Health care: "If we had set out to design the worst system we could imagine...

[nichomachus]

we couldn't have imagined one as bad as we have."

Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine:

Our health care system is based on the premise that health care is a commodity like VCRs or computers and that it should be distributed according to the ability to pay in the same way that consumer goods are. That's not what health care should be. Health care is a need; it's not a commodity, and it should be distributed according to need. If you're very sick, you should have a lot of it. If you're not sick, you shouldn't have a lot of it. But this should be seen as a personal, individual need, not as a commodity to be distributed like other marketplace commodities. That is a fundamental mistake in the way this country, and only this country, looks at health care. And that market ideology is what has made the health care system so dreadful, so bad at what it does.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Marsha_Angell

[LaPera]

1. Yeah, let insurance companies control it for profit, fuck the sick & needy...our taxes & profits are

ALL that count for the insurance companies - NOT peoples medical needs....

A system where the insurance corporations can & will throw you out in the streets if they chose, if they decide your health care is too expensive and will dip into their corporate profits.

The insurance companies are eating our tax dollars up at higher cost because of their huge salaries, bonuses, parachutes, corporate jets, write offs retirements & pensions for the rich and multi-million dollars offices, retreats & playgrounds all with our tax dollars that could be instead going to people who truly need medical help.

Corporations have always will cut corners with little or no regulations, allowing corporations to care for the sick is disgusting all corporations care about is profits at any price.

Universal Health Care NOW!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. And I disagree with Pres Obama when he says we're stuck with it because we are used to it.

I used to have a car that stalled on turns in rainy weather. I was used to it. That didn't mean I liked it and wasn't happy to replace it with a better vehicle the second I was able to.

[T Wolf]

3. It is working EXACTLY as it was designed - to maximize corporate profits. The actual provision of

medical care to people is logged on the "debit" side of their ledger. They do everything they can to minimize those costs.

Until corporate executives, especially in the "health care" industry, start finding themselves in need of medical care (and unable to get it), not a god damned thing will change.

It would be a good thing to promote, by any means necessary, their need for medical care.

[CrispyQ]

4. K&R

for an excellent & succinct argument against health care for profit.

[pleah]

5. K&R

[snowdays]

6. There is no care 'system'. Its a corporate racket and the WH/Congress

just wants to throw it more money.

[Zodiak]

7. That's because they get a kickback of that money

in the form of campaign contributions.....so they can write more laws to give the corporate healthcare industry more money, so more money can come into campaigns...etc.etc.

The way we allow ourselves to be governed by legalized bribery makes me sick to my stomach. Even little people bedazzled by the smoke and mirrors of their identity and brand-name politics defend it.

[snowdays]

8. Pres. Obama rallied against the lobbyists during the campaign. Now he is silent.

[nichomachus]

11. Hey, it's only been four months, seven days, and five hours. Give him a chance.

:sarcasm:

[snowdays]

12. yah

yah, I keep forgetting.

[AspenRose]

9. I cannot begin to tell y'all how furious I am right now

I am being billed $100 for a "surgical procedure" that took all of 3 seconds in a doctor's office!

I had a cervical polyp discovered during my pap exam, so the OB removed it. And the insurance company wouldn't cover it!

I HAVE insurance. What of the people who DON'T have insurance? How much money would it cost a woman to have a polyp removed then?

This is madness!

:mad: :nuke:

[nichomachus]

10. You're lucky

I had a small benign growth in my throat -- three hours in the outpatient department of the hospital -- 25-minute procedure -- $24,000. Maybe I should have had them go in from below. (I didn't have to pay -- my insurance paid, but that was the bill.)

[uponit7771]

13. I looked at Sicko and couldn't believe Nixon, they are soooooooooooo short sighted!!!

[eridani]

14. Even more than a need. health care is a PUBLIC good! N/T

[bvar22]

15. Americans are just going to have to Settle for Less.

"Yes We Can !"

has been replaced with:

"Single Payer is TOO hard and will make the Republicans mad, so you will just have to settle for LESS!"

Don't you just LOVE "Centrism".
You don't have to STAND for anything, and get to insult those who do!
:party: