Elizabeth Kucinich explains opposition to Single Payer Healthcare

[PHIMG]

Run time: 04:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=allQtB3sHVA   Posted on YouTube: May 05, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: May 05, 2009 By DU Member: PHIMG Views on DU: 6527

 
"HR-676 is really the policy that will stop this nonsense debate that goes on in Congress all the time. Its just disgusting what goes on in the presidential campaign....with all the other candidates. They try to spin that they are for universal healthcare. But what they are really for is for the for-profit system to remain in control. So you can continue to pay premiums co-payments and deductibles, with the option of the for insurance companies not to cover you, and if you can't afford the premiums co-payments and deductibles, it's ok the government will subsidize you. Well whop-tee-do. Then you get more of your tax dollars going into the the for profit system, it doesn't put caps on that, it doesn't keep the expenses down, it raises it up, and again we start to bankrupt goverment. These are policies for people who don't want to see government working for people. I wan't to see a government that represents people."

[baldguy]

1. Health insurance companies don't exist to provide insurance for health care.

They exist to make a profit.

[tomp]

46. exactly. health care is sacred work.

insurance should be nowhere near it. guaranteed equal care for all. i'll go one step further: no one should be able to buy better health care than anyone else--all comers enter the same system through the same door and are prioritized based on medical or psychological need, period. i oppose anything else on principle.

[lsewpershad]

54. Beautiful and smart!!!!!!

This should be sent to Obama, Michelle, Biden, and all who have some influence in this regard. Send also to Max Baucus with the message "PRICK".

[slipslidingaway]

2. knr nt

[proud progressive]

3. sounds good, but what will the cost be when EVERYBODY THEN goes to the doctor for EVERYTHING?

[eridani]

6. We are already paying for that. We just aren't GETTING it.

Want to know what happened in Canada when Saskatchewan's single payer went national? Doctors saw their incomes increase by 1/3, even though health care spending remained about the same. Then the backlog of unmet needs got caught up and incomes leveled out.

[Dragonfli]

10. God forbid someone sick gets to see a doctor. No profit =more care @ same cost.

Why would you want only some mythical "elite" to have access to care?
Do you wish to punish the "unclean masses" for some reason?

Some people just suck.

[ljm2002]

12. Yes, you bet...

...all those people who will be going for recreational medical care, it's a real risk!!!

:sarcasm:

Look. Of course there will be some people who abuse the system. There are some people who abuse any system. But trust me, the vast majority of people will not be going to doctors just for fun. Because, in general, going to the doctor isn't all that fun.

The costs for the small percentage who will be going when they don't need to, will easily be offset by the large numbers of people who won't wait until they need emergency room treatment before they go to the doctor to get the care they need.

[earcandle]

23. Well said! I totally agree with you.

[Enthusiast]

26. Look, that is just a right wing talking point.

They keep repeating that everyone will go to the doctor for anything and abuse the system. I've heard this shit for years. If someone repeats this you know who they have been listening to.

[dccrossman]

40. Need a way to Rec this reply

Kudos

[customerserviceguy]

13. I'll admit

that's a concern of mine, especially when it comes to mental health coverage. I'm all for seriously needy people being helped with their psychological problems, but will they have to wait in line behind a bunch of people who just need to go out and make a few friends, for cripes sake?

I'm also a bit worried about the hypochondriacs, when I go to my doctor, she takes me seriously, but will she have to enact procedures that are trying to weed me out along with the people who come in with every little thing, real and imagined?

[droidamus2]

34. Missing the point

You don't think hypochondriacs go to doctors now. That is the whole point the single payer would not really change the doctor patient connection it just means that all those people that use the high cost emergency rooms as their primary health care facility will be able to see doctors instead. I would suspect and hope that the emergency rooms would be much less crowded and maybe some of those physicians would change specialties to cover the added patient load. As a possible side benefit I would like to see the new single payer system, if it was implemented, move to emphasize preventative care rather than treatment of sickness. You will always have both as no matter what people will get sick but if we emphasized that part of a doctors responsibility is to keep you from getting sick rather than just treating you when you do it would be better for everybody. I heard once, don't know if was or is still true, that in China doctors are paid as long as their patient is not sick. If the patient gets sick the doctor doesn't get paid until they are well. I like the idea. Obviously there would have to be some adjustment for things that are beyond a doctors ability to prevent but still it gives the doctors a real incentive to keep people healthy rather than treat disease.

