Health Care Explained by ABC News
By admin on Sep 10, 2009 in Blogging, Politics
ABC’s John Stossel breaks it all down for you. 20/20 had a great special on how any government run health care system works. This will be a disaster for America and people are waking up to that fact.
Next see:
Mistersensible | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
So… basically what Stossel and ABC are saying is screw the poor and the uninsured. Obscene profits are good. They can kiss the fattest part of my ass.
Steven | Sep 10, 2009 | Reply
Mistersensible: video comprehension fail.
admin | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
Steven: You made me laugh with that one.
Here is Sowell on our commander in Chief when it comes to Health Care. http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/09/10/listening_to_a_liar_part_ii
Therealmistersensible | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
What Mistersensible is trying to say is he wants everybody to be screwed. That’s what we’d get if Obamacare is passed.
Larry | Sep 11, 2009 | Reply
There are some basic facts here that are being ignored by the anecdotes of disaster that are represented in this piece.
- The need for healthcare is not at all related to ability to pay for it.
This is not a new or radical idea. It is the same model that exists for police, fire departments, roads and other services that are arguably less basic than healthcare.
The fact that government provides police protection for the general public has not hurt private security companies from providing additional services. Yes, there are successful and unsuccessful police departments, but the service is there for everybody.
- The cost of healthcare has been rising in this country faster than anything else (inflation, wages, GDP, …) While this is happening, the percentage of insurance company revenue going to “medical loss” (also known as health care) has been going down.
If the insurance market is working so well, why is it defying the behavior of a mature market where efficiencies and competiton make the cost go down and the margin go down?
- It is misleading to say that the government is responsible for only “4% of drugs on the market.” because marketing the drugs is the sole province of drug companies. Government sponsors the research in basic science that leads to the breakthroughs that the drug companies build their products on. Government and university run research is the overwhelming source of breakthroughs for medical technology (hardware, pharmaceutical and technique).
Why can’t we have an honest discussion about why we spend more than anybody else (per capita) but have poor outcomes (comparatively) and completely ignore large segments of the population entirely. Why can’t we talk about the savings involved in moving the uninsured away from emergency care (the most expensive transaction) into a mode that is healthier and less costly (i.e. going to see the doctor before the issue is critical)?
We all have anecdotes. One of mine involves sitting in my best friend’s living room when he showed me a letter from his insurance company saying that his diabetes (which he had had all his life) “was not severe enough to warrant” the insulin pump that his doctor had prescribed. So the insurance company was getting between my best friend and his doctor. My friend died three months later from coronary complications from his diabetes (that was not sever enough to warrant the insurance company following the doctors instructions).
That must change.
Dusty | Sep 12, 2009 | Reply
Government is force, and nothing else. It is a gun. Government has no money - it only has a gun, which it sometimes uses to steal. Fighting crime is an appropriate use for a gun, assuming crimes are legitimately defined. Stealing money for healthcare is not.
Hospitals are required by law to treat everyone, in most circumstances, regardless of whether or not they can pay, and this along with frivolous malpractice suits are in large part causing the high costs of healthcare (somehow these costs fall on insurance payers). There are things that hospitals aren’t required to treat, but no matter what President Obama says, that won’t change if the government gets involved, and indeed what will change is there will be certain procedures that one can’t even purchase if one is able to pay for it themselves or convince friends/neighbors to.
Not having (good) insurance is an option. I’m poor and don’t have insurance because of the choices I’ve made, and I’m fine with that. Give me a choice, not a command with a gun behind it! I want the gun the government is OUT of my life, and that includes my patient-doctor relationship.
It’s not fair to compare community fire-departments to national healthcare. Large-scale government-battled forest fires are emergencies on a scale much larger than personal, and it’s appropriate that the government steps in to fight them as such, just as the government will appropriately step in if there is a large-scale health problem, like a swine flu outbreak.
If you want the government in healthcare, you need to take a closer look at just who/what the government is. These are the people who take over 20% of your income to pay interest on a national debt which has virtually nothing to do with you personally, and don’t even mention it during an election year.
Gabe | Sep 12, 2009 | Reply
Thank you Larry! Too bad the rest of America isn’t as well-informed as you are. I can’t believe the one-sided approach by ABC and John Stossel. Completely reminiscent of FOX NEWS CHANNEL! I wonder who paid/enticed Stossel to promote this Health Insurance Industry PROPAGANDA???
Besides, the issue isn’t about single-payer at all. It’s about a government insurance option that doesn’t take 30%+ just to line the pockets of people that are already rich!
The fact of the matter is that the health insurance industry doesn’t do any of the innovating that Stossel claims. They don’t do anything at all except take our money for profits at the expense of people’s lives (denying coverage). You ever heard of “the pot calling the kettle black?” They are the actual “death panels” that they claim Obama is trying to appoint, except it’s not a panel at all. Its’ a corporate executive with little or no medical training that’s deciding who dies. It’s a MIDDLEMAN! So, I ask:
Where is your brain, Stossel???
Russell | Sep 12, 2009 | Reply
Larry:
Here is an question for you: Why didn’t you pay for your best friends insulin pump out of your own pocket? That is what you will be doing under this new government health care.
We're #1 at BS | Sep 13, 2009 | Reply
What larry said is precisely why we’re all screwed.
Fake paradigms and faulty ability to reason.
With the kinds of attitudes and laughable positions of argument (not at all called out by our corporate media of course), we’re left with millions hurting for no reason and millions more believing we’re #1 at everything with no merit.
Keep on helping the rich ignorant americans.
So unbelievably sad.
Simple question to all the teabaggers and other idiots; how many countries that have adopted universal health care have abandoned it?
NONE.
And that’s why stephen hawkings is alive tyvm.