Public Option Enemy No. 1
Rick Scott ran a hospital company guilty of epic fraud. Now he wants to tell you how to fix health care.
You've probably seen the ads. Ominous voice-overs warn you about how health care reform "could put a bureaucrat in charge of your medical decisions, not you." A massive bulldozer with "government-run insurance plan" written on the side crushes your health care "choices." Canadians and Britons relay horror stories of their experiences dealing with health care in those nightmarish socialist dystopias.
The ads are the product of a multimillion-dollar ad campaign designed to derail health care reform—especially what's been dubbed the "public option," which would set up a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. The man behind this ad blitz is the person who might be Public Option Enemy No. 1: one-time hospital executive and longtime Republican donor Richard Scott.
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Big Pharma's PR Ploy
Is the industry's contribution to health care reform just a scheme to push brand name drugs?
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Conservatives on Healthcare
Two pieces in the LA Times demonstrate why conservatives are increasingly losing the healthcare argument.
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Got Health Insurance? Fighting for a Public Option Might Just Get You a Raise!
Controlling health care costs isn't just necessary for the health of our economy—it'd also be likely to boost personal incomes.
Back in March, Scott spent $5 million of his own money to set up a nonprofit called Conservatives for Patients' Rights. The group aims to be the command center for the right's fight against Democratic reform efforts. With the major interest groups—including hospital companies, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors—that have opposed reform in the past holding their fire this year in order to have a seat at the legislative table, Scott's group has filled the anti-reform void. According to an estimate reported by the Associated Press, around $15 million has already been spent on ads favoring the Democrats' plan, and $4 million has been spent to oppose it. Much of that $4 million has come from Scott and CPR, and he's claimed his group will spend as much as $20 million.
Scott isn't foolish enough to say he opposes reform outright. Instead, his group says it wants to promote health care reform that focuses on "choice" (of doctors), "competition" (between private insurers), "accountability" (standardized insurance claim forms and tax reform), and "personal responsibility" (of patients).
Not everyone thinks that's real change.
"What Rick Scott is doing is talking about protecting the status quo, which is bankrupting businesses and bankrupting families," says Peter Harbage, a fellow at the Center for American Progress, which supports the public option. With so many groups—from the hospital industry to the pharmaceutical industry to Wal-Mart—coming together in support of reform, "it's disappointing that [Scott] doesn't want to be a constructive part of the conversation," Harbage says.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, was more blunt: "Rick Scott pushing health care reform is like Bernie Madoff attempting to regulate the financial industry," he told Mother Jones.
Scott certainly is an odd spokesman for the right's health care agenda. The giant hospital company Scott led in the 1980s and 1990s, Columbia/HCA, was the subject of a seven-year federal investigation. The probe concluded with the company pleading guilty to 14 felony counts of criminal misconduct and paying $1.7 billion to settle civil charges relating to overbilling of state and federal governments—the largest settlement of its kind in American history. Scott, claiming ignorance of what was going on, was booted by his own board in 1997 and received a $10 million golden parachute with $300 million in stock options for his troubles.
Scott says that his critique of the public option is predicated on his detailed knowledge of the health care industry. But Stephen Meagher, a lawyer who handled some of the first suits against HCA, points out that Scott's expertise is not a straightforward matter. "He says, 'I was never accused of any wrongdoing,' which is technically correct—but his company was accused of tremendous wrongdoing," Meagher says. "He claims vast experience" in the health care field "but no knowledge of his own company."
Scott doesn't seem eager to remind visitors to CPR's website of his past. Not surprisingly, the "Fast Facts about Richard L. Scott" section contains no mention of the HCA fraud scandal, though it does highlight the fact that HCA "became the world's largest private health care provider" and was named "one of the 50 best performing companies of the S&P 500" by BusinessWeek. The bio does mention Scott's current venture, a company called Solantic, which "provides urgent care services, immunizations and other services at 23 locations"—including some in Wal-Mart stores—"across Florida." What it doesn't explain is that Solantic makes a lot of its money by catering to the uninsured—giving Scott a direct financial interest in preventing the expansion of health insurance to all Americans.