[customerserviceguy]

68. You make some good points

and I realize that hypochondriacs overutilize the present system. But my doctor's pretty darn smart, she knows I'm not one of them, and if I come to her complaining about something, she knows that she needs to take a closer look. She is not forced into going through some sort of mandated checklist that is designed to keep me from getting care, lest I be an overutilizer. I guess my experiences with Kaiser Permanente and Group Health Cooperative have shaped my fears on this.

[droidamus2]

73. Funny

When I was in California I had Kaiser through my employer and I thought it was pretty good. My only complaint was that when the doctor finally came in the examining room to talk to you it was like they already had foot back out the door. They didn't really seem interested in discussing your problem just a quick exam, usually a script and bye bye.

[customerserviceguy]

76. I felt the same thing

Fortunately, I was with them only as a relatively healthy teenager. I had mono during that time, and I felt that they did little more than diagnose the three stages: Initially: "You've got mononucleosis." Two weeks later: "The mono has caused liver enlargement." Four weeks later: "You're healed, you can go back to school."

[peace frog]

39. Medical providers

know how to handle the malingerers you speak of. Whether it's dealing with folks who are lonely and looking for a friend, or treating *true* hypochondriacs (as opposed to those who are truly ill that no one has been able to correctly diagnose), health care professionals have options for handling them. Nor does it *take away* anything from treating the truly ill.

[customerserviceguy]

69. See my response above

I worry about having to jump through a bunch of hoops designed to treat us all like overutilizers.

[ejpoeta]

51. i am sure that doctors can tell who the hypochondriacs are. although right now it is tough

because (take my doctor for example) they see like a hundred patients a day and you are lucky to get five minutes of their time if you need to go to them. I try NOT to go. but for the necessary updates, and then there is that mental health meds check up that a previous poster seemed to think is just because i want to go make friends or something. grr that makes me mad!! I have gone through a lot to try to keep getting my depression taken care of so i don't end up in the hospital again because i've been dealing with this crap my whole life and it's tough when there were times i had no health insurance and now the mental health clinic wants me to pay $50 bucks a visit!! so i guess there goes that lifeline i had. I damn well don't ever want to go back to that dark place that almost claimed my life, and it's not just in my head or me trying to get attention. i'm sure that you don't mean that, but it's been very hard just to get taken seriously and try to get help for myself that i don't want to see anyone have to fight to try to get out of a very bad dark place they may find themselves in because no one takes them seriously.

[customerserviceguy]

70. Uh, that was me, commenting on the friends

I once described a psychologist/therapist as "a rented friend" to one of my buddies who was in the field, he agreed with that characterization.

Many years ago, before we all shut ourselves away in closed-up air conditioned homes, where we interact with TVs and computers, we actually got out and got to know people. Some folks don't have that anymore, and it might make them a bit neurotic, at least more than they'd otherwise be if they had a supportive community of friends and family to interact with.

I don't want those folks clogging up the waiting rooms for you, there to deal with legitimate issues of brain chemistry that is interferring with your having a normal life.

[Downwinder]

57. I think it cuts both ways.

I'm probably one of those hypochondriacs you are worried about. I spent 20 years going to doctors about headaches, numbness, tingling, little things. The doctors said it was all in my head or writer's cramp. When I couldn't walk I ended up in the emergency room and they did an MRI. Guess what, my brain looked like swiss cheese. I finally got a diagnosis, Multiple Sclerosis. Believe it or not that was the best day in my life, there was really something wrong, and the doctors were right, it was all in my head. Perhaps if the doctors are sure they are going to get payed they will be able to give more complete diagnosis and cut down on repeat trips.

[bobbolink]

65. Please educate us about countries with universal health care who are having these problems.

That way, we can know the reality of what we face.

[customerserviceguy]

71. I said, it was a concern of mine

I don't have statistical evidence that people are being run through the ringer trying to get some legitimate help, but being considered as overutilizers.

Like I said, I have only some thirty year old experiences with some of the early HMO's in the Northwest. I seem to remember them having to be worked hard to get what you need. My folks are still with Kaiser, and my mom tells me often of how she has to use a few tricks to get treatment for her and Dad, even though they've been paying into Kaiser for over forty years.

[bobbolink]

74. Basing policy on "hunches", when people's lives hang in the balance?

Time for some soul-searching.

[customerserviceguy]

75. This might come as a surprise to you

but I'm nowhere near the folks that are writing this policy. However, there are Democratic congresspersons who have strong right-wing constitutencies that are using this as a reason to try hard to persuade the said congresspersons to vote against single payer universal care.

