Drumbeat of Fearmongering
August 18th, 2009 by jeffbrodyWarning: constant() [function.constant]: Couldn't find constant TT_TH8US_LEN in /home/psblogs/public_html/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this.php on line 1821
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There’s not even a fully formed health care reform proposal before Congress. A House version of a plan has passed committee, and the Senate committees are still working on their versions. Yet the fear mongering is at fever pitch.
Repeat after me: “The health insurance industry is your friend.”
Are you ready to buy that idea? Do you think the people who are making a profit off your health are your friends? Do you think they pay for your medical procedures out of the goodness of their hearts? Do you realize that the for-profit health insurance system takes 20 percent off the top of your health care dollar and gives you nothing for that cost in return?
I found it interesting to see this morning that while 9 out of every 10 stocks traded on American exchanges yesterday saw their values drop, the shares of health insurance companies were up between 3 and 10 percent. And why? Because there was news yesterday that the Obama administration may be backing off the public option in the health care reform bill. The public option is intended to be a competitor with private insurance to give people the choice of plans in the marketplace. Clearly, the market indicates that insurance companies feel the public option is a threat to their profits.
So why should the rest of us think of a public option as a threat? Do we really think that the health insurance companies interests are our own? Do we really think the system that has resulted in Americans paying far more for health care and getting poorer results than 35 other countries is something we should be fighting to protect?
I’m watching this health care reform debate now with dread, not with hope, because I see the same thing happening now as happened in 1993. The drug companies, which helped tube reform in 1993 with their “Harold and Louise” fear mongering ads, are now running ads with the same actors playing the same couple, only this time supporting reform.
Louise says to Harold, “It’s about time someone is doing something about health care reform.” Will big phama have to bring those actors back from the dead 16 years from now to wonder why we didn’t reform a system much in need of change back in 2009?
— Jeff
Tags: health care
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
August 18th, 2009 at 8:02 am
excellent Jeff!
unfortunately, there are too many trolls that will do anything to stop this President from doing something meaningful. Its not about the proposed bill, its about 2010. They are scared.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Repeat after me, “Social Security is not government controlled and nearly bankrupt.”
“Medicare is not government controlled and is a well run insurance company for senior citizens.”
“Medicaid is not government controlled and is successfully managing the health care for our poor.”
Jeff, you are concerned with competing insurance companies. The key word is “competing”…government isn’t competing…it is running and through poor management, wiping out the very agencies it is supposed to ‘manage’.
Why would you imagine that government would run a health care system any better than it has run SS, Medicare and Medicaid?
Yes, we need a reform…but one that will work.
In my opinion… Sharon O’Hara