This 22 second statement has got to be seen to be believed. Anyone this math-challenged shouldn't be discussing the Canadian health care system and shouldn't be on the air at all. Via Media Matters. Interesting statistic that the average Canadian lives almost 2 years longer than the average American. BTW, did you know that O'Reilly's average viewer is 71 years old? Who is he going to replace those viewers with in coming years?
I've been wondering about this for months. What IS the new health care system that we are arguing about? How can I know if I'm for it or against it until I know what it is? That was one of the topics Bill Moyers discussed with his guests, Trudy Lieberman, director of the health and medical reporting program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and Marcia Angell, senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: [Barack Obama] has essentially advocated is throwing more money into the current system. He's treating the symptom and he's not treating the underlying cause of our problem. Our problem is that we spend two and a half times as much per person on health care as other advanced countries, the average of other advanced countries. And we don't get our money's worth. So, now he says, okay, this is a terribly inefficient, wasteful system. Let's throw some money into it . . . Into the same system. That's his problem. The other problem, in the press conference, was that he was trying to mobilize public support for a bill, and we don't know what that bill is.Here's a big problem with the current system:
MARCIA ANGELL: Well, that goes to the cause of the problem. We are the only advanced country in the world that has chosen to leave health care to the tender mercies of a panoply of for-profit businesses, whose purpose is to maximize income and not to provide health. And that's exactly what they do.Angell then strongly states that the system that Obama is apparently pushing doesn't change this sad situation, even though 2/3 of Americans prefer the Canadian-style single payor system. Is Obama going to change health care for the better? Angell says she's not optimistic:
But what I would say this time around, and now I am going to be very pessimistic, Bill. This time around, I don't think it's going to happen because of the power the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies. I don't think it's going to happen. But I would rather see Obama go down fighting for something coherent and practical that the public could mobilize behind, than go down fighting for this amorphous plan that tries to keep these private insurance industry in place . . . Well, he will have to fight . . . I think he'll go down. I don't think he's grasped the nettle. And I don't think that even the best of the proposals that he is considering are going to be effective. And I worry about even the public option, because the power of the insurance industry is so great that I believe that they would use their clout in Congress to hobble the public option in some way.What's the only solution? Angell says it forcefully:
I think we have to go for a single payer system. You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state. You could do it decade by decade. You could improve Medicare. That is, make it nonprofit. But extend it down to age 55 and age 45 and age 35. It would give the private insurance industry a chance to go into hurricanes, earthquakes or something. To get out of the health business. It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done.As always, Bill Moyers and his guests give you details and arguments that you won't find in most news sources.
From Daily Kos, here's a long list of words you'll never hear in the Canadian health care system. They include:
"Out of network" COBRA Co-Pay Pre-existing condition. uninsurable profit recissionAdditional note via Open Left:
By an overwhelming margin, Canadians prefer the Canadian health care system to the American one. Overall, 82% said they preferred the Canadian system, fully ten times the number who said the American system is superior (8%).And consider this challenge to the GOP by Rep Anthony Weiner (via Michael Moore):
At Common Dreams, Bill Moyers and Michael Winslip explain that you won't see the way the health care debate is being resolved if you only spent time on Capitol Hill. No, it's much slimier than that:
Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of The Washington Post -- one of the most powerful people in DC -- invited top officials from the White House, the Cabinet and Congress to her home for an intimate, off-the-record dinner to discuss health care reform with some of her reporters and editors covering the story.
But CEO's and lobbyists from the health care industry were invited, too, provided they forked over $25,000 a head -- or up to a quarter of a million if they want to sponsor a whole series of these cozy get-togethers. And what is the inducement offered? Nothing less, the invitation read, than "an exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will get it done."
If you are not one of the highly-monied invitees or the "select few," forget about the debate because, politically speaking, you amount to nothing at all. That's the process. Go tell that to all the grade school students who are being taught lies in their civics classes. They are being taught that this is a democracy, and that our government is ultimately responsible to all of those people who were not invited to that fancy dinner. As the authors, explain, this particular dinner was canceled only after a copy of the invite was leaked to the web site Politico.com. It was, after all, a big misunderstanding. This peak at how important bills are passed is not an isolated case. It reminds you that when Congress passed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, "the select few made sure it no longer contained the cramdown provision that would have allowed judges to readjust mortgages." Here's another example:Everyone knows the credit ratings agencies were co-conspirators with Wall Street in the shameful wilding that brought on the financial meltdown. But when the Obama administration came up with new reforms to prevent another crisis, the credit ratings agencies were given a pass. They'd been excused by "the select few who actually get it done."
Shame on us. Shame on our leaders for following big business instead of leading.While others were photographing the senators at the front of the room, NPR turned its camera on all of those people sitting in the back of the room, in an attempt to identify all of the health care lobbyists in the room. What ARE the names of all of those people trying to subvert our political process? NPR has invited an interested parties to review their photos and to help them nail these bastards figure things out.