Eric Burns, the president of liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America, says Scott's advocacy is having an impact. "Scott is spending an enormous amount of money to influence the debate over health care reform. He's essentially cornered the market on providing false and misleading information on the health care reform debate." Some of Scott's ads focus on nightmarish tales of government-run health care in places like Canada and Britain, but President Obama hasn't proposed going to a Canadian-style single-payer system. And it is not just Media Matters that has criticized the ads—the Annenberg Center's FactCheck.org also found the group's ad "very misleading."
To disseminate its message, CPR has hired the same public relations company that handled the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The firm, CRC Public Relations, did not respond to questions for Scott submitted by Mother Jones. But Burns says CPR's ties to CRC are no coincidence. "CPR is essentially the conservative Swift Boat operation for the health care reform debate," Burns says.
The media have certainly aided Scott's efforts to dodge his history and his conflicts of interest. CNN and Fox News, among others, have interviewed Scott without questioning him about HCA or his new company's dependence on the uninsured.
Jacki Schechner, a spokeswoman for Health Care for America Now, which supports the public option, says Scott is a "nuisance," but not an obstacle. "He has a long and sordid history," she says, adding that his past may actually help pro-public-option advocates. "For us he's a great face of opposition because he's such a shady guy."
CPR talks up "competition," but it's opposed to forcing private insurers to compete with a government-run plan. That could be because government-run insurance in other countries has proven to be vastly cheaper and often better than the system of private insurance America relies on. In the US, there are efficiently run public health care plans: Medicare's administrative costs are a fraction of those of the private plans, and Veterans Affairs provides some of the most effective health care in the world to a population that is older and sicker than the general public, Meagher argues. "It's kind of difficult for me to believe someone who is so ideologically committed to competition and is at the same time worried about competition from a public program," he says.
It's all about protecting the health care industry's bottom line, says Nadler. "Scott and his ilk are dead wrong in their opposition to the public option and are particularly suspect in their motivations. The health care industry doesn't see kids with colds; they see dollar signs."
Scott may be fighting a losing battle. Most polls show that the public option is very popular, and this week Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, encouraged Sen. Max Baucus to stop seeking GOP votes on the health care legislation he's writing and move forward with a bill with a public option. The writing's on the wall, says Roger Hickey, the codirector of the Campaign for America's Future.
"The public loves the idea that if we get reform, it's not just going to be the Rick Scotts of the world that control the health care system," Hickey says. "It turns out the public loves what he's trying to vilify."
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This supposed "choice" they keep harping on is a joke.
I've seen this bozo's ads against the public option. What a joke! They try to scare us into thinking that "the government" in the form of some clueless bureaucrat will suddenly interfere in my care and make my "healthcare decisions" instead of me and my doctor. Hey guess what? Somebody already interferes with my care, I don't get to make those decisions now, and neither does my doctor - my INSURANCE COMPANY does.
Give me healthcare reform with a public option. It's time.
Groovymarlin
Yeah, maybe your insurance provider interferes with your care but YOU chose to have it that way. To add, this Richard Scott guy is funding a chain of Urgent Care Facitilties that offer prices for the non-insured which eliminates your crying about YOUR provider that YOU chose.
Think before you type Mr. "I have it all figured out!"
Let me guess, you're unemployed and have nothing else better to do than blog all day?????????
Its not our choice that the
Its not our choice that the insurance companies have taken over health care and tell the doctors and hospitals what to do. They've made it about profit, not about health. Or care. They turn dying people away to save money. Thats not anyone's choice. And that's certainly not health or care.
Why attack people and say they must not have a job if they are on this site? You are on this site. Duh. How did you reach that conclusion? Having time to give opinions automatically equals unemployed??
And why call names? Making a point does not make someone "Mr. I Know Everything." Very strange post. I can't really see the logic of your thought process.
Not strange at all for an insurance industry Troll
I think your troll is Rick Scott. Rick, go back into the hole you crawled out of...
Public Healthcare reform
Great article! So agree with what several have replied - that this whole argument about retaining my "choice" is so bogus. As stated, by both Grooveymarlin and others, the choice is now made by some insurance company's employee not by the doctors. I had the regrettable position of working as an assitant controller for HCA in the early 90's. Medical care was often not based on what was best for the patient, but rather on what was the most financially beneficial for the hospital. The goal was to prevent outliers, and since the hospital was in a heavy tourist area, decisions were often made to transfer patients out to their home hospitals rather than risk losing money on them. The mantra should be over and over that there is no choice when profit controls medical care.