I'm still 100% in favor of it, I just have concerns about how it's going to work in the real world. There are really only two possibilities here: 1) We don't get it done this year, or 2) It comes out in a form that is bound to have aspects that disappoint everyone here.

Possibility number 2 is infinitely preferable to possibility number 1 in my mind. But I have no illusions that it will be rather unlike the solution that I would devise on my own, and I feel confident that 98% of us are going to feel that way, as well.

[Lorien]

67. Well I guess you can either sweat over those small minorities, or have a little

compassion for the millions who suffer and die needlessly because they can't afford health care. Since money is your main concern I suggest that you read up on the cost/ quality of health care in other Nations vs. the US. I think you'll be very surprised.

[customerserviceguy]

72. It's not a "main" concern

I just think that it's possible that single payer universal health care as it is finally administered in America is not necessarily going to be a carbon copy of what other nations have been able to do. We have unique problems, situations, and solutions, all with their own special histories.

Or am I supposed to suppress my concern until after we have achieved this goal?

[Chulanowa]

15. Considerably less than a month of terrorizing Arabs in Iraq

Why do you ask?

[baldguy]

18. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Prevention just doesn't make enough profit for the hedge fund managers who run our heath care system.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. Yeah. I think I'll get a lung transpant. Or maybe a new liver.

Since it's free and all.

[kenfrequed]

38. Yeah!

Could I also get a few pints of blood and a quick biopsy (just for fun) maybe through in a few random cortisone shots? I would request a lobotomy but the person that suggested that people would abuse the system by overusing already has taken up todays lobotomy appointments lot.


good counter, by the way.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Then we'd be just like the rest of the civilized world... who pay half what we do. n/t

[Enthusiast]

25. Right wing talking points alert! nt

[crikkett]

31. a lot less than it does now when folks put it off until

theyre terminal cases.

[arikara]

33. We have a form of single payer here in Canada

and sure, some do run to the doctor for every little thing. I'm sure you have the nervous type with your private insurance too.

But more of us go once or twice a year if that. Most people I know try to avoid going to the doctor unless absolutely necessary. I went only once last year for a 5 minute visit to get a prescription renewed and its good for a year.

[ejpoeta]

52. i'll admit when my oldest daughter was a baby i had her in to the doctor's every week!

but then again, her sitter smoked around her and she had bronchial problems. not that i have a problem with smoking in general, it's just that the sitter smoked in front of her while emy's own father had to go outside to smoke! but i was always scared at every little thing with her. LOL! now, ashley, my 3 year old could fall and if she doesn't cry, aaw she's ok. LOL!

[arikara]

55. But that's what they're for

and you can't fool around with respiratory problems for sure. Sorry if I sounded condescending but it seemed the post I responded to implied that if you had proper coverage that everyone would be at the doctor every day for every little ache.

[ejpoeta]

56. i just don't understand 99% of the people doing that. people tend to do that

when they are thinking they might lose their insurance. then they try to get anything and everything looked at before it's gone. if people feel confident and secure about their healthcare, i can't imagine they would go for any and every little thing. and i am sure that hypochondriacs would be well known to their doctor. LOL!

[OwnedByFerrets]

35. Yes, because everyone just LOVES spending their time

in Doctors offices. I go every other day whether I need to or not, just to watch all those other sick folks there.:sarcasm: Your post is just another right wing talking point.

[kenfrequed]

36. Absurd

I have excellent healthcare as I work for an HMO. No copayments and less than 50 bucks a month premiums. I don't WANT to go to the doctor for everything. In fact even if I am ill I usually skip out on going to the doctor if I can possibly help it.

Whether you know it or not your argument is a talking point based on some wild conservative idea that because you give someone freedom they will abuse it or because you provide them a service they will overuse it.

It is not really based on any data, nor is it based on the experiences of nations that do have national healthcare programs, nor reality in general. It merely has the reek of conservative thought. i.e. "Welfare Bad!"

[kenfrequed]

37. Oh and one more thing...

If you are a "Proud Progressive" than I am Groucho Marx. Get bent Freeper.

[Grinchie]

43. More people will see how screwed up our Medical system is and demand change.

Most normal people are healthy. When people ares tressed out, malnourished or mentally deficient, they get ill.

The claim that everyone would swamp the medical system is utter nonsense. People have better things to do that waste their time with sick people trying to get better, unless that's part of their job.

[change_notfinetuning]

45. You have a good point. I never pass a drinking fountain

without taking a free drink of water. NEVER!

