Bill Moyers Journal: Wendell Potter Speaks About how For-Profit Insurers Stand in the Way of Healthc

Insidious Insurance Industry Insults Intelligence.

A visit for your dog with the Vet ~50 to 80 dollars.

Stepping into an MD's office, maybe as much as about ~300 to 400 dollars.

Yet, the Vet requires more years of schooling than the average family practitioner.

And of the money for medical, it might be estimated that only about about only 30 to 40% reaches the hands of the doctor or medical care provider.

In one state of the Northwest, an insurance carrier finances one of the medical associations. At the same time, medical doctors appear dependent on the carrier for covering liability (to assure that they don't loose their house, boat, cabin . . . ).

And don't forgot our finger pointing blame game -- as in "its the legal profession that has spiraled medical expenses, costs and harmed the medical profession."

Interestingly, the former Secretary to Health and Human Services was a business mogul of the Insurance Industry, and our rates seemed to jumped exponentially during the former administration.

Today, under guise of greater concern for caring compassion, an IV-mainliners knocking yet again on Heaven's Door for more of the Dough -- NOW via a CHIPs program and the Best Interests of Children (of course).

Does the church charge you more if your sins are bigger? Does the fire dept charge you for saving your house? like they once did? or does the police dept charge you for writing up the report on the theft, car accident or assault? wait, did the mail man charge you MORE for delivering the mail that was more important because FED EX & UPS charge more to get it there over night? capitalism has its place.....not on the sick it doesnt, if so, then whats next? the undertaker? should he charge you more for being a capitalist republican?
I Think so! after all you believe the priviledged should be different.

Just like any business, health insurance companies set a standard of what can be paid for health services, setting the price at a usually fixed rate. (Medicare gets a brake...woohoo) It is price fixing, obviously. Does it really cost $3,450 to have someone "fix" a sprained ankle? It does if you are willing to pay that much - a not-so-free market of perpetual sickness.

Talk about Nancy Grace? Moore is obnoxious,
NY Post, Jan. 8, 2003----- He stormed around all day screaming at everyone, even the 5 pound-an-hour bar staff, telling them how we were all con men and useless. Then he went on stage and did it in public. At his last appearance, staffers refused to work or even open the theater's doors."
Michael Moore's major themes are his status as the spokesman of the working class, the evils of capitalism, and the selfishness of (all other) Americans.
On speaking tours he charged Utah Valley State College $40,000, Xavier $25,000, and University of New Mexico $35,000. He lives in million dollar apartment in N.Y.C. and has a million dollar vacation beachfront house in Michigan.
He dresses like he needs a handout, even while he boasts that he is a muti millionaire.
He is the typical Limousine Leftist, who swims in money while complaining about the rich in America.

I view Michael Moore as a typical rich liberal who is willing to lose a few bucks in taxes, to show how he cares for the poor. He also dresses like a slob on purpose, to appear to be an ordinary Joe, which he isn't.

the argument against socialized healthcare is retarded. I always get the same f-ing answers like "if we just let the markets regulate it then we'd have a cheap and efficient system that is competitive and thus is best". I wanna ask those people if they ever bought a car, a cellphone or anything in this free market bs. If the free market is working, why is our public transportation garbage, why are cars still driven by people?

*** Warning I'm going on a rant ****

Let me put it this way, we live in this thing called "society" and all societies had ways to address social issues. In ancient societies If a portion of the village was starving then how could it defend its wheat, or harvest the wheat or hunt for food. So even though someone else farmed the food and someone else caught the meat, it was SHARED with everyone in that society. The reason is someone made the clothes for the hunter, the spears for the warriors, the shoes for people, someone taught the children and yes some shaman or doctor healed the sick as best as he could. Everyone benefitted from everyone working together. You couldn't raise a safe family if the warriors had to find his own healthcare and buy his own sh*t so you made sure he had shoes and the local healer was healing. I mean come on that was back when wood was the primary building material we're beyond the days of invasion, and now we have technology and its even easier to help society. However we've been separated from our society and lost the correlation between the kid who we educate and provide healthcare for and the kid who invents the technology that will save us from horrible disease or cure our cancer or just make our lives easier.
So healthcare isn't a "budget" issue to me its a human issue. So to my fellow keynesian capitalist keep screwing society, keep hurting other people by being selfish and tell them to fend for themselves. Keep worrying about only yourself, your family and your home. Keep on defending companies who think your a moron and probably don't even give a damn about you enough to call you a moron in a press release. Keep defending shareholders whos only interest is making money, and then using your tax money to subsidize their crap, because capitalism is a religion in this country. Keep fighting against humanity, so when you need humanities help someone says go take care of yourself (particularly when you're old and you don't have much social security). I'm in my 20's and I'm just losing hope anything significant is going to happen in the states for healthcare and its making me really cynical. I know I can split whenever, but what sucks is knowing a lot of people can't and thats just horrible to to even think of most of the time.