A well-spoken woman
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A well-spoken woman solicited my input on a survey that was being taken "on behalf of a proposal for healthcare reform in congress." I became uncomfortable with the tone of the questions, i.e. Would you support spending federal money on a national campaign to end smoking? I was like, uh, well, that's not the issue, exactly, and you're not asking me the right questions . . . When I finally said, well, could you tell me who is sponsoring this "proposal"? she hung up on me, confirming that she was a shill for the HMOs or whatever. That was, I believe, the first time somebody soliciting me on the telephone hung up on me--usually it's the other way around.
Single payer, please
That Mother Jones goes with the cute-sie headline on "public option", instead of framing Scott as the enemy of single payer -- a real solution embodied in legislation, as opposed to the Rube Goldberg-esque series of talking points labeled "public option" -- is yet another indication of how far right the Overton Window has been pulled.
In fact, Scott's winning, as the Dems go for a "solution" that will end up guaranteeing the insurance companies a market and locking the for-profit model of health care in place permanently.
You'd expect a magazine called Mother Jones to be pulling left, instead of settling meekly for second best, but n-o-o-o-o-o-o.....
Exactly.
It's all about a "compromise" that destroys what's needed to solve the problem, and rewards the profit elite status quo.
the devil is in the details
It's very easy to blame the insurance companies and rightly so but, as this article explains, the privately run hospitals are getting over big time. These private hospitals aren't getting any heat and they'd like to keep it that way. Who gets the lion’s share of the money in the end? Ask anyone who has visited a private hospitals emergency room what the itemized bill looked like. Every bill that I've ever received from a hospital was almost twice what the sepearate doctor bill was. No company should profit so much when it comes to basic healthcare needs of people in the community in which it serves. "The CEO of a hospital get's a $300 million dollar severance package." That dollar figure is in the same area of megabank and major credit card CEO's. Outrageous!
PRIVATE FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE IS AN OXYMORON
AMERICA’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY!
It’s official. America and the World are now in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. A World EPIDEMIC with potential catastrophic consequences for ALL of the American people. The first PANDEMIC in 41 years. And WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES will have to face this PANDEMIC with the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed World.
STAND READY AMERICA TO SEIZE CONTROL OF YOUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
We spend over twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as any other country in the World. And Individual American spend about ten times as much out of pocket on healthcare as any other people in the World. All because of GREED! And the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare system in America.
And while all this is going on, some members of congress seem mostly concern about how to protect the corporate PROFITS! of our GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT NATIONAL DISGRACE. A PRIVATE FOR PROFIT DISGRACE that is in fact, totally valueless to the public health. And a detriment to national security, public safety, and the public health.
Progressive democrats the Tri-Caucus and others should stand firm in their demand for a robust public option for all Americans, with all of the minimum requirements progressive democrats demanded. If congress can not pass a robust public option with at least 51 votes and all robust minimum requirements, congress should immediately move to scrap healthcare reform and request that President Obama declare a state of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY! Seizing and replacing all PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance plans with the immediate implementation of National Healthcare for all Americans under the provisions of HR676 (A Single-payer National Healthcare Plan For All).
Coverage can begin immediately through our current medicare system. With immediate expansion through recruitment of displaced workers from the canceled private sector insurance industry. Funding can also begin immediately by substitution of payroll deductions for private insurance plans with payroll deductions for the national healthcare plan. This is what the vast majority of the American people want. And this is what all objective experts unanimously agree would be the best, and most cost effective for the American people and our economy.
In Mexico on average people who received medical care for A-H1N1 (Swine Flu) with in 3 days survived. People who did not receive medical care until 7 days or more died. This has been the same results in the US. But 50 million Americans don’t even have any healthcare coverage. And at least 200 million of you with insurance could not get in to see your private insurance plans doctors in 2 or 3 days, even if your life depended on it. WHICH IT DOES!
If President Obama has to declare a NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY to rescue the American people from our healthcare crisis, he will need all the sustained support you can give him. STICK WITH HIM! He’s doing a brilliant job.
THIS IS THE BIG ONE!
THE BATTLE OF GOOD Vs EVIL!
Join the fight.
Contact congress and your representatives NOW! AND SPREAD THE WORD!
God Bless You
Jacksmith – WORKING CLASS
Little TV News Coverage About Rick Scott
Other than Rachel Maddow, the TV News has done very little in reporting - in depth - the background of Rick Scott.
