Best Health Care System In The World!
Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter channels his inner blogger to defend our current health care system:
Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I’m just a regular guy and definitely deserve less.
I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won’t be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners’ insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I’d face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That’s what you call a “post-existing condition.”
…
Yes, the insurance company status quo rocks. I learned recently about something called the “loading fees” of insurance companies. That’s how much of every health-care dollar gets spent by insurance companies on things other than the medical care—paperwork, marketing, profits, etc. According to a University of Minnesota study, up to 47 percent of all the money going into the health-insurance system is consumed in “loading fees.” Even good insurance companies spend close to 30 percent on nonmedical stuff. Sweet.
The good news is that the $8,000 a year per family that Americans pay for their employer-based health insurance is heading up! According to the Council of Economic Advisers, it will hit $25,000 per family by 2025. The sourpusses who want health-care reform say that’s “unsustainable.” Au contraire.
And how could the supporters of these reform bills believe in anything as stupid as a “public option”? Do they really believe that the health-insurance cartel deserves a little competition to keep them honest? Back in the day, they had a word for competition. A bad word. They called it capitalism. FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, CNN versus PBS—just because it’s government-backed doesn’t mean you can’t compete against it. If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete.
Status quo rocks! 16% of U.S. GDP is spent on health care that still leaves 47 million people uninsured, the highest in the world. We mustn’t change anything though, because we all know how public schools killed private schools and Medicare killed private insurance.
Tags: Health Care Reform
Public schools are taxpayer subsidized and may cost more per student than many ‘less than elite’ private schools.
A voucher program could return true competition to education and might improve the access to private schools and the performance of public schools.
The purveyors of substandard services and products always favor maintaining a monopoly.
Again I remind those who favor government control of the Trabant. It was all the proletariat might hope for but the Nomenklatura had a better selection available.
Yes, our system is the best but it needs to be better and despite Liberals wanting it to be so the government is not the player to make it happen.
Costs- every business has costs but the Medicare and Medicais costs which are so often quoted as so low leave out supporting roles/costs of other government agencies. Medicare has about $60 billion a year in fraud.
The nonsense pulled by insurance companies occur because you and I are so far removed from our insurance. If our employer provides, they choose. If you get it from the government, they choose.
I know the travails of cancer. A few years back when my wife went through that scary evolution my employee provided insurance carrier made an error when we switched policies over the new calendar year. As she was getting prepped for her chemo treatment I was advised there was a problem with my coverage.
Given then scenario I simply said I would pay for it ($4500) but was told I could not because you had to be covered to proceed. After getting passed around by the insurance know nothings who took my calls I simply resorted to the nuclear option and called my employer and called in sick for the next 180 days ( the duration of her chemo and radiation).
My Chief Pilot called me within 10 minutes and within 30 minutes the problem was rectified.
Our plan called Delacare takes away the role of the insurance company as gatekeeper and cheapskate but has universal coverage.
http://www.rebuildthedelawareGOP.com.
I hope you stay healthy.
Mike Protack
There is not a single statistic you can cite that will make the point that “our system is the best.” The “Mike Protack is a lying fool” file is already bulging. Can’t you dial back the stupid to save memory space?
“A voucher program could return true competition to education and might improve the access to private schools and the performance of public schools.”
There is no evidence it would do any such thing. For all of their talk about vouchers, its supporters have never produced evidence that it would do any of these things, for the simple, obvious reason that it couldn’t. What it would do is boost applications at Catholic schools and Christian academies, which are the only private schools that charge little enough in tuition for vouchers to make a difference. The more elite privates charge five-figure tuitions, and they’re not hurting for students — vouchers would have no effect at all on their attendance or student body make-up.
“Return true competition to education” — what’s that idiocy? When was there “true competition” in education? This is more of conservative second-grade thinking — “competition good, cooperation bad.” Troglodytes.
Vouchers are the one child at a time solution. I’m not sure why you’re trying to reason with them Geezer. They are just seething with incoherent rage.
I’m becoming convinced that these trolls are using a comment-generating computer program — ConservaBlather? Free Market Word Nuggets? — that simply mixes and matches various of the “conservative principles” that substitute for analytical thought in “conservative circles,” and churns them out into the blogosphere with various names attached. Sort of a giant astro-turfing effort.
Because ask yourself — could all conservatives really be as stupid as the ones we read on the blogosphere? With this many dumb ones, the law of averages would seemingly dictate that a few smart ones would have come forward. Where are they? Hence I’m beginning to suspect all these dumb ones must not be real.
I hope they’re not as dumb, but reading the poll results on how many birthers are in the Republican party makes me despair.
could all conservatives really be as stupid as the ones we read on the blogosphere?
