Operating Room
July 1st, 2009 | Editorial Cartoons | 8 Comments
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Seeing who’s lining up to oppose health care reform should encourage us that Obama’s on the right track. The insurance industry, the drug companies and the American Medical Association are against the public option, precisely because they fear that any competition will cost them money. The AMA has been on the wrong side of pretty much every public issue they’ve taken a stand on for decades (they even opposed Medicare). The Republican party no longer has any ideas; it just reflexively opposes anything the Democrats propose, plus they’ve been protecting business from consumers for so long they don’t even remember when they used to care about the little guy. The insurers and drug companies will fight to hang on to their billions no matter how many Americans go bankrupt from medical costs.
None of the opponents even pretends to argue for the patient anymore. Oh, sure, they resort to the same old scare tactics. You’ll lose the right to choose your doctor (no, actually, you won’t), government bureaucrats will make health care choices for you (which is worse, somehow, than having Insurance company bureaucrats making the choices for you), it’s socialized medicine (I don’t hear a lot of veterans complaining about their free VA medical care), there’ll be rationing (like there isn’t already), a public plan will lower costs so much it’ll put the insurers out of business (why this is bad for me, I don’t quite get), your taxes will go up (probably, but your premiums will go down more), etc. Note that none of these arguments even begins to address the basic problem–that the current system encourages soaring medical costs, and that as a result more and more Americans cannot afford health insurance, and even if they can, a major illness can wipe them out.
The rest of the industrialized world has figured it out. We remain the only wealthy nation that hasn’t. Let’s hope that, despite the ferocity of the vested interests, that changes this year.
Topics: AMA, American Medical Association, Drug companies, GOP, health care reform, insurance industry, Obama
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Great piece, Ed. “The insurers and drug companies will fight to hang on to their billions” puts the teeth on the bone, I’d say.
This is typical of libeerals who “know better”. I work in EMS…thats an ambulance for those who don’t know better. I can tell you this, NO ONE gets denied medical coverage at the ER. When they call 911 for a tooth ache at 3:00 in the morning (and I have run that call multiple times) they get picked up and taken to the ER. We can’t deny them transport or treatment because of federal laws. When they don’t pay the bill, guess who does, the taxpayer and the people who have health insurance. And do they care, not a bit.
A word about the VA, I have worked for a company that had a contract with the VA to transport their patients. Here in Atlanta VA treatment is hit and miss. I find it odd that when President Bush was in the Whitehouse the VA was a scandal, but with President Obama in the Whitehouse the VA is O.K. You can’t have it both ways, I know plenty of patients who get the shaft at the VA. Finally, your logic thats states with those who opose reform should show us just how right the President is, well that is the most infantile logic I have ever heard. It reminds me of a childish phrase, perhaps you know it…..
“I’m rubber and your glue, whatever you say bounces of me and sticks to you”
P.S. About rationing, my wife is English and has lived under a universal health care system. You should have a healthcare issue and live through that nightmare once before you try to shove it down our throats, just once please! I think you’ll find it stinks. Take the word of two paramedics who work in the field.
I’m not convinced that being in EMS gives one any more insight on the health care insurance or even the health care system , in general.
I would be interested in what federal law mandates that you give service, as we have had several instances in my little town where the ambulance service has refused to provide service.
I’m sure we all have our own ancedotal experiences with the ER and my own personal visit, with cracked ribs from a biking accident; I waited in the ER for 6 hours and got zero care (and I had insurance).
Speaking of infantile logic, the phrase that comes to my mind is “You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends”.
Hey, though the AMA opposed medicare, I read that now they are supporting health care reform bill. But you put them in the operating room cartoon.
Also I had many customers in canada who all swear the system is working wonderfully, no wait (unless its cosmetic surgery and someone needs immediate cancer treatment. This has been coinfirmed by columnist Bob Gunter in the local Sandpoint paper, like articles in AARP newsletter as well as trestment in Consumer Reports publications. National one-payer health care works, and works better than what wee have now, and does so in many industrialized nations. There is no reason we in the USA cannot do as well or better than the others.
For me, the best operating system is Linux because it rarely hangs…*
operating systems can either make or break your system that is why it is wise to choose a vey stable one.~’~
the best operating system is always Linux, after Linux it is Windows XP. Vista sucks:*,
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