Colbert rips Bush healthcare ruse [VIDEO]

By Evan Derkacz
Posted on January 25, 2007, Printed on November 23, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//47215/

Wanna know why viewers of The Daily Show (and I'll just make the unscientific corollary that this extends to Colbert watchers) are among the most well-informed?

Simple. When your show's currency is laughter, pointing out the idiocy of idiocy is your lifeblood.

As opposed to the sad state of most corporate journalism, whose mandate requires another "side" from some self-interested, oft-proved-wrong-in-the-past ideologue who's given the opportunity to bore you with half-truths and trumped up statistics from coin-operated think tanks.

Here, Colbert unearths the idiotic logic to the president's healthcare proposal (video right)

Stephen Colbert: What made [Tuesday's State of the Union speech] so groundbreaking, I think, was all the new stuff we've never heard from the president before...like a domestic agenda. Take his proposal to fix the whole health care mess with the only proven cure-all: tax breaks...

Bush clip: And for the millions of Americans with no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within reach.

Colbert: It's so simple. Most people who couldn't afford health insurance also are too poor to owe taxes. But...if you give them a deduction from their taxes they don't owe, they can use the money they're not getting back from what they haven't given to buy the health care they can't afford.

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.

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