His former buyout / ownership of Health Companies, how he shrank the number of facilities (not his) down dramatically, his fraud and government penalties levied against him, his multi-billion golden parachute.
And the media is still scratching their heads on why we should be concerned about this guy harping AGAINST Health Care Legislation?
It's time for Democratic Members of Congress to read from the House/Senate floors the truth about Rick Scott for all to see.
And it's time for the US Media (TV & Newspapers) to get off their asses and report in deep detail (and I mean deep) the facts about they guy people are seeing on their TV screens with commercials against Health Care changes.
Health care
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This you can be absolutely sure of. When the Greed Over Prosperity party gets involved, they will always back the greed option.
These tactics aren't new. In
These tactics aren't new. In fact they should be expected. Now what we have to do is get behind a plan that makes sense. Check out The5DollarRevolution.com. It oultines a great way to fund the public option without raising taxes. The Myths section really proves we don't need trillions of dollars to meet the challenge.
How being one "50 best performing companies" - says it all!
Best Performing = Made the most Money, by returning the least amount of service and/or product.
In health care that equals: Little Old Ladies eating Cat Food to make Premium Payments that contribute to this 'Best Performing' Status.
Corporate Elan be Damned! I did some Temp Work as a Janitor in the HQ Building of a Major Insurer (it was in Omaha; guess which one!); to my dismay, disgust, & utter outrage I discovered that they'd used some of their 'Best Performance/Old Ladies eating Cat Food-derived assets' to pay for Brass Light Switch and Electrical Outlet Cover Plates - not just in the Lobeys or Offices, but in the JANITORS CLOSETS!!!
JimRinX
Public Option Enemy No. 1
What can one expect from a fat cat who will lose money. It doesn't matter that the poor will receive much needed health care. Many, many horror stories will and have come out to scare people. Most anything thing will be better than what we now unless you have money. These people will still be able to get what they want. Too bad they can't be put on Medicare or state assistance.
There's a reason why the
There's a reason why the Public Option is called an 'option'. We are already deprived of choice when it comes to whom we can go to and when and how, etc. (provider networks, referrals, advance notice of provider switch, limits on drug coverage, pre-existing conditions, spending caps, etc.). And even better if you don't even have insurance - you have a choice of getting care and going broke or being too ill to work and going broke. I have never lived in a country where healthcare leaves people with so few choices and yet charges so much. The insurance companies and mega-conglomo-hospitals fear true competition and choice.
Already waiting
What these Fake and Frauds forget to tell you is the system they created right "NOW".The referal system people are already waiting and have died waiting.The system that is now running the hospital system is the referal system where your doctor writes a referal to the Insurance company to "OK" what the doctor wants to do.Leaving your care not in the hands of the doctor but the Insurance company.And your "REFERAL" can be rejected by the Insurance company unbelievable and some doctors I call insurance doctors these are the very same doctors that are fighting the reform.They will diagnose you based on what type of Insurance you got not what type of Illness you have.Your Insurance is what type of care your going to get.And these are conservative doctors treating the Lords children based on there Insurance where's the Love its very SAD.I recently was taken to the emergency in a Ambulance very sick with a pre-condition.I was taken to a conservative hospital I got there and they found out I did'nt have Insurance and was transfered from the gurney to bed.The nurse shut the curtain three minutes later the doctor came in and said we can not do anything for you.I was blown away I looked at her and said what.She said there's "NOTHING" we can do for .So I got up in pain and walked out of the ER in socks and walked home.So these FAKES that are fighting against something that would help the Lords children in many ways.These doctors who are claiming to be conservative are FRAUDS but are greedy bought by BIG insurance and are LIARS from the pit of "HELL".God has a special place for them and its very hot there......!
and also PBS....
The 7/10/09 show on PBS of "Bill Moyers Journal. ( and rerun during the week ) should be viewed by all. When a retired ( 15 years) ceo of a very large insurance company spills the beans of insurance companys "ways and means"...and all it took was a trip back home in Ten. and curiously a visit to a medical free clinic where he saw the "real" people and what they put up with
It was almost the whole program . videos, pictures and his admission of living and working behind corporate walls........If you can, and you should,..SEE IT
What "choice" will I be sacrificing?