Chest x-rays on demand. I can hardly wait.

Colonoscopies whenever? Where does the line form?

[Patiod]

49. I have great, insurance + very low deductible = never go to MD

Just jumping through the hoops to get an appointment discourages me from going unless its an emergency

[LSK]

53. why on earth would someone want to take time out of their busy schedule to see the doctor

for every little thing???? Going to the Doctor is a pain in the ass.

[bobbolink]

58. Can you point to a country with universal health care that has that problem?

[edc]

60. Everybody?

I see students everyday who should see a doctor but do not because either they or their parents don't have insurance, or they are afraid to see a doctor and later discover that their insurance won't pay up.

I've seen elderly people (who are supposedly covered under Medicare) deciding which prescription to fill and which not to fill because they don't have the money to buy medicine and by food or pay utility bills or rent or something else.

Most people avoid seeing doctors even when they are insured, at least until it becomes obvious that what ails them is not going to get better by itself.

For profit health care is not only bullshit, it is evil bullshit, and there is neither ethical nor economic justification for it.

[Lorien]

66. Um, not everyone is a hypochondriac

in fact, most normal human beings HATE going to the doctor. It's a time consuming, uncomfortable and often very unpleasant experience. It may be something you enjoy for some reason, but please don't project your unusual proclivities onto the rest of America.

Ultimately, if everyone had an annual exam we would save billions, not to mention millions of lives. Most people wait until a condition is life threatening to treat it because the costs are so crippling.

[waronxmas]

4. I'll be a total guy...

and admit I didn't remember single thing she said :loveya:

[eridani]

7. Keep replaying the video then, until--

--what she said sinks into your subconscious so you can repeat it on demand. :evilgrin:

[d_b]

14. lol

[Javaman]

44. She could recite the dictionary and I would be thrilled! :) nt

[Maat]

5. Perfectly-put.

She's a friend of a friend. I've spoken with her several times. She came to my friend's wedding. She's just tireless, and completely sincere. She's a great person.

[bjobotts]

8. One of the clearest explanations around. Thanks for posting.

[Maat]

19. Hi, bjobotts!

:hi:

[bjobotts]

9. Without a not for profit single payer national healthcare plan there is no HC reform

[Dragonfli]

11. Does she have an unmarried sister as smart and appealing as she is?

Er ah not for me. I have a friend that...

Oh who am I kidding, my crush is obvious.

[newmac]

16. How about a single payer program for Dems only; leave the rethugs out

Let them play the game as they want to play it; lets take care of our own...

[cascadiance]

17. Spoken like a true first lady in the making!

... OR president down the road!

[radiclib]

20. What does it say about Dennis that he has a wife like this?

Something good, I suspect.

[earcandle]

24. he must be a really fabulous enlightened kind of guy. I think he is pretty cute with his

determined look and conviction showing.

And I adore her.  They are both evidence of
about where we really are, outside of this horrid
world of illusion folks "believe" in. 

excuse me. 

[Wednesdays]

27. K&R

:kick:

[mmonk]

28. Yep, I used to watch her talks on the subject quite a bit.

But remember, DK answered the question in the debates about his thoughts on UFO's. :sarcasm: So therefore he is a kook and we must listen to our corporate politicians who are "reasonable" and "bipartisan" and in the "middle" whatever that crap means.

[sellitman]

29. I had the honor of meeting Dennis & Elizabeth last year.

She is the real deal. Smart as a whip and totally committed to her husbands politics.

[pleah]

30. K&R

[mikelgb]

32. she needs to be a lobbyist

[midnight]

41. Elizabeth makes it sound so simple. Let's just get the insurance

companies barred from the health world.

[florida08]

42. she makes sense

If you look at all the insurance companies in America all making profits single payer would be feasible. CEO salaries are just ridiculous but what's new..

A review of documents filed with the state show that Cleve Killingsworth, chairman and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, earned more than $3.6 million in 2007, including salary, benefits and incentives. Since 2005 his total compensation has jumped 38 percent.

James Roosevelt, CEO at Tufts Health Care, received more than $1.6 million in 2007, a 110 percent jump over his $785,013 compensation in 2005.

Charlie Baker, President and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim, earned just under $1.4 million in 2007, a 26 percent hike since 2005.
Insurers told Team 5 Investigates that only 10 percent of their budget goes towards administrative costs.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/investigative/18449413/detail.html

List of companies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_insurance_companies

[lupinella]

47. Woo-hoo!

I adore both her and Dennis! They are kind, intelligent people that are what I wish we, as a society, would emulate.

