH CARE. IF WE CUT EVERYBODY OFF MAYBE SOME OF THEM WIL THINKL ABOUT WORKING FOR A LIVING AND THE THINGS THEY WANT AND NEED.
I fought in Kuwait and again in Iraq for my freedom. I didn’t fight so that a renegade government could take my money and freedom away from me to support deadbeats who either won’t work or are too stupid to buy health insurance before they get sick. I go to work every day to support and provide for my family, not yours. If you want health care, buy it yourself and keep your hand out of my pocket.
I disagree with the view being expressed that those without health care are simply free loaders looking for someone else to provide for them. I for one have a great health plan that is made available by my employer. For that I am thankful. Unfortunately I have a room mate that does not share that same privilege. Because of a health condition he is unable to work. He is not a family member and even if he was, well over 21 years of age. Therefore it is not possible for me to try to include him under my insurance. With his illness it is not possible for him to purchase health insurance (pre-existing condition.) He would be helped with provisions of legislation now under consideration.
I have been faced in the past with exployment that did not offer
any health insurance. I was not laying at home or taking advantage of assistance programs, but working for a wage that just barely made it possible to pay for a place to live, provide transportation to get back and forth to work, and basic food. During that time money was tight. Choices had to be made and paying out over $200.00 a month for health insurance was not a realistic option.
The fact that we are the only industrial nation of the world that does not offer some type of national health care is wrong. Those of us with health insurance already are being made to help pay for those who do not currrently have their own insurance. Our insurance companies are dictating what doctors and hospitals can do already and to the length and extent of what those programs will pay if we should become seriously ill.
In good conscience, I believe that it is wrong not to provide a national health care program for all of our citizens. I for one cannot sit in my church pew on Sunday morning and not feel that I have no responsibility to those who are not blessed to the same degree that I currently am.
Prentice, I’m worried about Alice M. I think her head exploded.