All this smoke about the loss of freedom of choice. My HMO gives me a book of their do's and don'ts every year stipulating which doctors, specialists and hospitals are in their network. And if I have the great misfortune to become ill outside of my specified region, say while I'm visiting my daughter in an ajoining state, I'm pretty much on my own.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) P
Healthcare Reform from an
insider who spent 20 years at CIGNA as CEO VP of its Communications Dept. This is the interview with Bill Moyers of NPR. Part I is also available on the same page of youtube as this link to Part II, but only links to Part II. Watch Part I prior to Part II as it give good insite into Wendell.
Healthscam
I hope that public interest groups AND The Government go through a lot of these medical entities and institutions, find plenty of stuff not to like, and start closing them down.
Klaatu marachas necktie
Simplistic answers to the
Simplistic answers to the "good" and "bad" of healthcare are never going to work. Why? Because healthcare is about the most complex systems (human beings) and the best guesswork that science can provide into the "whys" and "wherefores".
In my opinion, the biggest problem with healthcare is that people are removed from any fiscal responsibility for their health and wellbeing. I believe everyone should be allowed to smoke -- as long as they bear the fiscal consequences of having made bad choices about smoking. Same with obesity -- do what you want with your own body, if you're going to bear the expense of the damage that gets done.
Yes, there are things we can't predict. But because we, as consumers, don't have to pay for the consequences of making bad choices that lead to the things we CAN predict, well -- what the heck, blame everyone but ourselves for the horrible problems of the healthcare system.
Is there corporate greed and irresponsibility? Absolutely. But... let's be very clear. People do what's easy for themselves, and what they can get away with, and blame others when things go wrong. We now have a culture of irresponsibility and litigation rather than self- and community-responsibility.
Don't blame the product of the society. Blame the society that allows the product.
DifferingOpinion's post is pure BUNK
I can answer the previous poster's points from personal experience. First, concerning "fiscal responsibility." About 35 years ago my younger brother was born in our home town's only hospital - just after midnight, our mother's second vaginal delivery, no complications, into the delivery room around 11 PM and out by 2 AM. Yet when the bills came due the hospital charged our insurance for 48 hours of delivery room time - apparently one minute past midnight counted as another 24 hours even though Mom had only been in there for a couple of hours by that point. So Dad tried to protest the charge, but was told that the insurance would cover it in any case as it was apparently considered "reasonable and customary." So much for blaming that one on the consumer, and yes, folks, creative hospital billing has been going on for decades. And if you want a more recent example, here's one for the ages. Soon after Dad's retirement several years ago, he was admitted to the hospital for routine abdominal surgery. Afterward he was given a fairly inexpensive (somewhere around $10) prescription for painkillers, which he was advised to claim against either Medicare or his supplemental insurance; I can't remember which. I happened to be in the room when he attempted to do so, and watched as he navigated through several phone menu trees and spent at least fifteen minutes before finally getting through to a live person, who eventually denied the claim. After all that rigamarole, Dad and I looked at each other and simultaneously realized the same thing: that after 10 minutes of talking to various people who probably earned somewhere around fifteen dollars an hour, plus 20 minutes of hold time and menu navigation with all of the above taking place on a toll-free line, our vaunted "health care system" had spent more money dithering over whether to pay for his prescription than it would have cost to just go ahead and pay the claim. Multiply that situation by a few million patients and then try to tell me with a straight face that the consumer is the problem.
Second, concerning personal responsibility. In this case it's DifferingOpinion's view that's simplistic, because if it were correct, smoking would have been banned entirely in Canada and Europe decades ago. It hasn't been banned because in every country with government-run health systems, somebody in an office somewhere has run the actuarial tables and discovered that it's cheaper for the health care system if citizens smoke like chimneys and kill themselves at 50 or 60 than if they don't smoke, live to 80 or 90 and end up needing years of 24/7/365 care. And again, I have personal experience to back this up. My maternal grandfather was a lifelong chainsmoker who died from brain cancer that had metastasized from his lungs - he was diagnosed and dead within six months. Contrast that with one of my great-aunts, a lifelong nonsmoker and teetotaler who spent the last 15 years of her life in bed; the actual cost of her end-of-life care immeasurable because a dozen years of it were provided by a daughter who sacrificed her own earning potential to be there for her mother. Irresponsibility and litigation had nothing to do with it.
