Numerous reasons to oppose the ludicrous Obama health care plan aside, Yael T. Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star has cut through to the real reason for dissent - Americans are ignorant.
While Abouhalkah will undoubtedly argue that the message was meant to apply merely to the aspect of health care knowledge, he is quite unsuccessful at holding back his overall disdain for the way American's have responded to the plan.
The title of his most recent blog post says it all. In referring to an NBC poll about the health care plan, one in which MSNBC titles Doubts About Obama's Plans, Abouhalkah titles his post - Poll: Ignorance abounds among Americans on health care plan.
The message? If you're not down with the President's plan, then you can only be classified as ignorant.
But what examples of ignorance does the author specifically cite?
(Continued Below)
Plucked directly from the poll:
Majorities in the poll believe the plans would give health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants; would lead to a government takeover of the health system; and would use taxpayer dollars to pay for women to have abortions - all claims that nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue about the legislation that has emerged so far from Congress.
Believe health coverage will be granted to illegal immigrants with Obama's plan? You're Michelle Malkin ignorant.
Believe government will take over the health system? You're ignorance runs even with that of Senator Jim DeMint.
Believe taxpayer money will pay for women to have abortions? Maria Vitale shares your ignorance.
Abouhalkah was not content to stop there. He goes on to rip Sarah Palin as ignorant, calling her death panel comment as ‘inane' and ‘absurd'. Therefore, if you too, believe the health care plan will lead to death panels, then you are not only as inane as Sarah Palin, but you're argument is as absurd as Rush Limbaugh's.
One thing Obama clearly has on his side is the liberal mainstream ‘fact-checking' media. There is a trend in the current media to whitewash conservative arguments by simply saying ‘this argument has been debunked by fact-checking Web sites.' However, who is fact-checking the fact-checkers? They have been refuted before; here, here, and here.
The problem with these fact-checking sites can be seen in one of the above allegedly debunked items.
In regards to the illegal immigrant aspect of the poll, FactCheck.org claims this to be a false argument because ‘the House bill specifically says that no federal money would be spent on giving illegal immigrants health coverage'. This completely ignores the amendment voted on and shot down by Democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee in July, which would have prevented illegal aliens from accessing taxpayer-funded health care benefits. The measure would have enforced income, eligibility, and immigration verification screening on an estimated 9.6 million illegal immigrants.
What this clearly means is that, while the bill specifically states illegal immigrants are to be excluded, it also offers zero provisions to enforce such an exclusion. This is the equivalent of posting a sign at a bar specifically barring patrons who are underage from entering, and then not requiring anyone to present identification at the door. It is rolling out a welcome mat to illegal immigrants seeking healthcare. It is, well ... ignorant.
Never has being called a mob of ignorant American's felt so right.
* Update *
It appears that the Kansas City Star and Abouhalkah have acknowledged their own ignorance by disabling the previous link titled Poll: Ignorance abounds among Americans on health care plan. The new title aims to place less blame on Americans, and more on the supposed web of lies being spun by the Republican party and conservatives in general. The new title for the same article is Campaign of lies damages health care plan, and can be found here.
The link above has been corrected to reflect this change, so NewsBusters readers can still navigate to the column which continues to maintain that Americans are ignorant regarding the health care plan.
Clicking on the previous link brings the reader to a page that simply states 'Access denied - You are not authorized to access this page'.
Perhaps the Kansas City Star and Abouhalkah can go a step further in recognizing their own ignorance by issuing an apology to the millions of well-educated, well-informed, intelligent Americans who rightfully question and oppose this government health care plan?
Photo Credit: Getty
