How could it have happened? And why should the uninsured be forced to pay for health care they have been getting for free? For Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, in this satirical look at the American right, columnist Mariusz Zawadzki explores the convoluted arguments for and against President Obama’s health care reform – and tries to explain to readers why right-wingers, ‘so vocal about individual freedom and taking responsibility for one’s own decisions’ – are foaming at the mouth to prevent precisely this from occurring.
For the Gazeta Wyborcza, Mariusz Zawadzki starts off this way:
“Traitor” is one of the gentler epithets being flung at Chief Justice John Roberts, after the ruling on Barack Obama’s reform of the health insurance system. On right-wing talk shows, the hosts are fuming into their microphones, shouting loudly and falling into hysterics in such an expressive way that one can almost hear them tearing their hair out by the fistful (I admit this might be an auditory hallucination, since America’s top radio guru is bald).
And all this because conservative Justice Roberts, nominated by George W. Bush, unexpectedly joined forces with four liberal justices, due to which the hated Obamacare reform has been saved by a 5 to 4 vote. This act of treason occurred during the most important Supreme Court session since at least 2000, when it decided the outcome of a presidential election.
Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana declared that the ruling is as tragic for America as the attacks of September 11 (for which he later apologized in writing). America’s hallowed freedom has been ruined by the so-called individual mandate: soon everyone will have to buy insurance or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of one’s yearly income!
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