I'll close with my own situation as one of the millions of uninsured, although in my case it's completely voluntary as I refuse to waste my own good health blindly subsidizing the colossal failure masquerading as our current "health care system." It took me a while to get here, as I was an early believer in the ORIGINAL concept of the HMO as pre-paid health care. But during my years as a Federal employee I watched in dismay as the HMO cost savings got swallowed up by copayments even as the provider networks shrank and the few services I did use got routinely shuffled to the lowest bidder. Eventually I got so fed up that I bailed out of the Federal Employee Health Benefits system entirely and set up what amounted to my own private Health Savings Account, as the HSAs officially recognized by the IRS at the time were restricted to the point of uselessness. Basically I set aside the money I formerly contributed to the FEHB, plus money out of my salary equivalent to the Federal share of my insurance cost, and used it to purchase a private major-medical plan with the remaining funds dedicated to either routine health costs or an investment account set up for future medical expenses. This worked reasonably well for a while; one upside was that I didn't have to worry about losing coverage on my departure from Federal service the following year. But I eventually dropped the insurance completely, in part because its price wasn't competitive given the high deductible and limited coverage, and more significantly because the premiums were increasing at about 20 percent per year to boot. The last straw, however, came when I found out that providers were submitting UNAUTHORIZED claims against the policy and that I could do nothing about it. During those years I took several trips overseas with organized tour groups that required a physician's statement of fitness from all participants, and routine checkups were explicitly denied under my insurance policy - a fact which I knew and understood. So each time I went in for one of these checkups I advised the doctor's office of this and instructed them NOT to attempt a claim, and in each case I requested, and was given, the customary discount for paying cash (which is the doctor's traditional way of thanking you for removing the burden of insurance paperwork). Yet each time I returned from one of these trips, waiting in the pile of accumuated mail was a "claim denied" letter from the insurance company - "'the service you claimed isn't covered, consult your policy, blah blah blah". After a few such incidents I started to worry that this pattern of unauthorized claims might cause problems for any legitimate claims I might make in the future; calling the insurance company to complain, I was assured that it wouldn't, that the insurer would rather see claims submitted and denied than not submitted and possibly come up in future litigation. I hung up shaking my head in disbelief, realizing that a substantial part of my steadily-growing monthly premium was paying for paperwork, that should never have been filled out in the first place, being shuffled across God knows how many desks of people making 20 or 30 dollars an hour, to deny claims that were already nullified by explicit and mutually-agreed contract. And that was the day I stopped paying for health insurance.
These experiences all give the lie to DifferingOpinion's assertion that the consumer is the problem. As long as the health care system continues inflicting unsupportable costs on itself - costs which consumers have absolutely no control over - the consumer will lose no matter what choices he or she makes. My biggest concern over the current reform proposals centers less on the "public option" than on Obama's reversing his pre-election stance against personal coverage mandates, with both the current House and Senate proposals including a percentage-of-income tax penalty assessed on those refusing to purchase "affordable" insurance. Let's set aside the reality that this forces those who can afford their own care to subsidize the failure of a system they have no desire to use, and focus instead on the math. The current congressional reform proposals include a proposed penalty level of 2-1/2 percent of income, which for a person making $60K per year works out to $1500 per year or about $130 per month. I'd be curious whether any self-employed person, or anyone not eligible for an employer- or group-sponsored plan, could find comprehensive health coverage for $130 a month - given my own experience with my mini-HSA of years past, I highly doubt it. And if decent coverage at that price is unavailable, the mandate will fail just as miserably as it's failing in Massachusetts right now. Forcing everybody into a dysfunctional system won't magically make it functional; indeed, the result will be the exact opposite. I stand with many of the posters here - a single payer system is the only way to clear out the gridlock of perverse incentives that make our current health care marketplace an international embarrassment, and until that happens I have no problem taking my health care dollars the same place too many of our jobs have already gone: overseas.
Clearly those who oppose the
Clearly those who oppose the public option are those who make millions of dollars on the backs of the uninsured and the sick. The U.S. is the only industrialized country that makes a profit on healthcare. It's disgusting. And it's easy for someone who works for a company that provides health insurance or for someone who makes enough money to pay for the outrageous costs of health insurance to oppose a public option. But what options are there for those who cannot afford health insurance?
