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Published on Sunday, July 12, 2009 by Bill Moyers Journal
Bill Moyers Journal: Wendell Potter Speaks About how For-Profit Insurers Stand in the Way of Healthcare Reform
With almost 20 years inside the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter saw for-profit insurers hijack our health care system and put profits before patients. Now, he speaks with Bill Moyers about how those companies are standing in the way of health care reform.
© 2009 Public Affairs Television
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24 Comments so far
Show AllGood luck USA, you'll need it.
Isn't it amazing how many miserable people/pr con men /criminals we have in this country...that will do the bidding and shill for these corporate entities to push agendas that are based on nothing but money and needless suffering of their fellow man.
Is this the new patriotism?
"Is this the new patriotism?"
There is nothing new about this - it's the same damn thing over and over.
As Ted says, this is nothing new. Public opinion has been in favor of a universal single-payer system for decades.
However, since we live in a system where money is free speech and corporations enjoy the rights of individual human beings and the "pluralistic interest representation system" is basically institutionalized, formalized, legal bribery and corruption, the profit vulture insurance companies have blocked any meaningful reform for decades and decades.
The same old gap between public opinion and policy exists and will continue. Gee it makes you wonder if we live in a democracy, doesen't it.
Once again. Governance is a criminal enterprize. Health insurance is a protection racket. Used to go to jail for that. Not anymore.
It should not be legal to allow stocks to be sold for health insurance and any industry that makes money off war. Why doesn't the public see the problem with this? The health insurance executives are making decisions to harm, bankrupt, and kill their own clients in order to benefit their shareholders? Same with companies like Xe (isnt that what Blackwater changed to), KBR, Lockheed, etc. If America stays at war, their shareholders benefit; meanwhile, people suffer and die. It seems to be the common thread of capitalism: suffering and death brings wealth to the fortunate ones.
NMLib -- exactly right. I went out with the Moveon people on Thursday to demonstrate with them for a public option. We stood out front of Sen. Huchison's San Antonio office and the incredible irony of it was that her office there is in the same building with General Dynamics and Boeing and with a big F-111 and a supersonic jet bomber (B-58?) on display out front with us. Chalmers Johnson says that she and Feinstein are the "mother hens" of the defense contracting industry. Plenty of money for killing -- always -- but not much else I'm afraid.
I saw Bill Moyers' program on Friday night and just submitted a short letter to the Cleveland Plain Dealer stating that it should be required viewing for all citizens.
I was amazed by Wendell Potter's courage in speaking so frankly, given where he's come from. And Moyers' final comments (also on common dreams) were more direct and more condemning of "the moneychangers in the temple" than I've ever seen him deliver on any other subject. He was angry, and it showed. I wouldn't be surprised if the right wing tried once again to bounce him off the airwaves.
This was really riveting television. I plan to recommend it highly to people I know who are still in the dark about how we've been manipulated by the corporate sector.
truejusticematters
Can anyone calculate the number of premature deaths, the people who have suffered longer with illnesses, and required more extensive treatment because of our dismal health "care" system? How many deaths are these "health"insurance companies responsible for? It is a crime.
Please note that the GAO did a study in 1991 of the single payer system in Canada and they found:
"If the universal coverage and single-payer features of the Canadian
system were applied in the United States, the savings in administrative
costs alone would be more than enough to finance insurance coverage
for the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. There would
be enough left over to permit a reduction, or possibly even the elimina-
tion, of copayments and deductibles, if that were deemed appropriate."
AND
"Canadians have few problems with access to primary care services.
There are more physicians per person in Canada than in the United
States, and Canadians use more physician services per person than do
US. citizens. Yet the cost of physician services per person in Canada
was one-third less than in the United States."
You can find this study by putting this number in Google: HRD-91-90
Let's keep the heat on our representatives and tell them that they must vote for single payer or we will vote them out of office. (You're fired!) It can be as simple as that.
The Hartford Courant had a comment section like Common Dreams,
that was available to the readership. A reader wrote a comment describing how Senator Chris Dodd had obtained a house on the sea-shore in Ireland. After some investigation, a reporter,
Kevin Rennie, exposed the deal. It appears that a partner of Dodd who had a criminal record, recieved a Pardon from Bubba Clinton after Sen Dodd asked Bubba to do him a favor and
give a pardon to his criminal buddy. Dodd's favorable polls
shot down like a ton of bricks.As a result, the comment section in the
Courant was loaded everytime a story on this matter broke into the public and it was very unfavorable to Dodd. The comment
section in the Courant has been made so difficult to use,
that it has now for all intent removed the comment section.