This video should go viral, lets hope it does and the other contributions speak volumes about sicko the movie that so many people tagged as just another hollywood liberal movie.

So a top of the food chain CEO of a huge insurance company says Michael Moore's "Sicko" was accurate. He also admits the insurance lobby worked very hard and spent lots of money to smear and discredit it, because it could result in big profit loss for the insurance industry.

My favorite part was when he said government absolutely has a place in the delivery of healthcare. It works in many countries around the world.

I can see this video going viral easily. It utterly undermines the lie of the right wing regarding government and healthcare.

A very effective post . We must make this change . It truly is life or death for our country .

Michael Moore sickens me.
However, just because Mr. Obama eats ice cream, and I do not like him, does not mean that I will not eat ice cream.
So, I am both against the current state of health care and against Michael Moore.

Many years ago, in England, a dentist helped me and didn't charge me a cent (pence). i was amazed at how easily their health care was accepted and no one paid!
Certainly they knew I was an American from my passport, but it was free anyway.
If the Mexicans can come here illegally, and get all their medical bills paid for, why can't we, the legal Americans, get it for free also??!!! How dumb is our system!!!

I'm the last person to want the government involved anymore in our lives than they already are, but, healthcare is so expensive and care is up to the whims of the insurance executives. A little over a hundred years ago, fire protection was done by private companies too, till they got too greedy and did a poor job.
Most states if not all, regulate what utilities can charge us too or the city delivers gas, water and electricity to us. Maybe it's time to let them at least regulate the cost and amount of care we can get.
Like others have said in above posts, they need to get politics out of it, both sides are so full of it, and spreading so many lies about the other, we don't know which end is up.

I viewed this when it was broadcast on Friday night on the idiot box.
It's encouraging to see that Moyers continues with his patriotic efforts.

Perhaps one day the US will elevate itself to #36 or better in the WHO's world health care rankings. Little comfort can be taken from beating out Slovenia by one and Cuba by 2. Cuba!

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Yes, bluestranger, it is money.
May I add that I believe they twist the idea on purpose, so that many will think that it is they who originated it. In five months, who knows, maybe Bill Moyers himself will introduce it as his own great new innovative idea. Not really, bt the point is ego dictates much of what we see, especially in politics.

Why do politicians seem to take the simplest of concepts and turn them upside down and inside out until they no longer resemble the original idea? If I were to hazard a guess it would be a very simple answer. Money.

Well thanks for that info current89 now I'll try and let the idea that maybe our e-mail system here at current hasn't been compremised by the health care insurer mafia.

Like i said at a different post, I truly wish that wouldnot be a Democrat vs. Republican or a Liberal vs. Conservative issue.
I just wish that somehow every single person should be able to be insured against losing when they get sick, or suffer a family tragedy.
The way it is right now has been going on for decades and decades, not just years. The way it is now is undoubtedly painful to so many people, it's a horror.
Good post Kennymotown.

Thanks unimatrix0 for your kind words, I have been apparently censored or blocked from getting any comments from posts so I'll be checking on the posts from time to time.

Great post Kennymotown!

The health insurance industry is a racket and a failed system of health care delivery.

The gov can do a much better job.

The ignorant sheeple who argue against socialized medicine and try to protect the insurance companies have been bamboozled.

The very systems they rail against are twice as efficient as ours and everybody is covered. What part of that bothers these crooks, once again it's profit. Man you can make a bunch of money stealing from the people for what is basically an old MOB tactic protection. Don't you remember the Godfather movies and how protection was a big part of the Mafia's pay system. I hope this message from Bill Moyers gets through to you, because I have now been censored for my attack on the system. It doesn't bother me I have plenty of soldiers working for the cause and many more joining the effort everyday. If you are interested in joining the cause you can contact me at kennymotown@comcast.net

Fighting the Mafia run Health Care Insurers should be the war rally cry from the people. These people are crooks and need to be kicked out of the discussion.