This week’s Dispatches, the third in my series on healthcare reform, is up a couple of days early. You can find it here.
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
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Hank Kalet 
*** begin quote *** Health care, the organization says, is a right and “should be provided equitably as a public service” with “democratic control, public administration and single-payer financing.” Dr. Gochfeld says the for-profit system lacks accountability — or, perhaps more accurately, is accountable to the wrong people. Rather than protecting health-care consumers, the system is set up to protect corporate profits, which have been astronomical.*** end quote ***So what you have is a group advocating to open up the public purse so they can make a profit. All because they are \”pure of heart\”. As opposed to the \”evil insurance companies\”.Sigh!First of all, IF \”health care\” is a RIGHT, then some one is obligated to provide it. Who? Sorry, but that's slavery by degree.And, who decides when I've paid enough for this new \”right\”?I agree we have a mess. But the mess comes from the government interference. It puts a big gooferment thumb on the economy.If we are looking for solutions, why look to the government? Is Indian Health Care so good? Or the VA? Medicare? Medicaid?Remember it has to be both more effective and efficient than what we have now.Could it be that we have so badly disconnected the consumer from the paying? If we returned to a true insurance system (i.e., you pay and get 80% back), then we will have a lot less fraud and a lot more hard questions asked about bills. When you give away free Jazzys, then you have to expect a lot of ripoffs of the system. Sorry, but, if Obama-care passes, where will Canadian politicians go for their heart operations?
The whole right wing crowd has been howling about One millionaire Canadian who came to the US for heart surgery that actually could have been done in Canada. Canada has excellent state of the art heart care facilities just as good as ours. By the way, why didn't this Canadian go to the Mayo Clinic? Oh yeah, he has a condo in Florida. Studies have been done that show that Canadians do not come to the US for health care, the number is infinitesimal. Canadian satisfaction for their health care system regularly polls in the 80% through 93% range. But thousands of US citizens go abroad for cheaper health care, the same operations would bankrupt them in the US. About 44,000 Americans die each year for a lack of health insurance (from a Harvard study). 60% of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical expenses in this country.The VA and Medicare also have very high approval ratings amongst their clientele.
Yeah, everyone is just THRILLED with their gooferment health care.http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/va_nightmare_a_harbinger_of_wh.html