Plus, both are totally shaggable. *winks*
:blush:

[Fireweed247]

48. This is from the campaign

Have either of them been speaking up lately?

[kaygore]

50. I am so proud that I was for Dennis for President!

It is just too bad that those we elect to represent us are nothing but whores who sell their vote to the highest bidder. At least Dennis is not a whore.

[L0oniX]

59. Blah Blah Blah The only thing that is going make it happen is for us to all be out in the streets...

massive marching ...massive protesting ...massive bombarding our senators and congress critters with threat to not vote for them ...10,000,000 plus march on Washington ...stop work, blockade everything and bring the economy to a halt. Everything else is just plain ol hot air and a schmoozing of the public to get elected. It's all about getting money so they can campaign to get elected and then later on in the future become a lobbyist. A vote is never going to give us SPHC. Our government is pwned by the banks and sociopath HMO's, insurance corporations and the MIC. No amount of talking is going change it. Force is necessary. Maybe we will need to have some people get murdered by troops like Kent State to get some real change in health care.

[Norrin Radd]

61. kr

[onethatcares]

62. isn't 33 percent the administrative cost of our

for profit healthcare system? Thats a bunch of money for "admin", while leaving out the megabuck the CEOs get.

Did you see what happened with Wellcare today in Florida? Got an 80million dollar fine but doesnt' have to admit wrongdoing, WTF is wrong with that picture.

Then you guys get to talking about all the people using the doctor for every little thing. Well to me that adds up to voter fraud. There has not been a case prosecuted where someone took the time to vote twice for the same candidate. But the screech machine makes it seem like it's happening everywhere.

Peace

[bobbolink]

63. "The Whole Kaboodle" We need to also include things Western Medicine isn't effective with.

That means, include Chinese medicine, which treats many other things that aren't done well by Western Medicine; include midwifery (the Canadians left this out, and it took them 10 years to get it included!), accupuncture, which has been proven to be more effective with many medical problems, etc.

First, though... we MUST start educating people... there is waaaay too much ignorance, and it will go down to defeat consistently until we are more effective in reaching people.

[Lena inRI]

64. Finest spokesperson for single-payer HC. . .

. . .is Mrs. Elizabeth Kucinich!

Dennis and she would be perfect as single-payer advocates on that Baucus congressional hearing panel.

Furthermore, why aren't they being honored with any public attention by the Obama administration?

It's as though the Kucinichs have been shunned by President Obama whenever health care policy is discussed.

How ironic since Elizabeth is so similar to Obama's mother!

Elizabeth Harper Kucinich
"In 1996 she went to Agra, India, to volunteer at one of Mother Teresa's homes for India's poorest children.<1> Upon earning her bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Kent at Canterbury, she spent 16 months in a rural Tanzanian village and worked as an advocate for regional development.<1>
After leaving Tanzania, she volunteered with a British Red Cross refugee unit; earned a certificate in Peace Studies from Coventry University; and got a job as a fund-raiser for a seafarer's charity in London.<1> Her volunteer work often brought her to the House of Lords.<1> At that time she heard financial analyst Stephen Zarlenga speak about monetary reform. She was impressed and soon was hired to become Zarlenga's assistant at the Chicago-based American Monetary Institute.<1> That work took her and Zarlenga to Dennis Kucinich's office.<1>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Kucinich


******************
(Stanley)Ann(a) Dunham(Obama)Soetoro
Having been a weaver, Dunham was interested in village industries, and she therefore moved to Yogyakarta, the center of Javanese handicrafts.<36> In 1992 she earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Hawaii, under the supervision of Prof. Alice Dewey, with a dissertation titled Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving and thriving against all odds.<37> Duke University Press announced that they would publish an edited version of Dunham's dissertation, with a foreword by her daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng, in the Fall of 2009.<38>
Dunham then pursued a career in rural development championing women’s work and microcredit for the world’s poor, with Indonesia’s oldest bank, the United States Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation, Women's World Banking, and as a consultant in Pakistan. She mingled with leaders from organizations supporting Indonesian human rights, women's rights, and grass-roots development.<2>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham



Mr. President, start channeling your Mom and get behind the Kucinichs to help them put single-payer choice on the table. . .invite them for dinner like ya did Krugman and Stieglitz. . .

. . .and put pressure on Mr. Baucus to have them appear before the HC hearing NOW.

For your Mom's sake. . .for us Americans' sakes!

:rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: