The one on the left one protesting against the extension of health care to the uninsured at Sen Arlen Specter’s townhall meeting? Or the one on the right–some of the 1500 un and underinsured queuing for 2 days for care in inner-city Los Angeles (both photos from NY Times)
Categories: Matthew Holt
Love the online debate here…..but if you have a second for a Health Care Reform Cartoon:
http://www.webdonuts.com/2009/08/town-hall-meeting/
“MD, tell me the cost of a cell phone, then tell me the cost of a root canal.”
Peter you’re an intellectual trollop, if you where any easier I would leave you money on the night stand.
Cost of a cell phone, excluding purchase price $40-$99 per month. Cost of a great dental plan $20-$40 per month. Want to discuss cable TV, $50-$100.
My favorite has always been smokers that can’t afford to buy insurance when a pack a day smoking cost more then monthly premium for a reasonable policy.
MD as HELL wrote: “It makes me sick. Do you think I need an MRI or a home health aid?”
2 words for you, MD:
death panels
“since 99% of claims submitted are paid, maybe you should look up the word “routinely”.
A more accurate statement would be that some physicians (see McAllen County) routinely perform unnecessary procedures.”
Exactly Actuary, insurance companies don’t anything to stop unnecessary procedures, they just pass the costs on to premium payers and now want the government to pay premiums for people that get unnecessary procedures from greedy doctors. Insurance companies are not performing any valuable function, except to pay their execs huge bonuses.
MD, tell me the cost of a cell phone, then tell me the cost of a root canal.
Mo S,
It does not take medical school to tell that people breathing on there own and out at a town hall meeting could at the very least be telemarketers or time share sales people.
Both groups could do that.
Grow up, Peter. Without the cell phone they could afford dental and eye care. it is all about priorities. Even in Jamaica people have bad teeth but they all have cell phones. It is about choices. If you can get it for free, then why pay for it?
This healthcare deform debate is about the freedom of the soul of America, not cheap care and not coverage for all.
“Insurance companies routinely deny needed care”
The above are the lies that some Dems are throwing out that hurts their credibility.
Hey, Dr. Nick, since 99% of claims submitted are paid, maybe you should look up the word “routinely”.
A more accurate statement would be that some physicians (see McAllen County) routinely perform unnecessary procedures.
The real fear-mongers are the people demonizing insurance companies.
The Dems need some simple straightforward messages on health care reform
(Eggheads step aside until we cross this political goal line)
I offer these four up-
– “Insurance companies routinely deny needed care”
– “Medicines in the US are way too expensive”
– “You will not be able to afford your health insurance premium soon”
– “Grandmothers need our deepest love and respect both in life and in
death”
Thanks,
Dr.Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa
Nate, Medicare and Medicaid won’t be fixed until the private system they use is brought under price/cost controls. If the private system does not want governement interference then it better fix it’s own problems and cut it’s own greed and corruption.
“The administration has to use their unique position to expose the corruption.”
Retired Fred, the government is the corruption. Remember it is governemnt that made it federal law employers offer subsidized HMOs. It was government that forced people into mega carriers they allowed to grow. It is government that stiffels and outlaws compatition to their chosen ubder carriers. It is failed public plans ran by government that are destroying our systems.
Peter when you lie to people and promise them something you can not deliver that doesn’t make you a better person. You might feel good bout yourself and run around pating the other witless lefites on the back but your really sick monsters. If you can’t deliver Medicare and Medicaid sustainably how do you plan to offer Healthcare to everyone else?
THe truth is you will lie to them just like you lied to the seniors and the poor, you will promise them they are covered all the way up to when the bills start comming in and you cut or eliminate benefits.
For an ideology that has had nothing but complete failures in healthcare your ideas are worth less then the paper they are passed around on. Before you go making any more promises you can’t keep why don’t you fix Medicare and Medicaid first????
Good point Mo S, actually 60 Minutes did a story about a group called “Remote Area Medical” (which could be the photo on the right) that usually provides medical care to 3rd World countries but has been doing it in the U.S. as well.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/28/60minutes/main3889496.shtml
Many of the people who show up for treatment CAN and DO work, or want to work, but need dental work, eye care, diabetes treatment, but because of attitudes like MD as Hell, can’t afford to pay for care. You have to ask why we can lavish TARP funds and bailout money on crooks and incompetents to ensure their bonuses won’t be interrupted yet we can’t/won’t provide healthcare to people at reasonable cost.
“MD as Hell” says: “The ones on the right look healthy enough to be at work.”
Assuming you are an MD – I am stunned that medical school gave you the ability to mass diagnose a crowd, based on ONE in-focus face in a dark shot. Astonishing, that.
Who cares about either side. Both seem to be conflicted ethically. We need to look at the truths underneath the dogma. Healthcare as a percentage of GDP for the US is excessively high. Provider and insurance productivity, based on other countries, could be improved by 30%. However, there is no incentive for docs, hospitals or insurance to seek efficiency. Insurance happily agrees each year to perpetuate excessive pay to docs and hospitals because it creates a barrier to low cost competition. All the while, providers and insurance companies generate spin with the intent to trick the public that their costs are rising because of external factors. So given these ethical problems, what’s our good intentioned new president to do. Sorry, but new record systems and just saying there will be efficiencies, will not get reform to move forward. You have to expose the core problem – greed. The administration has to use their unique position to expose the corruption. Why should a group of people making an average of 100K per year support an elite layer that earns 10 to 20+ times as much. 5 times as much is probably what’s appropriate. But that’s the problem with greed – more is always more better. So good luck administration. You refused to take your medicine when the financial bubble burst (i.e. let’s make a new bubble). It’s apparent you will do the same with healthcare. I will go on record to report whatever system you decide, it will only prop up a tired, self interest driven, system that only serves a few (the true chronic US disease).
The ones one the left are protesting government intrusion into our lives under the guise of healthcare reform.
The ones on the right look healthy enough to be at work.
So do the ones on the left.
The entitlement disease, something given unearned at the expense of someone else, has got to go away.
Government screwed up healthcare. Government cannot fix it, except to exit from it.
What ever happened to “live free or die”.
Rights are free or they are not rights. No one has as right to free stuff from the government.
We are on the steep part of the slippery slope.
It makes me sick. Do you think I need an MRI or a home health aid?
I don’t know which we suffer more from, an underinformed electorate who are so succeptable to special interest demogoggery and fear mongering on healthcare, or a tone-deaf healthpolicy elite who are so slow footed in their ability to coaless on reform approaches and incapable of comprehensible articulation. I do know we have a media that much more prefers to attend to the conflict than the content of health reform. It looks like we are headed to at best an incrementalist seige, and at worst a deteriorating status quo on healthcare delivery.
I seem to be able to count more than a few seniors (Medicare?) in the crowd (mob?) on the left. I wonder if they expect other taxpayers to foot the bill for their end of life care?
It is the ever present fight between haves and have nots…the human follies at its peak being demonstrated here.
rgds
ravi
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