How Osama Bin Laden Ruined Health Care

OK, not really. But without a villian to rouse our passions, it's hard for America to get invested.

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  • Posted By: Cybercorrespondent @ 08/17/2009 7:32:30 PM

    Fix healthcare by throwing self-serving politicians out of office

    Why did Barack Obama attack pharmaceutical companies before and now he has teamed up with them to promote his health care plan? Why are all the tort lawyers big democratic supporters and multi-millionaires? Obama???s true intentions are so obvious that even the left is starting to express concerns. For example, on August 10, CBS Evening News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson filed a report stating that ???the White House agreed not to seek price controls on drugs for seniors on Medicare and would not support importing cheaper drugs from Canada.??? According to Attkisson, ???The pharmaceutical industry is now so firmly in the President's camp it's developing plans to spend up to $150 billion promoting it with TV ads.???
    According to the acting president of Public Citizen and founder and director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, ???An all sort of off the record deal was reached that is very bad for the American public.??? Other experts say that for their cooperation, Obama is allowing pharmaceutical companies to charge $50 for a $2 pill and is assuring them that there will be no changes to the laws that make it near impossible for less expensive generic drugs to reach the American market.
    Unless tort lawyers, the pharmaceutical lobby and other special interest groups like the AMA, ADA and the AARP are dealt with to preserves the Constitution and the free market system, while also protecting the medical provider and consumer, no healthcare plan can work.
    Cybercorrespondent
    http://cybercorrespondent.blogspot.com

  • Posted By: MChieco @ 07/19/2009 8:42:54 PM

    The goal of these Health Insurance companies is not your health, its to make a profit. Now thats Sick.

    • Posted By: notanofan @ 08/14/2009 5:06:41 PM

      It's sick????? In a capitalist society to make a profit???? THATS WHAT CAPITALISM IS....A free market determines the price...how stupid are you??? I hope insurance companies make lots of profit....why in the hell else do you work? To make more money than you spend...right? Or are you one of those lazy "somebody else pay my way" mediocre slugs?

  • Posted By: kentuckyoh @ 07/17/2009 1:24:59 PM

    The real problem is that Americans seem to no longer care about each other. There are so few people out there who are willing to pay extra taxes so that everyone can be better off. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot take care of our own people when we are able to go to war in the middle east or send aid to third world countries. We really need to work on fixing the problems here at home before looking outside our borders. Healthcare reform should matter to us. Yes, universal healthcare has it's pros and cons, but so does private insurance. What's so scary about private insurance is that it is run for a profit. The goal of private insurance companies isn't to provide you with the best care, it's to provide you with just enough care to keep you happy enough to continue paying your premiums. Private insurance companies have more to gain by withholding care than a universal plan that isn't built around the idea of making a profit. We are falling behind the rest of the world, not only in healthcare, but also in education and job growth. The government is so corrupt that many of the decisions being made right now don't benefit the good of all citizens. Right now, private insurance companies are calling the shots. They're running multi-million dollar campaigns against universal healthcare, and spending even more on buying up politicians to make sure any healthcare reform doesn't affect their bottomlines.

    • Posted By: AmericanMan63 @ 07/17/2009 2:25:37 PM

      So the answer is simple- Stop sending money to everyone else and, i know this is a crazy thought- USE IT FOR AMERICANS!
      Besides- i dont trust the government to spend my money wisely, why would i want to give more to them?

      • Posted By: kginca @ 07/17/2009 2:33:43 PM

        AmericanMan, you trust insurance companies more than the government???

        • Posted By: Howard Roark @ 07/17/2009 2:46:11 PM

          I trust that I can pay for a service and get it. Rather than wait for the government to decide whether I am deserving of dispensation of services.

          You can currently get any procedure you need if you pay cash for it. What a wonderful concept. Why people would rather beg for their lives in front of a government panel is beyond my comprehension.

          • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/17/2009 2:53:15 PM

            "I trust that I can pay for a service and get it."

            No, you pay for a service and then they refuse to cover anything that actually happens.

            • Posted By: Howard Roark @ 07/17/2009 3:33:50 PM

              The contract with an insurance company spells out what they cover. But paying the doctor ensures I get the service I want.

              See, you all don't even understand what you are paying for.

              • Posted By: notanofan @ 08/14/2009 5:02:34 PM

                HOWARD.....I agree with you. The problem is that people don't want to be responsible...pay for a policy, read it, abide by it and shop around.....they want everything handed to them and someone else to pay for it......

          • Posted By: Nor-Cal for Obama @ 07/17/2009 2:51:24 PM

        • Posted By: AmericanMan63 @ 07/17/2009 2:59:06 PM

          I trust just about everyone and everything more than the govt. So yes- i do trust insurance co's more than the govt. They may be corrupt, but at least i can have a choice in in my poison.

          • Posted By: Nor-Cal for Obama @ 07/17/2009 3:02:38 PM

            Some "American" you are. You are a paranoid lunatic who would trust a company out to PROFIT off you then an enterprise built to help you.

            You need serious help, books might be a good start. Less fox news and Glenn Beck too.

            • Posted By: notanofan @ 08/14/2009 5:00:50 PM

              LIKE OBAMA?????? YOU"RE KIDDING RIGHT????? HE'S ONLY INTERESTED IN "HELPING" US??? PLEASE.....give me a break. He's a socialist muslim......

            • Posted By: AmericanMan63 @ 07/17/2009 3:28:54 PM

              30% chance of rain -with a side of coleslaw

          • Posted By: jlowell1 @ 07/17/2009 5:11:27 PM

            Here we have the heart of the problem. People such as yourself are either ignorant of the real issue at hand or purposely chose to ignore it because you are actually for giving the insurance companies more money (although why anyone who doesn't work for an insurance company would do this escapes me). The current plan under discussion is the worst possible plan imaginable. It forces people to BUY insurance! Who does that benefit? THE INSURANCE COMPANIES! Everyone is worked up over "socialized medicine". This plan is not socialized medicine. This is SUPER PROFITIZED medicine which will be enshrined in law and disguised to be for the public good! Wake up people! You're all fighting the wrong fight, but are too dumb to know it. This is what the insurance companies and their shills (including Obama) want...you will all be fooled into eventually supporting a plan that does exactly one thing and one thing only...make the insurance companies RICHER. I'm sorry, but this is why if you are REALLY going to reform health care than single payer is the ONLY way. Every other western democracy has figured this out. You have to remove profit from the PROVISIONING of health care in order to provide care to everyone. .Otherwise, just leave it as it is...survival of the economically fittest (that is the brutal American way, isn't it?). But, we're about to be tricked into being robbed. At least if it were a single payer plan, it's our money we'd be getting back in care. Instead, the current plan FORCES US to hand over our money to insurance companies who will squeeze every penny. You think its bad now? The U.S. will become a health care ghetto under the plan as proposed. Bottom line: Don't be fooled! The current plan IS NOT "socialized medicine" even though that's what you're being lead to believe by forces waiting to put the final "fix" in...and that fix is the total empowerment of the insurance industry. The game is deep, but most Americans are too dumb to follow it.

            • Posted By: JRichter @ 07/19/2009 10:01:16 AM

              What about Obama fighting for a governemnt option in the plan that competes with the insurance companies. You chose to ignore a most important PROFIT-LIMITING part of the plan in making your rant. Why let facts get in the way of a good rant?

              • Posted By: notanofan @ 08/14/2009 4:59:07 PM

                Hey....the "It's the Insurance companies" argument won't stick. The government has no business in a capitalist society meddling in health care...period. I am the MOB....MILLIONS OPPOSING BARACK....very few people don't have insurance and EVERYBODY ALREADY GETS HEALTHCARE...ILLEGALS INCLUDED...go to any emergency room on a friday night and check it out.

              • Posted By: jlowell1 @ 07/20/2009 12:25:14 AM

                Believing in a fantasy strawman plan (e.g. the "government option") doesn't help anyone. What is a fact...and what you shouldn't let it get in YOUR way...is that the insurance industry has had more input on this plan than any other group. Wake up and smell the sell-out...

    • Posted By: Baba louie the 3rd @ 07/17/2009 1:39:13 PM

      In 2006 over 43 million tax filing Americans had a zero or a negative federal tax liability leaving 93 million to pick up the tab. The people pulling the wagon are not comic book characters that have infinite strength. Atlas will shrug. Socialism works great until you run out of other peoples money to spend.

