July 22, 2009 07:09 PM UTC

"Let Them Eat Cake": As 22k Die Annually, Denver Post Asks "What's the Rush On Health Care?"

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• by: davidsirota

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

22,000 Americans die every year because they lack adequate health care coverage. That’s a basic, verifiable fact. That’s about 60 Americans every day, or six 9/11’s every year. Broken down to a Colorado estimate, that’s about 365 Coloradoans every year, or one Coloradoan every day – a rate of death that’s double the Colorado murder rate. (h/t Tom Russell and Danny the Red). And yet, the Denver Post editorial board has the nerve to ask with a dead-straight face this morning “What’s the rush on health care?” I shit you not.

I’m guessing the writers of the editorial all have great health care coverage. And I’m also guessing that dot-com millionaire Jared Polis, who the Post touts for opposing Obama’s health care bill, also has pretty good health care coverage. So, I guess it’s not that hard to understand how both the Post editorialists and Polis might wonder “what the rush” is. Shit, there’s no rush for them at all! Out of their individual sight, out of their minds, right?

For the Rest of Us, though, there’s clearly a rush. In fact, the reason for a rush is so obvious that anyone asking the question ends up making themselves look like Marie Antoinette happily saying, “Let Them Eat Cake.”

But then, here’s my question: Are we really “rushing?” Health care has quite literally been debated and discussed as a matter of public policy since Harry Truman in 1945. You can look it up right here – again, it’s a matter of verifiable public record. That’s right, we’ve been debating this for 64 fucking years.

So my question again: How is debating something for more than six decades a “rush?”