We now are being fed beautifull pictures of Dodd and Lieberman and other Ct politicians. So much for the free press.
This is a shining example of how the Corporate Press caters
to the powerfull. Thank God for Common Dreams.
When Sen Chris Dodd was asked about Single Payer Health system,
his reply was, "It will never happen". Dodd and his ilk survive on donations from the banking and insurance rackets.
I'm afraid this time our luck has run out.
The poor and middle class who produce the wealth are being bled dry by the health care complex, the industrial-military-media complex, and the banking industry.
These three use the money they steal from us to pay our elected representatives whatever it takes to pass laws that allow them to continue to steal from us.
Unfortunately there is no money left over for health care, national defense, or sound fiscal policy.
It would be rather funny but...
There will be no reform of health care without single payer.
Advocate for single payer.
Convince 5 friends that single payer is the solution and ask them to convince their friends. Americans need to start talking single payer. If they do it'll get to the media and congress. Being passive or defeatist will not work.
There are many resources on single payer on the web. A good start is www.pnhp.org
Phasor, It's a good idea- but I must need new friends. A few friends, maybe tired of hearing me gripe about health care (it's been my number one cause for a few years now), keep telling me they agree- but what can we do. Others say, "Single Payer will never pass in America," or "it's too radical," "too early," or some other lame excuse why the Dems won't do it. And my family, all right-wing conservatives, will never support it- and it doesn't matter what I say or do to try to convince them otherwise.
But I talk the talk, constantly.
Thanks, keep it up and try this:
1) Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.
2) Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.
3) Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.
4) Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.
5) A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste.
Health Care in the large industrial economies:
a) In a single-payer national health insurance system, as demonstrated by Canada, Denmark, Norway, Australia, Taiwan and Sweden, health insurance is publicly administered and most physicians are in private practice. U.S. Medicare would be a single payer insurance system if it applied to everyone in the U.S.
b) Great Britain and Spain are among the OECD countries with national health services, in which salaried physicians predominate and hospitals are publicly owned and operated. The Department of Veteran's Affairs would be a U.S. single payer national health service system if it applied to everyone in the U.S.
c) Highly regulated, universal, multi-payer health insurance systems are illustrated by countries like Germany and France, which have universal health insurance via non-profit "sickness funds" or "social insurance funds". They also have a market for supplementary private insurance, or "gap" coverage, but this accounts for less than 5 percent of health expenditures in most nations.
We want Medicare for all in the U.S.
Excellent talking points, and I'm plugged in to the info. I'm on email lists for virtually every Single Payer-supporting group in the country. Two years ago I read and am constantly recommending the book "Health Care Meltdown" by Robert Lebow. I have my own personal experience to use, discussing my need for major surgery last year and how, if I hadn't come up with the money for anesthesiology, I would not have been allowed to have it, etc.
Yet, there are still some very ignorant, close-minded, selfish individuals out there who you can't budge no matter what. A friend of my parents, retired and on Medicare, told me that the reason I (and the 47 million Americans) don't have health insurance is "poor planning." She says that if I want health care like they have in Canada or France, I should move there. I remind her that we didn't always have Medicare-- would she like it if we went back to those times and removed her coverage? No response other than, "I worked for everything I have; I don't want to support people who aren't working."
I sense a powerlessness in your tone. Maybe even a defeatist ideology in your arguments.
Over 70% of Americans want a public option. That's an overwhelming majority of Americans. Deal with that.
People will believe what they choose to believe regardless of any rational argument, cost to others, or even the proof of their own eyes.
Dives was so rich that he feasted constantly while Lazarus ate the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.
You know the story, Dives died and from his place of pain in hell saw Lazarus far away, comfortable and being cared for by Abraham himself.
He begs Abraham to allow him to return to life to tell his brothers to repent. Abraham points out the obvious: they have Moses and the prophets to listen to.
But surely insists Dives, 'Should one return from the dead they could not help but believe'
Abraham's reply is prophetic for all time----'No, they wouldn't'.
Ever try to convince a stupid bigot that people of color are not genetically inferior? We all have. Logic is no good. Proof is no good. The more proof they are shown the more angry they become.
"What's good for General Motors is good for the country." That became famous in the 1950's, as I recall. Although many disagree with it, it is far more ethical than the current version: What's bad for the people's health is good for the health care industry.
How can anyone justify extracting monetary profit from sick and dying people? How can anyone turn a blind eye to sick and dying people who can't be helped because there is no money to be made?
Nobody is attracted so strongly by anything as by that which he considers his own good. If money is your ultimate good and you can pick your dying brother's pocket, you do it.
You may even feel badly about it-----but you do it.
I think such people loathe themselves, but they are what they are. Freedom is an illusion. A long time ago they might have learned a different value system but that was then. This is now.
What nihilistic nonsense. Perfect name for that mindset you have there.
"A long time ago they might have learned a different value system but that was then. This is now."
Right, cause back then governments, the media and schools taught us egalitarian values in the West, right? Give me a break. Tony Benn made a very good point about the difference between when he was a young representative and now. He said that back in the day, when things like democracy had at least a passing interest in the West the system in many ways was changed to meet the needs of the people. Now, the system is a given and WE the people need to change to meet the needs of the system. Over time in the West the organizations that brought people together, that put abstract concepts into practice, that heightened democratic participation and provided ideological alternatives (unions, social movements, political parties that have even a passing pretense of participation from all but the top management of the parties, etc) have been attacked and destroyed so people are alone, have no options and have no avenue for their anger. Saying, “oh well, the world’s different” is equivalent to saying “oh well, we’re going to destroy the environment and can’t do anything to improve our lives and empower people, let’s wave the white flag”. I’m guessing you’re hoping for this. Should we sit around and wait for a “superman” to save us?
“Nobody is attracted so strongly by anything as by that which he considers his own good.”
Yeah, that mentality has done the world a lot of good. This is the underlying logic of the world we live in, for complex reasons, but in practice what does it mean? Well, in any capitalist system there are conflicting interests. What is good for a corporation might be bad for a town. What is good for a group of powerful, rich financial traders might in direct opposition to entire countries. So, who wins? The most powerful group with the most money. Logically, it makes a lot of sense for the least powerful people to pool their resources and energies to fight the more powerful person or group, it’s the only chance they have. So doing what is in most people’s best interest isn’t being an individualist, that’s suicide in a world of large and growing differences in wealth and power, it’s cooperation and collective action. As I said, any pretense of that has been attacked, but it is the only hope for most people. Interestingly enough, people’s ATTITUDES already are on this vein and have been, as I said though, there is no avenue right now to take advantage of this.
“You may feel bad about this, but you do it”
Yep, it’s in my best interest to hurry around town, so I slam doors in old women’s faces. I have no time to hold the door open for them. I live in an isolated island, there’s no laws, so we make coats out the skin of babies. It’s in MY interest and the only laws there are, are on the market. No social laws should stop me, I’m more powerful than those babies, screw ‘em. I have tons of pollution from my factory, I could do what is right and pay for properly storing it, better yet I could not create the pollution in the first place, but that isn’t in my best interest and I’m more powerful than the town whose river I want to drop the pollution in. Guess who wins in this “new world”? ME! There’s no end to your wonderful logic, cause I’m powerful and it makes logical sense for me. You, well you’re a coffee house philosopher. Who do you dominate for your own interest? Do you sell your sister off to your friends whenever they’re weak in the knees? After all, altruism is weak and against “human nature”.
Most people know that they can win ONLY if everyone else wins.
The 'Greed is good' crowd never sleep. They care about nothing but being in control. The rest of us in the back of the bus are enjoying the scenery.
When the whole thing hits the wall the pieces will belong to us --for a while, until the whole thing starts over.
As long as the Obama and Congress try to "reform" healthcare for those who profit from it, there can be no real reform. All the proposals currently under consideration limit access to the poor while enhancing access to the wealthy and bolstering the profitability of insurance companies and profiteering healthcare providers.
I love what Moyers and Winship wrote yesterday for AlterNet:
"The game goes on and the insiders keep dealing themselves winning hands. Nothing will change -- nothing -- until the money lenders are tossed out of the temple, the ATM's are wrested from the marble halls, and we tear down the sign they've placed on government -- the one that reads, "For Sale.'"
http://www.alternet.org/politics/141258/%27the_select_few%27_are_cashing_in%3A_shocking_corruption_at_the_washington_post/