  • Posted By: NewsWkDickG @ 08/10/2009 1:49:34 PM

    We just completed eight years where Special Interests and a select few have had their way and we literally have seen just how drastic the costs of that can be. You would think that we could learn our lessons yet today there are people again being manipulated with misinformation, people once more being excited by scare tactics and then being used by a few for private gain. Health care reform is urgently needed to bring the costs down for everyone, to allow for everyone to be insured while reducing what we all pay for the uninsured (with taxes and increased premiums), to keep Medicare costs in check and the system working, to reduce costs to businesses and to help the economy, to keep focus on progress towards reducing the deficit and, when with the truth understood, the only people that likely could be against it would be those who are profiting so greatly now - Special Interests and a select few. Then there are also those politicians who feel it serves their own purposes to just be obstructionists. It would really be best if we could refrain from returning to 'more of the same', to avoid being manipulated and controlled for the sole benefit of a few. We need to simply check the facts and not just believe the deceptive misinformation, no matter how convincing their bull sounds, and this time avoid being easily swayed by the scare tactics or manipulated by the subterfuge and instead recognize it as the standard operating procedure they have used so many times in the past. We really can't afford 'more of the same'!
    (check http:///www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck for the facts)

  • Posted By: Ijahru @ 08/10/2009 10:53:57 AM

    Health Care Reform is a subject that definately needs to come to the forefront. However when Obama came out and said tort reform was off the table he showed his partisan side by giving a free pass to a major force in the Democratic Party, trial lawyers. If he is serious about Health Care Reform he needs to be open to any and all issues that contribute to the rising cost of Health Care.

  • Posted By: txdoc @ 07/20/2009 11:52:42 AM

    As in any human issue or debate, FOLLOW THE MONEY HONEY.
    Pay doctors and hospitals to deliver 'healthcare' regardless of results, they will.
    Allow huge insurance companies to make billions collecting premiums, then denying care, they will.
    Pay the poor to not work, have babies, give them foodstamps to buy free potato chips, soda, and junk food so they can become morbidly obese, develop diabetes and kidney failure and then mandate the taxpayer pay for their dialysis, home health, scooters, and hospitalizations, they will.
    Make patients, doctors and hospitals financially liable for outcomes...things would change.

  • Posted By: Ian Blokesworth @ 07/20/2009 2:11:27 AM

    Sure. Let's see the question list.

    Do not think that health care reform should not be a priority given that ... ?

    Do you not realize that your health premiums will not be reduced by not voting for reform ?"

  • Posted By: Dolmance @ 07/19/2009 11:32:04 AM

    We do have a villain - it's George Bush and the Republicans. And after ruining every financial instrument in the country, these villains want to make sure we don't achieve health care reform, thereby assuring that Americans during a recession has to deal with a chronic and ever increasing stealth tax sending our increasingly more difficult to find dollars into the pockets of a bunch of private insurance creeps with their jet planes, 80 million dollar yachts and multiple mansions, while their constituency focuses on gay sex and legal abortions.

  • Posted By: rjgranger @ 07/17/2009 1:53:29 PM

    I presently have Type 2 diabetes at age 62 retired without health insurance for the last 10 years. I live off fixed income and quaify for ttreatment at a communiy clinic. I also qualify for drug compamies to supply my required medications for no charge. Every time I see the clinic doctor requires a $10 payment. The doctors want to see me monthly by only giving me 30 day supply of medication. But I stretch the medication out to 60 days when I go back to the clinic. I see no need for private insurance companies to deliver health care. In fact they control costs by with holding needed care. A national health care program should completely eliminate them by going to a government one payer system similar to social security. If more health clinics were established there would be no need to go to hospital emergency rooms. Young doctors with medical school loans could work at the clinics and have the government payoff their loans in addition to a salary.

    • Posted By: Baba louie the 3rd @ 07/17/2009 2:10:24 PM

      Obama care will assume your have reached the end of your usefulness to society as you are retired. There will only be so many health care dollars to go around. Government will decide whose life has value and spending limited health care dollars will require that someone sees that they are not wasted.

      • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/17/2009 4:51:57 PM

        "Obama care will assume your have reached the end of your usefulness to society as you are retired."

        Which is why Canada, Japan, and all of Europe kill their elderly. Right?

        • Posted By: JRichter @ 07/19/2009 10:39:39 AM

          Well since "Obama care" as proposed is one option of other existing private insurance options, even if youre right you can abandon Obama care or supplement it with additional coverage (like medicare reipients that are richter add more luxurious supplemental private insurances). If youve lived right and saved that is. If not, in an Obama care less environment you'd even be more phuked. Youd have no care to fall back on and youd have no means to buy any. Obama care is better for you in both scenarios is appears.

          Start living your life well and working for your own retirement and spend less time arguing with incomplete or misrepresented facts.

        • Posted By: Comaradeh @ 07/17/2009 5:04:48 PM

          RIGHT

      • Posted By: Nor-Cal for Obama @ 07/17/2009 3:05:40 PM

        When health care is being paid for and subsidized by a 5 percent tax in the wealthiest 1 percent of americans, how exactly a. will the money run out, and b. not be paid for?

        Lies and stupidly will get you nowhere "Baba" you moron.

        • Posted By: AmericanMan63 @ 07/17/2009 3:41:24 PM

          Stupidity seems to be working well for you so far.

    • Posted By: Nor-Cal for Obama @ 07/17/2009 3:04:22 PM

      Finally, someone who is actually a part of the system suggesting a logical approach.

      Americans seem to be bullied by fear in this matter. We've talked about this for 40 years, inaction is NOT AN OPTION. DO NOT DEFEND THE BROKEN STATUS QuO!

  • Posted By: Howard Roark @ 07/17/2009 4:24:26 PM

    Okay seriously, since when did it become someones responsiblity to provide for those because of the geography the inhabit? Why are we worried about someone in Texas or Georgia, and not in India or China?

    You want empathy, so take the population of the world and look at it in relation to your wages. becaues if you are making more than $7,000 a year you are getting more than an equal share. So if we are going to provide for our fellow man then you better figure out how to live on 7K and give the rest to those who don't have that. Then everyone will be equal then we can each pay for what we can afford.

    Oh wait, that doesn't make everyone rich, it makes everyone poor. Just wait one day it will be " I'm sorry grandpa, but you are a drain our our resources so we are going to have to put you down."

    • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/17/2009 4:50:29 PM

      "Okay seriously, since when did it become someones responsiblity to provide for those because of the geography the inhabit?"

      In our case? 1776, when we formally decided to be a nation of our own.

      • Posted By: Howard Roark @ 07/17/2009 5:04:27 PM

        You mean when Income Tax wasn't legal? And people didn't think they had a right to other peoples stuff?

        There was no welfare, no government funded hand outs, and you had a right to your own property.

        And becoming a country has nothing to do with deciding that it's okay to be greedy and take money from those who earned it to give to those who haven't. While calling those who worked hard to earn and become something more greedy for simply providing for themselves.

        Since when did you become entitled to even one second of my life? To one cent of what you didn't earn? Why is it okay to turn the rich into slaves. Slaves who work for the sake of others and do not get to keep the reward their labor has brought them.

        See that is the real greed, when people begin eyeing the prosperity of others.

        • Posted By: Comaradeh @ 07/17/2009 5:10:58 PM

          ???From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need???

          • Posted By: JRichter @ 07/19/2009 10:29:41 AM

            Abolish taxes, remove all communal apparatus military, police, fire services, motor vehicle, mandatory vehile liability insurance system, standards organizations, regulatory apparatus, representation agencies, schools. And please remove that evil government. Everything and lets return to the law of the jungle.

            Communities and individuals cccreate and fund their own education and defend their propoerty and adjudicate between eachc other and go to war with other communities when the infractions are cross-communal and there can be no agreement. And when someone hits me on the road? If a young graduate catches cancer before they can realize their potential to become the "producer" we do not want to tax (who uses the units of production including labor groomed to befirst class by a communal system with secure boundaries)? And the rich producer company pours out ammonia into the environment while delivering billions in profit (dont even thiink of taxing the rich or regulating anyone thank you) while making millions sick thus on net reducing overall national productivity?... You can think of balances to communal good also if you free your mind a bitmore.

