This was a wonderfully honest discussion between two opposing viewpoints about the health care insurance reform debate. Both sides presented their views well. WHY does a guy in Connecticut HAVE to pay for a guy in Texas who eats 12 hamburgers a day? That IS a GREAT question and it deserves a response. Please click the video clip to continue the health insurance reform threads at OJ!
I think it is important to keep this critical discussion about our nation’s health on a thoughtful path, rather than relying on emotionally laden soundbites that we are so accustomed to. This exchange reminds us that the EPA, the FDA, our collective transportation system and the business opportunities afforded in our country are elements that make our collective society great.
It is time for the Single Payer Option. DEMAND that health care be the EXACT same as the care that our government workers and lawmakers now receive. No more unequally tiered health care. It’s Time.
A Single Payer sytem doesn’t mean that everyone has the same health care – even under Medicare there are many plans with different options, including upgrades available to those willing to pay more. And this would probably continue under any Single Payer system for other age groups.
Note: Our Federal Lawmakers have voted themselves a Socialized Medical Plan which of course is so horrible, being socialism, (or maybe expensive) that they don’t want us taxpayers to suffer under it.
I think we should aim high. We deserve what they have. We are all in this together.
This is the richest bunch of representatives we’ve ever had in the history of this country. It’s time for them to figure out how to care for us ALL at the same level.
Yes, “socialized” medicine is such a burden for our lawmakers. That’s why they don’t want to burden the rest of us with it. How THOUGHTFUL of them. Not.
JFK said “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” The health care debate has a multitude of levels for debate but what happened to the basic (and popular) premise that it is not the governments purpose to do something for you?
Red, we may all “deserve” many things but our country prospered as the result of a system offering opportunity not guaranteeing results.
Just my two cents.
Travis,
Socialized Medicine is where hospitals are owned by the government who employ the doctors. Usually, not everyone is forced to participate and private clinics and doctors are available to those who can pay (out of pocket or via insurance). Our “Federal” lawmakers go to places like Walter Reed and the Bethesda Naval Hospital which is Socialized Medicine – they aren’t employed by anybody.
Welcome Shawn.
Medicare, FDA, EPA, Social Security and many other programs and protections have been put into place for the benefit of the whole. I hope you had a chance to view that video and some of the other threads that have been posted at OJ on the subject of health care insurance reform.
I understand you’ll be running for office. I hope you find yourself on the correct side of this issue, as it affects our whole country and it will result in needed reforms.
Red, I always hope to end up on the correct side of an issue. My point was that there seems to be far too much belief that we can rely on the government to take care of us. I for one believe that we are to care for ourselves, our families and if we have the ability, those around us. I get concerned when people start allowing the government to fill those shoes. The government does not do a good job of running things generally. The last people I want making decisions related to my health care are government bureaucrats.
Although we could not do without it, I do not subscribe to the idea that we should ever be looking to put the government in charge of anything that it does not absolutely have to be in charge of.
My father in law began practicing medicine as a cardiologist out of the Mayo clinic when “health insurance” was not common. He just finally retired in January. Point is it wasnt that long ago no one had health insurance. This fact seems to be forgotten in the discussion that I hear on the subject.
We survived and thrived as a nation when there was no such thing as health insurance. It is foolish to believe we can not now prosper unless the government begins providing it for everyone.
I agree with Shawn Nelson. Those most privileged among us that grew up around country clubs and private schools should not be allowed to access the public option. Family money and good will should be enough to see them through the costs of a devastating illness. The rest of us are advised to barter their medical expenses with a few chickens like the good ole days.
baxter, that was funny.
Shawn, “back in the day,” when most people did not have insurance, specialty medicine did not exist as it does now. Most people just went to a family pracitioner, and maybe a surgeon. Insurance came to exist because the cost of medicine (MRI’s, CT’s, pharmacueticals, hell even something as seemingly simple as a CBC) has attained a level that would not have been fathomable back then.
