Dennis Kucinich is GREAT on Health Care at SEIU Presidential Forum

[IndyOp]

Run time: 21:02 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOkZbP4qY0M   Posted on YouTube: March 24, 2007 By YouTube Member: Kucinich2008 Views on YouTube: 9016   Posted on DU: March 25, 2007 By DU Member: IndyOp Views on DU: 453

 
Dennis - as a little known candidate walked on stage to tepid applause - and really got the audience going! :D (Dennis' part is only about 8-10 minutes long.)

The video is rough because the video feed from Center for American Progress was rough... Snippets as I heard them are below - paraphrased and even rearranged, but the points that caught my attention are here:

Insurance companies are holding our health care hostage and pushing millions of Americans into poverty.

Is it consonant with Americas greatness that the other candidates are unwilling to call for a not-for-profit single-payer system?

What if Lincoln had decided, "Well there is just too much resistance to this idea of Emancipation?"
What if we by into this logic, "Well we can't impeach."
What if FDR had said, "Well we can't really do the real deal?"

A single-payer not-for-profit health care system is not only possible - 62 members of Congress have signed onto my bill, already in the U.S. Congress, 14,000 physicians have signed a letter of support of a single-payer plan, the Senate of New Hampshire, the Legislature of Kansas, the people of California voted for a very similar plan... The support for a single-payer system is already there - all across the country - it is just waiting for a President to bring it into being.

Thirty-one percent of the money in the system right now goes into the pockets of private, for profit companies -- that money could cover the cost of dental, vision, and mental health care. Corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing -- all of this takes 31% out of the health care dollar.

The insurance companies, when they look at single-payer not-for-profit say, "My God there's going to be rationing." There is rationing now! 47 million have no health insurance and another 50 million don't have enough coverage. Half of the bankruptcies are due to hospital bills, 80% of people without health insurance are working. People are worried that, no matter how much money they have, a heath problem will wipe them out.

I am talking about creating a system that takes the profit out of health care - like most all other first world countries. Health care is a right, and this is the moment I call on you, the SEIU, and the American people to stand up for their right.

Not-for-profit health care is not feasible? What it comes down to is who has the courage to say we are not going to be trapped by these insurance companies who insist on high co-pays and deductibles.

If you have competition between insurance companies, it doesn't drive down prices, it drives up cost. If we create a two-tiered system with some people in private plans and others in the government's plan, the private companies will cherry-pick people in the best health and the government program will have people in the worst health.

By allowing private, for profit health insurance companies, candidates are advocating that government provide subsidies to insurance companies. Didn't we have enough of subsidizing the pharma companies? Even the insurance companies are for Universal Health care - what a deal!

What we need is a real deal for Americans.

[Flabbergasted]

1. K and R

[AnOhioan]

2. Dennis gets it...the insurance companies are what is wrong....

with the US healthcare system.