Why not? You are talking about a group of people who pretty much do what their radios tell them to do, think what FOX Noise tells them to think and they never wonder about how spectacularly wrong their heros on the radios and TVs have been over the years. That is why it is called with Right Wing Noise Machine — one says something and they all rush off to repeat it as if they are on a mission or something.
More on the Best Health Care System in the World from Bob Cesca.
I don’t even know why they still let us even have an income. We should all just work 40 hours, and then get everything for free. We all could go to the same doctors, supermarkets, schools, and all we would need is our SS card. No one should be smarter than anyone else. no one should be stronger or better looking than anyone else. I hope one day we will realize the dream.
You know, if you didn’t have anything to add you could have saved yourself some energy here.
UI, when I read this Jonathan Alter piece yesterday, I was shocked. It was so unlike him!
Then it hit me: This piece is satire!
Note the last sentence: “If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete.”
Now what do you think?
For months now since Health care reform suddenly become the main issue on the national agenda. We have been bombarded with the incessant accusation that the English/British form of the single-payer system is about unequivocal–RATIONING? YES! This is the truth now, but it wasn’t always that way. It wasn’t until the Globalist plan to take over the originally named Common Market, that health care in England started to suffer. In Jan. 1, 1973, original known to Brits as the Common Market. The “One Market” that was created in 1993 states that people, money, services, and trade can move freely within the European Union. Currently over 450 million EU citizens are provided with these special options.
The indigenous British people’s lives had already been disrupted by the importation of cheap labor from Commonwealth countries to drive the buses and run British Railway. Then family unification started and illegal immigration and the beginning of spiraling crime. RATIONING AND REDUCED HEALTH CARE CAME TO ENGLAND WITH AN OVERLOAD OF LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, SUDDENLY THE UNITED KINGDOM FOUND THEMSELVES IN A TERRIBLE QUANDARY OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSAND OF REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS. ALL PAID FOR BY THE BRITISH/ENGLISH TAXPAYER.
In spite of the restrictive immigration policies which have been in place since the 1970s in most Member States Of The European Union, large numbers of legal and illegal migrants have continued to come to the EU together with asylum-seekers and illegal labor. Taking advantage of individuals seeking an improved life, smuggling and skin trafficking networks have taken hold across the EU. The inception of these relative dates in when one of the greatest Universal Health care system, came to a grinding halt of quality.
The system was simple? You paid your insurance stamps and the employer paid his? End of story. The years I worked in the Mother country, I received three minor surgeries, teeth and dentistry, and eye care. WITH NO PREMIUMS, NO-PAYS, NO DEDUCTIONS AND CERTAINLY NO PRE EXISTING CONDITIONS? ONCE I SPENT THREE MONTHS IN EAST GRINSTEAD HOSPITAL WITH A BACK PROBLEM. MY COST–NOTHING! WE CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT SUPPORT THE MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AND FAMILIES WITH TRILLION DOLLAR HEALTH CARE. IT WILL LEAD TO RATIONING ON A GRAND SCALE! AS ALWAYS THE TAXPAYER WILL FOOT THE BILL FOR BUSINESS WELFARE.
CALL YOUR POLITICIAN IN WASHINGTON 202-224-3121 I Want a health care system–even government run. BUT IT”S SURE TO FAIL, IF TAXES ARE BEING EXTORTED TO PAY FOR FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS? Support for the bi-partisan E-VERIFY PART OF THE SAVE Act, which will expand E-Verify and protect American Workers! We must focus on the behemoth problem in terminating illegal immigrants-and the jobs that attract illegal aliens. WE WILL ALWAYS BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING NOW? Many GOP members are against a Path to citizenship for lawbreakers, so we mostly need the phones ringing in the ears of Democrats, who see the millions of illegal aliens as a positive voting block.
WE MUST STOP IT NOW OF SUFFER FROM IRREVERSIBLE POPULATION GROWTH.
DEMAND NO AMNESTY! NO FAMILY UNIFICATION KNOWN AS CHAIN MIGRATION! BUILD THE ORIGINAL FENCE! NO MORE HEALTH CARE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF BENEFITS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CLOSE THE BORDER AND STATION THE NATIONAL GUARD. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS, JUST IN RETIREMENT BENEFITS? Learn uncorrupted facts at NUMBERSUSA.
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Wow, that’s some crazy rant, Brit.
Perry, obviously it was satire. That’s why I said he was channeling his inner blogger. 🙂
Health Care is a wreck and has to change. The problem is the free market fanatics at large and the GOP wizardry here in Delaware who don’t get it.
Is there one single Republican in Delaware who supports Universal Health Care? Don’t they get it? This site needs to find one and get some answers.