            The point is that every president is communal to extents - Reagan, BushI, Bush2, Clinton, Carter, Obama. They all pratie Keynesian economis since before the turn of the century. The question is what is the right balance? America has always been balaned to the right of socialism than Europe which is to the right of full-fledged communism as practiced in Russia before nearly two decades ago. Reagam had taxation levels higher than Clinton or Obama for crying out loud. Reducing all arguments down to a communist one or slogan which NO ONE is advocating neither in Europe or Russia or even here is a sign of a weak uninformed mind drunk on Republican rhetoric. Its arguing what no one is even remotely advocating.

  • Posted By: Comaradeh @ 07/18/2009 8:29:09 AM

    So there are people who feel they are ENTITLED to government hand out. There are People who want government to be the central part of their life. People who want handouts from other citizens channeled through the government by way of taxation. I'm I understanding this correctly? In other words wealth redistribution or as it was best put by Karl Marx "From each according to his ability to each according to his needs"
    Is that the best way really? really?
    In other words let's take the people's incentive to work and try to prosper because they don't need to, the government will provide.
    The other ideal that I see here from some folks is, let the govie take over private enterprise, like health insurance and medical practices, set pricing and procedures so we all benefit equally or in common like one big happy commune, is this what I am reading here from some of you? Let's not have a competitive market where supply and demand set pricing but instead let the govie tell us what the procedure for any given diagnosis should be with a set price and all Doctors across the board will have to follow a set of diagnostic codes and procedures so to speak, set their knowledge and imagination aside so all Doctors work in the same way thereby make the same amount of money and have no incentive to compete. No incentive to BECOME BETTER and be part of a system where competition separates the better performer from the mediocre and from the no really all that good. OK well then I guess that's why Obama, Pelosi Reid and HR Clinton are saying consider it done.

    In my opinion which is the only entitlement I want from this new progressive administration, my opinion, this progressive way of thinking is the road to HUGE I mean humongous government that has to be paid for, extensive bureaucracy and the highway to meritocracy and ultimately the end of capitalism.

    That's not my America and not the America a lot of people want either and I will not let it go without a fight. Please come to Washington DC September 12 2009, If you can't go to the Capital of your state and let's get American back.

    • Posted By: JRichter @ 07/19/2009 10:12:44 AM

      Argument missed totally. Beause of this republican focus on
      (1) government
      (2) taxes
      All problems can be resolved and framed around these two issues. Its like the low-intelligence bandwith crowd found two simple concecpts to grasp and think all wisdom must be derived from these and explained in those terms to compensate for the lack of ability to handle more complicated, multiple pararmeter issues.

      Well this one can not. Right now without any government plan we will go bankrupt. Cost of health is greater than any country and growing. Bankruptcy is increasing and killing our big companies including GM. And small businesses are choked and finding it harder to thrust out because they can not afford health care for staff. I run a small business doing research and if I hire someone for $3000 a month and they need to buy insurance at 900/month in NY for weak coverage. State research can pay them $2200 and deduct $45.month for health insurance because of bargaining power and access to government options for better coverage and job security. Foreign compmanies can ... you complete that with your smart (government is the problem, taxes are falling smart thoughts). This is why our economy is going down and we are being out-competed. Let's level the playing field a bit.

      No one is talking about state funded health. What is being debated is supposed to be a competitive government option out of many options in current plan in congress. Then I can compete with State research and have a shot against foreign competition too. But why let facts get in the way of a good rant?

    • Posted By: Texas Jake @ 07/18/2009 11:28:52 AM

      bla bla bla.... So, what's the answer Mr. Smarty? March on Washington? Thats all you got?

  • Posted By: jpowelloh @ 07/17/2009 2:48:11 PM

    I think the author is missing the main reason that many aren't up in arms about the increasing cost of medical care. The missing reason is that a substantial portion of medical costs are self inflicted by our citizens who don't take care of their own health. We eat too much (and too much of the wrong foods), we smoke too much, we drink too much and we don't exercise enough. We all want a pill or a doctor to fix what ails us after the fact and we want somebody else to pay for it. Unless Congress is willing to cutoff medical care for people who won't take care of their own health, we will never break out of this cost cycle. Also, how about including the requirement that members of Congress over the age of 65 must switch to medicare, and all federal employees must switch to the "public plan" option in the new legislation?