And the huge difference will be that a public option will not be making a profit on people who are sick, poor, vulnerable, or unable to afford the ridiculous prices to buy health insurance. Health insurance will be affordable for millions and millions of people. How can that possibly be a bad idea?
For those who oppose this option I wonder: How can anyone be OK, content, or satisfied, living in a country that allows people to die from illnesses that are curable simply because they cannot afford the money to pay for medical care? How can anyone think it is acceptable for someone to be sick or die knowing that we have the facilities, doctors, and medicines that can help people? Those who are content living in a country, or world for that matter, where this is acceptable have issues and are as disgusting as the health care industry.
Personally, I'm not content living in a world full of poverty, homelessness, lack of medical care for people, human rights abuse, etc. I do whatever I can to change these things. I only hope that others feel the same way.
Selfishness, greed, lack of empathy/sympathy, and being uncaring are NOT family values.
"high" costs of universal health care
They're going about this all wrong. Instead of rationalizing the "high" costs of universal health care, they should be hawking the phenomenal costs savings to society. The Euopeans and Canadians provide cheaper services with better overall results at half the costs of the U S's multifaceted monstrosity of a "system".
Let me add, that with a large portion of our population deferring treatment because of costs, we're all in great peril, the well insured, the underinsured, as well as the uninsured, in the event of a true epidemic. That person preparing and serving you that exquisite meal at the country club likely lives paycheck to paycheck, has no paid sick days and has no health insurance.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) P
public option
ANYONE WHO HAS THE POWER OVER SOMEONE'S LIFE AND ACTS TO END THAT LIFE, IS A MURDERER, in my opinion.
The current healthcare industries care ONLY for profits- not peoples lives.
WE NEED A PUBLIC OPTION NOW! We also should try these money hungrey devils for murder.
Ask Wendell Potter, the ex-CEO of Cigna who is now blowing the whistle on his industry's past and present practices to please wall street and cause death to ordinary US citizens.
Great Scott
Medicare for All period! Business can now offer higher wages instead of
healthcare. This would allow our economy to explode in a positive manner.
The stories told here have been told for many years but with the lack of
respect for each other has nurished the underlying racism & greed that
brought laisse-fairre captialism to a height seen back in the Gay 90's!
When corporations are no longer considered a "person" then we will have a
true Democratic / Republic kinda the way Jefferson outlined!
We must get the Money out of Campaign's by way of Corporate A-merry-ca
in order to thrive as a "Unified" Nation! I know the criminals will figure out
another way to create chaos n mayhem in order to STEAL. Hence the
Electionic Voting Machines owned by the folks who were voting for!
Ask the very best at it i.e. The bush crime family!
Now that's A-merry-ca
It's the doctors, stupid!
It's the doctors, stupid!
The details of Obama's
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The details of Obama's Health Care Reform has yet to be written; that being the case NO statements made by Scott are misleading since not even Obama knows what his cronies are going to try to pull, but one thing for certain is that I do not want to give government more power in the medical field than they already have, doing so can only be BAD. Take for example the last major government interventions that have not succeeded, such as the bank bailouts, automotive idustry intrusions, and the economic stimulas fiasco that is costing more jobs than creating. Heck let's go back to the USPostal Service: the US Government had a monopoly, but could not run it efficiently either. The system in it's current condition is better than the government managed alternative. The governments job is to govern PERIOD.
God help us all if democrap healthcare reform is passed as they want it.
Regards,
Thomas
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CORRUPTION!
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Hello People. I Have Been Writing about these crooks for quite some time now. I want to Give my Experience with the Health Care Ive recieved and it will show you what is going on, and with paperwork in writing to proove it!. I was put on medication to shut me up. It did some bad things to my heart and more. The Doctors that gave it to me just kept giving it to me. This medication is to only be for a couple of weeks and by medical gidelines no more. There were 3 Insurance companies involved also. This was also Private medical Insurance. They would never diagnose me, either.When you have problems going on inside your body, that is one of the wake up calls something is wrong, when you cant sleep. This medicine is TAMAZAPAM. They kept giving it to me now for over the last seven years. The Insurance companies let it happen too. I was Involved in some kind of Binding Arbitration deal, when my Husbands company notified me and sent me the paper work. I went after thier human resources lady Debbie Peters about waht was going on with the medicine. She ran to her boss, he called me and then they caught her embezzling money from the Company. The last I heard was she was going to prison, and the amount was at 700,000. She had been working with another gal in the Insurance companies we had. Which were Pacific Care, Blue Cross, And Blueshield. I was pushed aside and never heard from them again. They never diagnosed me and just kept running tests and tests. They kept giving me this medicine. Now I Have to Go to A Recovery Center.My Heart. Oh! And you should see the list of medicines.our Dental we paid every month, and eye glass care we never recieved any benefits, or discounts. Over 10 years time. Our Insurance cost us 76.00 A week. That adds up. Now he lost his job and Have no insurance, and the system is fixing me. So, you tell me, a few bad things here.What would you do. The system DOCTO is going to diagnose me, and already found a tumor. WOW What should I do, again I ask you now. Los Angeles California.
