DISQUS

Soundboy_jeff_meanie · 1 year ago

Woohoo!

and now, to celebrate American style... I'm putting my root canal on my credit card because even with dental insurance, I can't afford it.

insult to injury? so to speak.

jr · 1 year ago

Glenn Beck always says "we have the best health care in the world" as his white trash fans get distracted from their 5 and 6 figure medical bills by culture war segments

Soundboy_jeff_meanie · 1 year ago

considering that most of his audience probably never leave their state... they consider the USA to BE the world.

so, maybe in a fubar repunican braindead logic... he's right?

scooter in brooklyn · 1 year ago

almost makes me kvell with pride.

brian · 1 year ago

Yes, but you are missing the point. We have a free market system and the others have universal healthcare. Though we may have more problems and die earlier it is the principle that counts, the principle of corporate greed is better than living your life.

Soundboy_jeff_meanie · 1 year ago

Brian! Exactly!!

BTW, weren't you in this video?

http://imvotingrepublican.com/

KerrynowCampau · 1 year ago

Yes! Corporate heath is much more important than human health.


PS Watch the video Soundboy provided a link to. Hilarious.

lynchie · 1 year ago

The only industrialized country in the world without Universal Health Care. What a hell of an accomplishment. No wait, our politicians have Health Care and we have the right to die on our own time, not during working hours please.

ShirleyGoodnessanMercy · 1 year ago

From Michael Moore's "Sicko," here British MP Tony Benn talks about power and democracy, and how empowering people is what is essential to bring a higher quality of life for most people. It explains a lot about why US health care is nearly of third world quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3HyK5rB9jY

Every Americablogger MUST see "Sicko" if you haven't done so yet. The segment on Norway is unbelievable... We are such slaves in the US:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4L6-0WRfSA

scooter in brooklyn · 1 year ago

jeff: that video is priceless!

duchessofbilgewater · 1 year ago

Well, we're certainly way behind in education! I just made the mistake of reading some of the comments on AOL's article about Johnson resigning from Obama's VP search committee. Oh dear god, people are morons. How depressing. i think I will go open a bottle of wine and kill some brain cells!

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

That's OUR life expectancies.

I'm sure Bush--and his donors who can afford to go to Mayo Clinic once a year for the "works:--will easily see 90.

Ditto for Cheney, who's getting the equivalent of 10 families worth of health care.

duchessofbilgewater · 1 year ago

What's that? Cheney is stealing organs from living donors???

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

Well, they were living. But they were among the 47 million uninsured, so they weren't expected to last very long anyway.

KerrynowCampau · 1 year ago

And he drinks their blood after ripping their organs out right in front of their eyes.

Butch1 · 1 year ago

This is beyond embarrassing... the sooner we all have universal healthcare the better off we will be. We need to remove the middleman, namely, the insurance companies. They do not need to be involved in our healthcare.

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

Yeah, but all the plans involve the insurance companies, unfortunately.

They're too powerful, I guess.

ndtovent · 1 year ago

You're right about that. How about starting with legislation which 1) Requires insurance companies to cover EVEryone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, 2) mandating subsidized prescription coverage for EVery american, no matter what, 3) Allowing the government to negotiate for lower drug prices with big pharm, 4) mandate caps on monthly premiums for all americans?? Still wouldn't equal a universal/single payer system, but woulb be a good start...

Butch1 · 1 year ago

Unfortunately, you are correct. They really do not need to be at the table brokering a piece of the pie. There is absolutely no need for them if it is universal healthcare that is run by the government. They do not need any money to run things. If they want to offer additional insurance and people want to buy it, that will be up to the people and the insurance companies and nothing to do with government run healthcare, in my opinion.

ZennButtKicker (tlhwraith) · 1 year ago

I don't think their too powerful, just too entrenched and too big, there's a difference. Insurance companies literally employ thousands of people in almost every state, and have also purchased stakes in probably hundreds of other companies like medical practices, hospitals, etc. It would be almost suicidal for any public figure to pass legislation that would effectively eliminate a huge industry that has controlling interests in several other ancillary industries. It would take years just to mitigate the unemployment and health resource losses that would result. Sure, some people would be absorbed into the expanded government insurance system as workers, but part of the point of a universal system is to make delivering insurance coverage more efficient, and I would only expect a fraction of people working for private healthcare providers to be absorbed.

Antigone · 1 year ago

It's not just that all of the plans involve the insurance companies. You're still dealing with a large number of ignorant people in this country who equate some form of nationalized health care with *gasp* socialism or communism. And you also simply have a lot of extremely selfish people in this country. Take my own sister. She's a doctor. You'd think she'd be all for nationalized health care because of the number of lives it would help. Not a chance. She sits there and says in this snippy tone of voice, "Why should I pay somebody else's medical bills. It's their bills so it's their responsibility." Her whole attitude is - ME first and to hell with everybody else. The last time she said that I told her - You know what? Your bedside manner must be really shitty.

ZennButtKicker (tlhwraith) · 1 year ago

Look on the bright side, last year WHO had us at #35 I believe.

In the words of the "The Jeffersons" theme song....

"Oh well we're movin on up (movin on up), to the east side, to dee-luxe healthcare, in the sk-ii"

Seriously though, what countries did we surpass because I'd feel REALLY sorry for their citizenry.

msra · 1 year ago

We have the right to bear arms, yet we have no guarantee of health care or education. How absurd is that?!? The current administration seems to figure that if they keep America sick and dumb, we'll eventually die or kill each other off and they won't have to worry about us. They won't even take care of our military's medical needs. No one wants to admit the shame we bring on our country with these kinds of policies. A healthy well-educated country must be our first priority, not our last. Hopefully, come November, America will finally stand up and say we aren't going to take it anymore.

jack_alexander · 1 year ago

It would be interesting to see how far behind the US is when it includes health care/life expectancy for veterans. That is if the complete figures weren't a secret as they seem to be considering many members of the military die en route to hospitals in Europe and aren't counted in the official tally from the military establishment.