Sunday, August 02, 2009
End Wall Street Run Health Care
Until a year ago, Wendell Potter was an executive at Cigna, the 3rd largest health insurance company. He risked his reputation by blowing the whistle on his industry and sharing the insider secrets used by insurance companies to deny care and spread fear based propaganda about the "horrors of government run health care" for the last 20 years. In a recent interview on PBS, he shares the detailed playbook of the political movement to block health care reform and preserve the insurance company's stranglehold on the lucrative American health care industry.
"The industry and its backers are using fear tactics, as they did in 1994, to tar a transparent and accountable, publicly accountable health care option as, quote, "government-run health care." What we have today, Mr. Chairman, is Wall Street-run health care that has proven itself an untrustworthy partner to its customers, to the doctors and hospitals who deliver care and to the state and federal governments that attempt to regulate it." - Wendell PotterEveryone intersted in the public debate about health care should watch the whole interview online.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm Canadian. We have our problems, such as a shortage of doctors and long waiting times, but all those problems were caused by massive neo-liberal spending cuts in the early 90's by the Liberal government under Jean Chretien.
The Canadian you see on TV complaining about Canadian healthcare is a complete mischaracterization of our system. http://is.gd/1ZHFY
I have never had a problem with Canadian healthcare, asides from a long wait time. The American system seems to me to be as anti-Christian as you can get. Lest we forget--the annointing of the sick and afflicted is a sacrament--and sacraments shouldn't be for sale!
Wow, I find Ryan's comment fascinating. Every time I broach this subject with anyone that is "anti-socialized medicine" which, is most everyone in my family, I always hear about how Canada's health care is horrible. No mind the the 36 industrialized nations that have nationalized (NOT SOCIALIZED) medicine that have better health care than we do. I guess that my big fear is that through the negotiations and trying to get everyone on board, the system being proposed will be cheapened to be less than what it was originally proposed as. And, I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly where all of that stands at this point.
There is no doubt that something needs to be done. Our family personally has stories about how the health care system has failed us numerous times. I am just praying that it ends up being the right thing..
Post a Comment