    • Posted By: Texas Jake @ 07/18/2009 12:16:18 PM

      I like your suggestion. Congress must use the same health care system we get. I bet they get it right!

  • Posted By: Theophilus @ 07/18/2009 8:14:46 AM

    What a load of hooey.

  • Posted By: BrettR4763 @ 07/18/2009 8:01:44 AM

    Sharon and Gilbert, you severely underestimate the intelligence of the American people.

  • Posted By: SukieTawdry @ 07/18/2009 2:24:18 AM

    Wow, could you and your "expert" be more condescending? Doubtful. Perhaps you're not following the details of the health care debate, in particular the debate about what actually constitutes reform and the best ways in which to effect it. Perhaps it's not that "most people" are too stupid to understand the nuances of the debate (and understanding health co-ops and even government insurance really isn't so tough for most of us, can't speak, of course, for you), perhaps it's that for "most people," their common sense has "evolved" to the point where they pay scant attention to (even) Harvard psychologists who try to feed them alarmist twaddle like: "No one seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center site. Why? Because it won't involve villains with box cutters. Instead, it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium." "Most people" tend to discount rank BS when they hear it.

  • Posted By: Divashels @ 07/17/2009 2:30:12 PM

    I pay alot of taxes as a new yorker single working female and a smoker who drives ...so why do we need it ? ..I was told I was paying more per pack to give OTHER people kids healthcare so why a national health system ? what's is in it for me ?
    I smoke so i will check out early but all you health freaks wanna live forever and everyone else pay for it better yet I have a an idea why don't all of those so called health freaks check out early and do the world a favor ? I have my own health care plan I would'nt dream of asking YOU to fund me STOP asking me to fund YOUR kids I don't care about themk and never will if you can't pay TAKE A DIRT NAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! problem solved

    • Posted By: beamac @ 07/17/2009 5:31:06 PM

      wow. i'm so very sorry your life does not mean so much to you. but not every person feels this way. and you are very fortunate that you can afford your own insurance. but as a recent grad who contemplated passing up the insurance from my employer because my checks were so paltry already, i understand how someone could use the help. on the flipside, if i were in that bracket of people who could afford to help others, i would not hesitate. if i'm going to live this life, i might as well be healthy. insurance should be a right, not a privilege.

  • Posted By: groth005 @ 07/17/2009 5:12:24 PM

    one author's view....OR people aren't as dumb as Liberal writers always suggest when they can't convince,them. They might just see it as bad policy and not the right way to go about it. Give people some credit. It's not the right idea, approach or time.

  • Posted By: Comaradeh @ 07/17/2009 4:40:11 PM

    Ohhh my goodness isn't he DA MAN my legs are tingling I swear I got this feeling rush up my body through my legs, now I know what what's his name from MSNBC was talking watching HIM talk after the elections. No wait oh man, I'm sorry I must have been kneeling too long in front of the TV, my circulation got cut off, Oh well never mind Chris.

    Guys it's been a pleasure American Man 63, Paulte, Howard and all the other level headed ones in here....No not you NorCal for Obama. I bet you own a T-shirt with Che Guevara wearing a beret on it. Do you know who Che Guevara is NorCal for Obama?

    • Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/17/2009 4:49:27 PM

      I've been reading your posts, and you're an embarrassment.

      • Posted By: Comaradeh @ 07/17/2009 5:04:02 PM

        Thank you, my pleasure

  • Posted By: JohnLiberty @ 07/17/2009 4:22:06 PM

    44% of people think it should be top priority even during the largest recession in a quarter decade. That actually seems like an unbelivably important item for Americans. Also, the number was much higher before the recession. So I would say it's a big enough to warrent some serioud changes.

  • Posted By: JohnLiberty @ 07/17/2009 4:21:39 PM

    44% of people think it should be top priority even during the largest recession in a quarter decade. That actually seems like an unbelivably important item for Americans. Also, the number was much higher before the recession. So I would say it's a big enough to warrent some serioud changes.

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