Health insurance debate: Making us sick with sarcasm

I am glad to have read Jonathan Alter's and Uwe Reinhardt's sarcastic articles these past 24 hours. They capture, with sarcasm, my anger at the corporate corrupted Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and their compliant corporate media who call these corrupted souls "moderates."

We are so past this argument, and yet we are still somehow arguing. We continue to have to swat down the same, lame attacks, such as government can't do anything right, there are long lines in Canada and elsewhere, etc. Just tell me how or why the conservatives come into power in these places where there is a national health insurance system and they don't repeal or completely undermine the "gummit" plans for the "good" of private enterprise.

And we have to endure lectures on the glories of the "free market" when the purpose of private insurance companies is to make a profit by not providing you with coverage and paying their executives and salespeople exhorbitant wages and stock options; when the private insurers' administrative costs are 10 times that of Medicare--and we still have tens of millions without any insurance, and more than tens of millions with inadequate insurance. Our rural areas are particularly in dire straits (does anyone compare rural Canada and rural America in terms of health care access and insurance?).

I'd give more links to my statements, but I'm so tired of having to prove the same points over and over for the past several decades. If those who oppose Medicare for all still don't get it, I don't know how they ever will. And, please, save me the horror stories from Canada and elsewhere. Those nations have a health record for every single person, while our horror stories are not chronicled by the very nature of our hodge-podge private based system (except for seniors, the very poor and the military personnel).

One particularly ridiculous moment this week was how the corporate media played Obama's doctor's opinion of the health care debate. The other day, the headline on the front page of the Yahoo! site was "Obama's doctor opposes Obama's health care plan" as if the doctor was agreeing with Orrin Hatch (R-UT) or Max Baucus (D, really R-MT). It turns out the doctor was supporting Medicare for all. Imagine that. See Forbes.com; CNN.com, among others for similarly misleading headlines. The structure of corporate media defines Obama as the outer limits of leftist politics when, before the propaganda machine began in earnest, most Americans supported Medicare for all. For the effects of the propaganda, look no further than seniors--who live under government health insurance--who are worried that the government will take over health care if the incremental ObamaCare passes. Our grandparents need to turn off the goddamned television news and talk shows like Bill O'Reilly (65 plus age demographic). I'll take their plan and they can have my Blue Cross!

Single pay/Medicare for all makes the most sense. It's less administratively costly. It covers every American citizen. It simplifies paperwork for doctors--less doctors' insurance-confirming assistants and more nurses. It frees up Americans who, due to their pre-existing health conditions, are tied to jobs because of private health benefits. And did I mention that every other government that has national health insurance spends less than we do on health care as a percentage of their gross national or domestic income? Again, it's time. But time slips away again...and we're supposed to jump for joy at the possibility of some additional hodge to the podge...As I say, frustrating.

(Edited)

ADDENDUM: Tim Noah is a brave one, still willing to engage in arguments on this issue. See this article about the corrosive effect of market forces on the medical profession (which links to the must-read New Yorker article I had blogged on a few weeks back), and this answer to those who say "We're Americans, and we simply can't behave like those Canadians--they're French, right?"

ADDENDUM II: Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) engages in outstanding sarcasm against Republicans and others who say no to publicly funded and operated health insurance.