You know, we all pay for police services, even though the police respond to some parts of a city a lot more often than others. But on those occasions when you need a cop to show up for YOU, aren’t you glad they’re there??? I can’t see the health insurance issue being much different …
Laura Longboobs: Have you considered where American Medical technology would be had the government taken over 40 years ago? This is not an unreasonable question. The fact that problems exist does not warrant abandoning our basic principals as a nation. Although your analogy satisfies you I dont see the connection any more than that logic would have the government feeding and housing us all as well. That model was tried by the Soviets and it just didnt work well.
Baxter: As the son of a machine tooling salesman I wouldn’t know much about the privilege part. I can tell you a lot about hard work and sacrafice if your interested.
Where would American medical technology be? Dare I consider it likely would be as advanced as our space program? NASA’s not too shabby in the research and development department. Actually, we would probably be even BETTER off, since medical technological advances are much more tangible to the population. Why do you believe this creativity and innovation would be stifled by the government? That invites the assumption that scientists and inventors are motivated primarily by greed. Well, so far as I can tell, they actually are not. They are not the ones who reap the obscene profits from their work; it’s those CEOs who need to take home $20 million plus bonuses each year!
Longboobs, You are obviously passionate about your views on this subject. My response is merely that an objective view of medicine over the last 40 years does not find that innovation and technicasl advances have come from government run systems. Our partnerships with public and private research have been the envy of the world.
Where do you see government run health care on this globe that is truly innovating new technologies? I’m not trying to be sarcastic. Seriously, what new technology are you aware of coming from government run health care in a nation presently running their internal system?
Meanwhile our system, although far from perfect, has created more new technologies in the last 40 years than the entire duration of human kind prior to that.
Based on what I see in actual results I think the system we have beats any other in the innovation and creativity department. Service is where the issues lie. Big Brother is not the answer.
Mr. Nelson your premise is totally false and you know it. I can assure you the government has no intention of “taking over Medicine”. Your doctor and the medical groups of which your doctor is a member, are for-profit. Most hospitals, unless they are a charity hospital, to which you may be admitted are for-profit. If you are sent home and require oxygen or home infusion you will be seen by a home health company which is also for-profit. The equipment used to treat you in the home was manufactured and sold by a for-profit company. The supplies and syringes will be made by for-profit companies. The drugs that you may be infused with were marked up as much multiple time because the pharmaceutical companies make big profit some of which goes into research. The nurses that treat you in the home will be employed by a for-profit nursing agency. If things don’t go well and you require hospice care the hospice agency will be for-profit. If you do not qualify for Medicare or Medi-Cal there are dozens upon dozens of for-profit private pay insurances that may or may not cover your care (UHC had close to 300 billion in profit last year). And when you finally succumb to your illness your free market loving heart can take comfort that the mortuary that buries or cremates you is also pocketing a tidy profit. NONE OF THIS WILL CHANGE UNDER THE OBAMA PLAN – NOT ONE OF THE COMMITTEE BILL ARE EVEN SUGGESTING IT SHOULD, INCLUDING ME!
As you well know what is under discussion in this health care debate is the addition of a public insurance option to compete with the United HealthCares of the world. the intention is to offer insurance to those hard working folks that make too much to qualify for Medicaid or Medi-Cal, but not enough to afford private insurance. For example service industry people (waiters, hairdressers, retail workers), blue collar workers like mechanics for mom and pop shops, other employees of small companies that cannot offer insurance, farm workers, those that have lost their jobs for whom Cobra ran out, and those who have gone back to school as adults to try to better themselves and adapt to the new economy. These are the hard working Americans who, through no fault of their own, now end up clogging up our emergency rooms because among other minor aliments their baby may have an ear infection. Even those of you that lack the empathy gene must at least understand that our hospitals eat up a lot of the cost because in an emergency the uninsured cannot be turned away. Since they do not have insurance they are often not diagnosed before it’s too late and expensive life saving procedures are required. With all these hands in the health care pie marking up their services for a profit margin, and the uninsured driving up costs, it’s easy to see why our health care costs are going up at twice the rate of inflation and more than other western countries. In fairness I will also say that most health care providers (doctors, nurses, equipment vendors, hospitals, home health agencies, etc.) are not even making much of a profit. Many are just scraping by. Even for pharmaceutical companies the gravy years seem to be coming to an end. The obscene profit margins come only from the mega health plans, the “payors”, like UHC, BCBS, Cigna, HealthNet and dozens more. That is where the public option comes in. You may not agree with even the small public option piece, there are reasonable people on both sides of this issue, but when opponents start crying about government “take over”, comparisons to the Soviet Union and socialism, they are either not informed or not being honest. Which are you?