Castle will shill for whatever keeps him in office. Copeland, the guy they stupidly fawn over will spout free market garbage while counting his trust fund and laying off his employees.
I suppose that the losers who tout socialism believe that there really is moon pie in the sky.
Birthers go into hyper drive: this Taitz lady is a crazier than Eileen…
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=105764
Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections
Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned.
By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent
Published: 7:45AM BST 02 Aug 2009
Cuts to treatments would save the NHS £33 million. Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY The Government’s drug rationing watchdog says “therapeutic” injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.
Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.
Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.
The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5955840/Patients-forced-to-live-in-agony-after-NHS-refuses-to-pay-for-painkilling-injections.html
Yes, John, I’ve seen that story. Those birther sure got played for fools didn’t they? The “certificate” was issued 10 months before the “Republic of Kenya” existed. I think someone is trying to make them look foolish (not they needed much help).
More complete debunking:
“Patients forced to live in agony”
Bullshit. I have chronic lower back pain, and I’ve had kidney stones that had to be removed the old-fashioned way (no ultrasound). One of those is agony, and it ain’t the back pain.
I know plenty of people who live in agony with back pain. Funny thing though, they live in America.
Sorry, but it still ain’t agony.
only geezer knows pain, the rest are whiners, so it’s ok if the government denies them treatment.
I know more about it than a headline writer does. I also know you’re a troll who adds nothing here.
And by the way, the government didn’t deny them treatment — it denied them free treatment. You know, personal responsibility and all that? Oh, that’s right — you’re just a troll, and hence incapable of independent thought.
a little closer to home…
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. – Barbara Wagner has one wish – for more time.
“I’m not ready, I’m not ready to die,” the Springfield woman said. “I’ve got things I’d still like to do.”
Her doctor offered hope in the new chemotherapy drug Tarceva, but the Oregon Health Plan sent her a letter telling her the cancer treatment was not approved.
Instead, the letter said, the plan would pay for comfort care, including “physician aid in dying,” better known as assisted suicide.
“I told them, I said, ‘Who do you guys think you are?’ You know, to say that you’ll pay for my dying, but you won’t pay to help me possibly live longer?’ ” Wagner said.
http://www.katu.com/news/26119539.html
How would that be different from what her health insurer would have told her? They’re not paying for it, either. Have you ever had an original thought?
Ummm…you’re telling us a U.S. health care horror story. That’s what we want to fix.
UI, it a Government run health system right hear in the USofA that is saying “we’ll pay for your hemloch, but not your medicine, your too old.”
Tarceva has not yet been approved by the FDA. It is, and has been, approved and available in Europe for several years.
Her best hope – as with everyone else in the U.S. with the same condition – would be to try and get into a trial group.
The article says that Genentech is giving her this medicine for free.
But I want to know how different this is from a private insurance company denying her — or anybody else — lifesaving drugs or treatments. The blog post I linked to above is this same thing, except that Cigna is doing the saying NO.
Why is it better for the private companies (who are well paid in premiums for services) to say no to treatments, but not the government?
Exactly, Cass. It’s worth noting, I think, that Tanceva costs about $31,000 a year, and in most cases has been shown to prolong life by less than a year.
Do you, anoni, propose having insurance companies hpaying that much for everyone who wants it? Are you OK with insurance denying the coverage? Or have you simply never thought about it?
Perhaps I missed it, how old is Ms. Wagner? Even reform will require rationing, just better rationing results that what we get from the rationing going on today.
For a full examination see Peter Singer’s essay in the NYT Sunday Mag a fortnight ago.
For a full examination of conservative thoughts on these matters, see the vintage SNL fake ad for robot insurance:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/2340/saturday-night-live-old-glory
regarding the Video where Obama admits the goal is single payer, and that it will take time:
Hillary used the 2003 video clip while campaigning in January, 2008.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/23/clinton_obama_intensify_feud_on_trail/
Clinton’s campaign continued attacking Obama over various aspects of his record, from his numerous “present” votes in the Illinois Senate – including one on a bill to boost privacy protections for victims of sexual assault – to his past remarks about a single-payer healthcare system. Her campaign produced an Internet video showing Obama in 2003 calling himself a “proponent” of a single-payer system, though Obama counters that he has said he favors that approach only if the country were building a healthcare system from scratch.
Newsweek magazine? Count the number of full page ads that are placed in the rag by drug companys and insurers and you will understand why Alter speaks that way about health care. They run those ads not too sell product as much as to exercise editorial control over the writers.
No statistics needed…look at the VA Hospitals and the healthcare for our active Armed Services. I support a 2 year test by all federal employees of the new system. If it works, I’m in.