Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare?

allnurses Guide · Jun 4, 2009

video interview on single payer healthcare:

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/tpv3/videos.php/2009/06/04/demoro-there-s-a-conspiracy-of-silence-a

blue note · Jun 15, 2009

This is a must-see! From the House HELP single payer hearing, Dennis Kucinich sets Dr. David Gratzer straight. Gratzer is the right-wing Canadian who was Rudy Giuliani's "health policy" advisor, and was responsible for giving misleading statistics to Giuliani on cancer survival rates to bash health care reform (see Politifact.com's analysis of this). Gratzer has also written numerous articles bashing the Canadian system via the use of selective statistics, including one recent one in the Wall Street Journal.

Anyway, he got called out by Dennis Kucinich, and it is an awesome thing to behold.

DII7v8yeRjs

blue note · Jun 15, 2009

Also, if you're a single-payer/public option advocate and frustrated with all the efforts to stymie reform, read this rant. It's an opinion piece, but sometimes, we all need a good vent. Or in this case, a good vent to agree with! He does lists the paychecks of health insurance CEOs, like how the one for Aetna made over $24 million in 2008. The one for CIGNA made over $12 million.

The Health Insurance Mafia Deserves a Good Screwing, by Bob Cesca at the Huffington Post.

A government healthcare plan, on the other hand, would be specifically tailored for stories like mine, and it's my only real chance of having health insurance anytime soon.
In addition to putting the "insurance" back into "health insurance," the public plan would force the private insurers to figure out how to compete -- or face bankruptcy. How excellent would that be for a change? The health insurance companies under financial pressure brought on by a competitive entity that we own.
Honestly, I hope they choke on it. I can think of no other American industry that more closely resembles a criminal shakedown of the public than the health insurers.
Even calling it "insurance" is a sick joke. Insurance implies a guarantee, and no matter what we pay,
. I propose replacing the word "insurance" with the word "maybe?" -- including the question mark -- as in "health maybe?" Maybe they'll pay when we get sick. Maybe they won't randomly hike our monthly premium by 30 percent. Maybe they'll cover our preexisting conditions without gouging us -- that is if they agree to cover us at all. Maybe they won't let
The entire business model of the health insurance industry is based around a basic truth: people have a natural will to live, and in many cases we'll go broke paying someone to prevent death. The cost of healthcare is so expensive -- in some cases conspiratorial by design -- that we need these other companies to step in and help us pay for it. That's the whole scam. Pay or die.
Consequently, the basic animalistic fear of pain and death coerces us to keep paying whatever we have to pay, and allows the health insurance companies total latitude to get away with their criminal enterprise.

GCTMT · Jun 17, 2009

Blue Note, I saw that before with Gratzer getting grilled by Kucinich. It was pretty funny.

And thanks for the rant. :chuckle