This is the ultimate test to see if delusion rules your thinking: Is the bill that the grinning President Obama will sign really good for the nation? by Joel S. Hirschhorn
(libertarian)
Friday, December 25, 2009
Once again the two-party plutocracy has used its corrupt power to make it appear that American democracy actually functions to serve the public. In truth, it is all a sham. Whatever bill the grinning President Obama signs will mainly advance the financial interests of health insurance companies, as their rising stock prices demonstrate.
Here is a prime example of the delusional thinking on the left. Paul Krugman expresses this insight in his latest column: Imperfect as it is, the legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday and will probably, in a slightly modified version, soon become law will make America a much better country.
A much better country? I doubt it. An immediately available single payer government system, like opening up Medicare to everyone, would do that, but that will not happen.
In the end, whatever changes are legislated will produce higher costs for most Americans and higher profits for health insurance companies, as well as more financial ruin for the US because of still more debt. Call me a pessimist. But I know that a totally corrupt Congress that has been inundated with highly paid lobbyists from the health care industry has created a false and misleading picture of what it is doing.
Wait and see. Disappointment awaits you, if you are delusional enough to believe all the political hype so eagerly spread by the corporate media.
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in this article are those of Joel S. Hirschhorn only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
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Posted By: Scott McMorran
Date: 2009-12-26 11:45:03
Joel:
I have a very simple question about the following comment you made in your article:
"A much better country? I doubt it. An immediately available single payer government system, like opening up Medicare to everyone, would do that, but that will not happen."
My question:
Exactly where has a "single payer government system" NOT produced the following:
Posted By: Joel S. Hirschhorn
Date: 2009-12-26 13:42:09
Scott McMorran: If you actually spent serious time and effort you would discover that all of our industrialized nation competitors are spending less and getting better health outcomes; overall the best data are for France. But I don't expect rigid-minded right wingers to accept the truth that our health care system is the most inefficient, costly and least productive because it is based on profit-driving health care insurance companies.
Posted By: Scott McMorran
Date: 2009-12-26 17:54:54
Joel:
Your response was as I expected. Full of invective and attacks on the US HealthCare system. I originally asked you several questions about your proposal for Socialized Medicine and you ignored all of them.
The best judge of anything, be it coffee, clothes or health care is to look at where people spend their money. Every year millions of people world wide flock to the USA for medical treatment. The reason is obvious.
Idle intellectualizing about the "miracle" of socialized medicine may give you great satisfaction, but when the rubber meets the road (medically speaking) people head to the USA and our for profit system.
The only reason the French system hasn't devolved into a socialist hell is that, in actuality, it is not a single payer system. It is actually a two-tier system. 85% of French people benefit from a large range of private complementary insurance plans. It is the very competitive market for these plans that keep overall health care costs down. If the French had not, in 1998, passed the reforms that allowed this, the purely socialist system would have collapsed.
As history plainly shows, every time a socialist system has been tried it has ended in utter failure or has had to adopt some form of open market to help keep it going.
Very true. The French and German systems have a high degree of private involvement, not as much as the USA, but way more than the U.K. and Canada.
And as you so correctly point out, without this, they would be in financial ruin. You deserve credit for bringing this fact to the attention of Mr. Hirschhorn and other Liberals who constantly praise the French system, without actually knowing anything about it. Kudo's to you.
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