Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog
On Saturday's Velshi show, MSNBC host Ali Velshi again used the pandemic as a rationale for advocating socialized medicine as he defended Canadian-style single-payer health care, and cued up Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to advocate such a system in the U.S.
Not far into the interview, the MSNBC host read from a recent New York Times op-ed written by Senator Sanders:
"The absurdity and cruelty of our employer-based health insurance system should now be apparent to all. As tens of millions of Americans are losing their jobs and incomes as a result of the pandemic, many of them also losing their health insurance, this is what happens when health care is seen as an employee benefit and not a guaranteed right."
He then posed:
VELSHI: You and I have had this conversation before. It didn't have to be this way. We are one of the only countries in the world -- certainly of the developed countries -- in which your ability to be covered for health care -- for medical care is dependent on your employment. It's hard for people to get their head around the fact that it doesn't actually have to be that way, and it isn't for most people.
The self-described democratic socialist Senator echoed Velshi by complaining that the U.S. is the "only major country on Earth not to provide health care to all people as a right," and then praised the Canadian system:
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Somehow or another, in Canada, they manage to provide health care to every man, woman and child as a right, spending about half as much per capita as we do. And if there's anything that the American people are now learning is how absurd -- how irrational it is to have your health care tied to your job because, when you lose your job, you lose your health care. That's why we have got to fight, in my view, for a Medicare for all, single-payer system. It will cost the average American substantially less than they are paying today and cover all of us in a comprehensive manner with the choice of the doctor or the hospital that we want to go to.
The Canadian-born Velshi then denied that there is a down side to the Canadian health care system:
VELSHI: So you and I have talked about this for a long time -- as you know, as you've said, I grew up in Canada. I grew up in a system in which it was a single-payer system, and I've seen it work, and I've seen the nonsense that people talk about it down here about death panels and people dying in the waiting room in hospitals, and it's not true -- the lineups of Americans coming to the United States to get health care -- it's not true either.
The MSNBC then sympathetically asked his guest how much he could hope to accomplish since presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is unlikely to endorse the Sanders plan, leading the Senator to argue in favor of incrementally covering more people.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Saturday, April 25, Velshi show on MSNBC:
9:15 a.m. Eastern
ALI VELSHI: Senator, in an op-ed you penned in the New York Times, you, in part, lay out why guaranteed universal health care is needed now more than ever. I'm just going to quote. You say:
"The absurdity and cruelty of our employer-based health insurance system should now be apparent to all. As tens of millions of Americans are losing their jobs and incomes as a result of the pandemic, many of them also losing their health insurance, this is what happens when health care is seen as an employee benefit and not a guaranteed right."
VELSHI: You and I have had this conversation before. It didn't have to be this way. We are one of the only countries in the world -- certainly of the developed countries -- in which your ability to be covered for health care -- for medical care is dependent on your employment. It's hard for people to get their head around the fact that it doesn't actually have to be that way, and it isn't for most people.
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Please, I hope that the viewers understand -- as you've just indicated -- we're the only major country on Earth not to provide health care to all people as a right as opposed to an employee benefit. Fifty miles away from where I'm talking to you right now, as you well know, is Canada. Somehow or another, in Canada, they manage to provide health care to every man, woman and child as a right, spending about half as much per capita as we do.
And if there's anything that the American people are now learning is how absurd -- how irrational it is to have your health care tied to your job because, when you lose your job, you lose your health care. That's why we have got to fight, in my view, for a Medicare for all, single-payer system. It will cost the average American substantially less than they are paying today and cover all of us in a comprehensive manner with the choice of the doctor or the hospital that we want to go to.
VELSHI: So you and I have talked about this for a long time -- as you know, as you've said, I grew up in Canada. I grew up in a system in which it was a single-payer system, and I've seen it work, and I've seen the nonsense that people talk about it down here about death panels and people dying in the waiting room in hospitals, and it's not true -- the lineups of Americans coming to the United States to get health care -- it's not true either.
But, given that you are not the candidate right now -- I know you're staying in the race -- but given that you're not likely to be the Democratic nominee, and given that Joe Biden hasn't fully endorsed this idea, and given that Donald Trump and Republican Senators aren't endorsing the idea, what's your best outcome right now in your mission to try and get people to embrace this?
BBC's New Doctor Who Showrunner Flirted with 9/11 Trutherism
Over the weekend, it was announced that the BBC has selected liberal producer Russell T. Davies as showrunner for the long-running British science fiction series Doctor Who which, in recent years, has delved into promoting a liberal agenda on issues like global warming, guns, and hostility to President Donald Trump.
Davies previously ran the show between 2005 and 2009 during which time he notoriously invoked the liberal fantasy that President George W. Bush staged the 9/11 attacks to justify stealing Iraq's oil, incorporating the idea into his first season on the show.
He also notably presided over production at a time when series regular John Barrowman -- who played the first gay character in the show's history -- was known for engaging sexual misconduct on set during filming. Instead of being punished for his behavior, Barrowman was awarded with the starring role in the spinoff series Torchwood, which Davies also wrote and produced.
In the 2005 two parter -- "Aliens of London" and "World War III" -- a group of aliens (disguised as high-level British leaders) murder then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and take control of the British government and military.
After crashing a spaceship by remote control into the Big Ben clock tower (reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks), the faux-British leaders scare the U.N. into believing there are "massive weapons of destruction" -- a riff on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" -- in space which aliens plan on using to attack Earth unless nuclear weapons are used preemptively to destroy them.
The alien plot is to dupe the world into handing over control of all nuclear weapons to the imposturous British leaders so they can detonate them all, making the Earth radioactive, and harvesting the energy. Obvious reference is made to the invasion of Iraq when it is recalled that the U.N. were fooled the "last time" such claims were made (meaning by President Bush).
And, over the five years Davies led the show's production, recurring cast member Barrowman was notorious for repeatedly indecently exposing himself to his co-workers on set, which came to public light in recent years both on Doctor Who and Torchwood sets. The episode was reminiscent of other sexual misconduct scandals within the BBC involving Doctor Who production in the 1980s under John Nathan-Turner, as well as the children's show Jim'll Fix It show, involving host Jimmy Savile, from the 1970s into the 1990s.
The return of Davies will likely not do anything to tamp down the liberal bias the series has shown in recent years.