You may recall that in To Kill A Mocking Bird a poor white farmer named Cunningham scrupulously repays Atticus Finch for legal services with a load of stove wood, a sack of hickory nuts, and a crate of smilax and holly. Given your earlier response on health care, you know before insurance was common, can we assume that you will accept the same as payment at your law practice?
Here is one painless way to cut thru the crap with comedian Jon Stewart as he interviews Insurance Industry Hack, Betsy McCaughey. It’s BRILLIANT and as an added bonus the piece was such a success that the woman actually LOST HER JOB following the exchange. Betsy was originally credited for propagating the “death panels” against seniors lies. To see the source of this kind of filthy information being called out, is VERY satsifying if you care a wit about truth. Give it a view, you will NOT be disappointed:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
If you are unfamiliar with Jon Stewart and his show and would like to see the entire program:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/246932/thu-august-20-2009-betsy-mccaughey
Red,
I believe that was the best interview Jon has yet done. It was BRILLIANT!
Shawn, I think it’s not that you don’t like the Obama health plan, but that you’re afraid of what it may become one day. When you start citing the “Soviet model”, I don’t know if you do it out of your own fear or you’re purposely exploiting fears in others.
“My point was that there seems to be far too much belief that we can rely on the government to take care of us.”
As RV have stated, we have various programs that help others that benefit our society as a whole. And it’s not just Medicare, FDA, EPA, Social Security… I would start with our tax code. Don’t people get a deduction if they own a home, have children… So many in our society in fact rely on our government to help with various expenses, and not just the lower income class.
The question is how far do we go, and that would be a good debate to have.
Longboobs,
Welcome back! You’ve been missed. I am glad you enjoyed that.
You can basically tell when she actually will lose her job. It’s during the second portion of the interview when she is basically making up stuff as she goes. Or perhaps it was when she could not even locate the numbered PAGE that she kept quoting for such a long period of time that Stewart was making keystonekops kinds of music while she searched. And she was STILL searching for it when they came back from the commercial break.
I think Shawn Nelson should take a view of that video. A hottie GOP cougar dishing up all the talking points in her beautifully coiffed style. Only later do we learned that she accumulated a massive FAIL by losing her job over it. She pandered to the base. But the base is so diminished that a new message MUST come out in order for any of them to succeed.
Will Shawn be able to pull out of his wrong-headed tail spin before it is too late? You can only LEAD a horse to water…..
😉
Lam,
I don’t know how you’ve found OJ, but it’s been fun having you around for the discussions! Did youu take a wrong turn on the internet or???? 😉
I think that Shawn is just taking a page out of Jim DeMint’s talking points. Here check this out:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/20/demint-iran-germany/
DEMINT: And we’ve seen a lot of countries over the years collapse when they’ve gone down the road that we’re going down. Probably the most heart-wrenching experiences I’ve had over the last several days is when naturalized American citizens who have immigrated here from Germany, Iran and other countries, they come up to me and they say why are we doing what so many have fled from? Why don’t Americans see what we’re doing? And I’ve realized that these people who’ve lived under socialist type economies, and totalitarianism, they know where we’re headed if we don’t turn things around.
Germany and Iran, sure, socialism, totalitarianism, yeah, they’re all about the same thing!
Thanks for the warm welcome, Red!
I’m so pleased to see that most of those commenting on this post “get it.” baxter warms my heart!
Between Stewart, Colbert, and Olbermann’s recent special comment dogging the Blue Dogs, there has been some truly exemplary media coverage on this issue as of late. It ALMOST makes up for the stupefying death panel, birther, and town hall insanity!
Thanks for posting the John Stewart interview. A totally unedited crash and burn.