If Lou “our President is an illegal alien, who wants to exterminate the elderly” Dobbs can be persuaded to reconsider the benefits of a single-payer system, perhaps there’s hope for us yet.
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Lou Dobbs acknowledges upside to single-payer healthcare system?
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There are legitimate concerns on the right about cost containment and the like. It’s a shame that the irrational forces within the Republican party are so fucking loud. And then there’s the bit about them – even the sane ones – being completely hypocritical as they didn’t say a goddamned thing when Bush bankrupted the country. Still, it’s good to hear the king birther – Lou Dobbs – sounding sane.
Background on Dobbs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Dobbs#Controversy
TR Reid has a new book that compares health care in other countries, and the U.S., “Healing of America” that everyone should read.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/etc/notebook.html (an earlier interview)http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13 (and today’s FreshAir interview.)
In many countries, costs are controlled. What we are still failing to do, even with the health plans Congress and the President are putting forth, or what anyone is putting forth, is to control costs at the healthcare level-control hospital budgets, what equipment they carry/buy, what they build, salaries, costs of supplies, etc. If we don’t control/set costs, if we don’t contain expenditures, we will still not be able to afford healthcare in the long run. It must be a top down process. But then this leads to long waits in countries such as Canada (Reid points out to see a specialist can take almost a year in Canada) and can lead to denial of care (in 1996 when I was visiting England, an 8 yr old girl was denied cancer treatment a second time because NHS that allots care thought she wouldn’t recover regardless and refused to let her have treatment. Of course, she later died.) We have to determine as a country what we want-coverage that takes ages to have or can be denied but is affordable/free; or access that is granted if one can pay for it/is covered by employer or by other means. Do we go to the doctor for free, for a nominal fee, or not at all? It seems we want the best of both-immediate and free coverage. The rest of the world has shown that it doesn’t come both ways.
thanks for the link. i have this taped at home but haven’t checked it out. i agree about controlling costs and i agree this bill won’t do it. in fact, nothing that can be passed in this political climate is likely to do what we need. same goes for the energy bill. obama has badly miscalculated in his desire to garner bipartisan support, which means nothing except watering everything down till it’s useless and–worse—making actual reform even less likely.
Note the young girl who died waiting for a liver transplant that was recommended by her doctor (no doubt a specialist whom she saw right away) but denied by CIGNA. After the family went to the media and threw a fit, creating a public relations disaster for the insurer, they finally agreed to pay, but by that time it was too late and she died anyway. NHS has lots of success stories–Brits have been twittering away about them in response to American portrayals of their system. i had a rather shitty experience with NHS once when my sister got electrocuted by a desk lamp. and by shitty i simply mean it was a terribly long wait, but not any longer than what you’ll get if you go to an emergency room in the States, which i’ve also done for hours and hours. except there was no outrageous bill later to make it more shitty.
some people decry a system in which “government bureaucrats” make decisions instead of doctors. corporate bureaucrats already make these decisions. i don’t understand people who don’t understand this. you’d THINK we could find some common ground to have a national discussion about this issue, but no, we’ve got idiots and assholes coming together to shout down everyone else.
and now, as if i weren’t crabby enough at the state of things, i’ve gotta hear two of my least favorite words ever–“martha’s vineyard”–every news day.
I’m notoriously tone deaf when it comes to stuff like this, but it really does seem to me that kooks on the far right are beginning to lose some ground, and that a real discussion on the specifics is emerging. It may, of course, be too little too late. And, yes, Obama miscalculated at the outset when he extended a hand to the Republicans. In retrospect it look naive, but at least he tried. Hopefully he learned his lesson – that Republicans care less about finding a solution to our nation’s problems than destroying their perceived adversaries.
KJC-good point that corporate heads make decisions for us regarding healthcare so it would be the same if government heads did. So do our bosses when they choose the level of coverage plan to purchase for their employees. Everything could be free if a company wanted to cover it. But they choose what is affordable for the company (see Mark’s post last week re:Whole Foods as an example.)
So according to Dobbs… the secret to making millions is employing illegals – lol. Kat