How the Right Wing Caused Your Father's Heart Attack (and Your Mom's Stroke)

[McCamy Taylor]

The title is not a metaphor. I really am going to write about how right wing policies---so called Koch Family values---cause heart attacks and early death and the poverty that comes from losing a bread winner.

Heart disease is now the number one cause of death worldwide. One in three Americans have it. Every year 850,000 of us will die from it. It costs our country at least $400 billion a year to treat. That includes 7 million cardiac procedures---you know, stents and all. (Statistics from American Academy of Family Practice)

And it is a huge money maker for the billionaires funding the new right wing.

How did the Right Wing cause your heart attack? Easier to ask which of their policies didn’t contribute to your heart attack. The Right Wing stands for

1. Tobacco, the number one preventable cause of sickness and death, huge contributor to heart disease. Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell is in the pocket of Big Tobacco. Grover Norquist lobbies for tobacco. Tobacco has bank rolled the Tea Parties.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/08/afp-norquist-tobacco

2. Polluted air. When the air quality goes down, the rate of myocardial infarction rises. Don’t believe me? Here is one of the 150,00 Googles hits you get when you search “air pollution linked to heart attack”.

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=news&id=131660&cn=295

How do right wing policies increase air pollution? The Tea Parties stand for “Burn, baby, burn!” as in burn more of the Koch Family's oil. The right wing objects to clean environment air policies, going so far as to label environmental activists “terrorists”. The tell us that clean air costs jobs. Well, I am here to tell you that dirty air costs lives.

The right wing objects to public mass transit systems that might cut the number of (oil burning) cars on the road. The right wing objects to clean energy research that might help Americans reduce their dependence on oil and coal. The right wing oil lobby in Texas is pouring money into California this year to roll back environmental protection laws that hurt Big Oil’s profits.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08/texas-oil-companies-funding-campaign-overturn-california-climate-law.php


3. Obesity. Overweight contributes to heart disease. The right wing has increased the obesity problem in this country by eliminating physical education in most of our nation’s schools. Kids are so busy being drilled on how to take standardized tests that they have no time for physical fitness. Their recess time is often restricted because of poor outdoor air quality. And then there is junk food----like the 64 ounce Super Big Gulp from 7-11 with its whopping 800 calories. Just four of these consumed in place of water will help you pack on an extra pound. Multiply that times 52 weeks in a year--and you are 50 pounds overweight. The merchants of sugary death have their own Astroturf group, Americans Against Food Tax, which sponsors Glenn Beck.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_Against_Food_Taxes

Obesity contributes to diabetes and high cholesterol and obstructive sleep apnea, which also promote heart disease, if they are not treated, which leads me to number 4.

4. No disease prevention, Part 1 Public health . Why do European countries have single payer universal health care systems that cost half of what we spend each year in the U.S. and which give their citizens longer, healthier lives? Easy. They have adopted public health policies that encourage people to exercise and maintain a healthy weight starting in childhood where it really counts. They do this because they know that it will save their health care systems money. The public health system in the U.S. has always been under funded, but during the Bush administration it was shot and left for dead. How? Bioterrorism. Instead of awarding federal government grants to battle smoking, the government paid local health departments to hire bioterrorism experts. Great, if you are the party that counts on fear to help you win elections. Every bioterrorism drill is more votes for the GOP. Not so good, if your goal is to actually do something to make American’s healthier.

And then there is

5. No disease prevention, Part 2 Health Care Access . Our health care system in the U.S. is designed to make the maximum possible profit for drug companies (many based in Europe), hospitals, durable medical goods manufacturers and specialty physicians. We accomplish this by making it all but impossible for many Americans to see a doctor when they are young to get their diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol treated. Then, when they turn 65, we give them an open checkbook known as Medicare, so that they can get expensive fixes (that often do not work) to treat diseases that could have been prevented. Here is something I wrote about the subject last year. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom to read about the hypocrisy of folks in Europe who criticize us for not having universal health care but who object when we try to control costs---on the grounds that their domestic drug companies can afford to cut prices at home as long as they can price gouge the American consumer.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/431

GOP nominee for Florida governor Rick Scott is another health care executive determined to keep us as sick as possible. That’s because private hospital chains make a killing providing treatment for preventable illness---like heart disease.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Scott

The Democrats' first attempts at health care reform were far from perfect. But, if the right wing manages to buy this election with its millions of dollars of (foreign as well as domestic) money, we will wait another decade or two before anyone takes another stab at fixing our broken health care system. And twenty years can mean the difference between a healthy old age and death from heart disease or stroke.

Or, if you believe that Americans can never have too many heart attacks (and strokes), go ahead and vote for the party of dirty air, tobacco, high blood sugar, elevated cholesterol, overpriced pharmaceuticals and premature death. Your premature death will mean a few more years of solvency (life) for the terminally ill industries Big Oil, Tobacco and the Health Insurance Industry. And as the Supreme Court already told us, corporations' right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (profit) trumps our own.

[Champion Jack]

1. +1,000,000,000,000,000

[billlll]

2. #49 in LIFESPAN said post on DU two or 3 days ago

US now 49th in lifespan.

I wd put ur healthcare points at the top.

But great OP I say.

See my OP "Crime... blame the GOP" for more talking points.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9000417

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. K & R

[srf Rantz]

4. don't forget endless war

the ultimate unhealthy experience brought to you by the right wing.

[glinda]

7. don't forget mailed propaganda in the form of books and mailers. My mother's

health went totally down the tubes after getting these weird religious (political books) in the mail that she never ordered. These mailers have contributed to my parents stress and caused them to become paranoid and fearful of living. These organizations target older senior citizens.

[NJmaverick]

5. K & R!

[Overseas]

6. K&R! Well said. We need more Democrats in office. //nt

[Scurrilous]

8. K & R

:thumbsup:

[MedicalAdmin]

9. #3 - the Standard American Diet.

Also known as SAD, it is the only diet ever studies and proven to CAUSE disease. That means that the diet, as promoted by the food/chemical companies, is going to cause you to die early and painfully.

And that is SAD.