CORRUPTION!
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tagged as:
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Hello People. I Have Been Writing about these crooks for quite some time now. I want to Give my Experience with the Health Care Ive recieved and it will show you what is going on, and with paperwork in writing to proove it!. I was put on medication to shut me up. It did some bad things to my heart and more. The Doctors that gave it to me just kept giving it to me. This medication is to only be for a couple of weeks and by medical gidelines no more. There were 3 Insurance companies involved also. This was also Private medical Insurance. They would never diagnose me, either.When you have problems going on inside your body, that is one of the wake up calls something is wrong, when you cant sleep. This medicine is TAMAZAPAM. They kept giving it to me now for over the last seven years. The Insurance companies let it happen too. I was Involved in some kind of Binding Arbitration deal, when my Husbands company notified me and sent me the paper work. I went after thier human resources lady Debbie Peters about waht was going on with the medicine. She ran to her boss, he called me and then they caught her embezzling money from the Company. The last I heard was she was going to prison, and the amount was at 700,000. She had been working with another gal in the Insurance companies we had. Which were Pacific Care, Blue Cross, And Blueshield. I was pushed aside and never heard from them again. They never diagnosed me and just kept running tests and tests. They kept giving me this medicine. Now I Have to Go to A Recovery Center.My Heart. Oh! And you should see the list of medicines.our Dental we paid every month, and eye glass care we never recieved any benefits, or discounts. Over 10 years time. Our Insurance cost us 76.00 A week. That adds up. Now he lost his job and Have no insurance, and the system is fixing me. So, you tell me, a few bad things here.What would you do. The system DOCTO is going to diagnose me, and already found a tumor. WOW What should I do, again I ask you now. Los Angeles California.UCC1-207.9 (without Predjudice). Brenda Dickie.
Corruption I Forgot!
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Hello again, I forgot to mention, that Hospitals are also involved as well as Urgent Care Providers, and Emergency, And these go with the private Medical Clinics.All They can Give me, is my high blood pressure readings, and the one medicine thats handed out like candy, is VICODEN. Choice drug. The Brands Also do Have a Difference. They Are not The same. They dont even work the same. They are generics that are supposed to be the same. Liars. They are Not. UCC1-207.9 (without Predjudice). Brenda Dickie
The public plan, both alone
The public plan, both alone and as part of a broader health care package, would provide substantial benefits for young workers between 20 and 30.liposuction “Right now the insurance market is very, very difficult to navigate for a young freelancer trying to navigate the rest of their job details,” explains Matt Singer, CEO of the progressive activist organization Forward Montana.göz kapağı estetiği “The health insurance exchange/connecter outlined in both the Baucus and the Obama plans estetik ameliyatlar, plus the public health insurance option, will make the whole system more navigable for people overwhelmed with a lot of other pieces in the reform.” burun estetiği ameliyatları
Jacob Hacker himself thinks the exchange would be a key attraction to young workers. göğüs büyütme ameliyatları “I think that the exchange through which people buy private plans or enroll in the public plan should be attractive” göğüs estetiği to young people, he wrote in an email. He also emphasizes the upward pressure the exchange would put on coverage, potentially moving recipients away from “no-frills göğüs küçültme ameliyatları” packages. “No frills” packages generally have lower premiums, but provide less coverage with higher deductibles. karın germe estetiği They’re thus very attractive to young people, who tend to be cost-conscious and willing to accept more health risks vajina estetiği, but they’re dangerous because they don’t provide much help if someone suddenly gets sick. lazer epilasyon estetik cerrahi
