Jack M Posted October 27, 2009 Report Share Posted October 27, 2009 60 Minutes: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/60_minutes/video/?pid=GQIzNJWFeZA3_UdBSl8JcB58XdIud78c&vs=Default&play=true It's the first story in the episode. Please watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Stevens Posted October 27, 2009 Report Share Posted October 27, 2009 It's kind of hard to steal from an "Unfunded liability". I don't think there's any intent to capitalize it. Your government is taking everything from its future generations. Ours isn't much better... We just don't have as much to play with, but we'll print more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted October 27, 2009 Report Share Posted October 27, 2009 The private sector does a lot better, $200 billion losses to fraud. It also waste up to $700 billion a year. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33480141/ns/health-health_care BobD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted October 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2009 Yes, that is a separate issue that needs to be fixed, however you're talking about fraud in the entire industry. Medicare is just one part of the industry. If the gov't can't even run part of the industry, it does not follow to think that they should or could run the whole thing. (O's ultimate and stated goal) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobdea Posted October 27, 2009 Report Share Posted October 27, 2009 that's because there's so little oversight it take law enforcement actually doing their job. do you think we should disband all arms of the military and just contract to blackwater? You heard about the $200 gallon of gas, the $70 bricks that often the pentagon can't even confirm it's recieved? We can't run a military, lets just privatize. same goes for roads and schools right? maybe the postal service? ever send a letter by UPS for under $1 or...... $5? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted October 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2009 typical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring_%28logical_fallacy%29#Red_herring Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boarderboy Posted October 28, 2009 Report Share Posted October 28, 2009 I think you owe it to the Forum to admit you're not exactly "impartial" in your view of publicly-funded medical care, Jack. Despite all the lies, all the hype, all the hysteria being foisted by private-sector health insurers (note - check the Medco connection, folks), the famously beneficent U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and those grand philanthropists of big pharma (I buy what I can from Canada as generics!), we will achieve a public health care alternative for all Americans, if not now, certainly within the next decade. As a captive member of of a state employee/retiree health plan that's administered on a no-bid contract by Blue Boss of N.C. (one of the highest dollar opponents of real health care reform), as the father of a special needs son who has to constantly battle bogus coverage denials by B.C. and never-ending, conveniently miscoded claim handling, as a two-operation cardiac patient who was forced to file bankruptcy rather than pay non-covered hospital bills, and as a grateful patient and parent who listens, frustrated, as wonderful, caring providers recount their nightmare experiences dealing with Blue Cross, I wish this for private health insurers in the U.S. - MAY THE WHOLE LOT OF EM GO BANKRUPT AND MAY THEIR GENITALIA ROT OFF!! And, in their newly unemployed, uninsured condition may they wait in line for days at a charity health clinic in a futile attempt to save what's left of their shriveling sex organs!! The head honcho of N.C. Blue Cross made $4 Million last year! That I'm forced to monetarily support this bastard's propaganda campaign against true, meaningful health care reform is frustrating and galling beyond expression. This very hostile, hostile-fire Viet vet now signs off! BB:AR15firin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted October 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2009 We make a mint off of Medicare, and we stand to make another mint off of single-payor. Sorry to hear about your situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boarderboy Posted October 28, 2009 Report Share Posted October 28, 2009 We make a mint off of Medicare, and we stand to make another mint off of single-payor.Sorry to hear about your situation. Glad to hear about Medco's good fortune, but I'd be careful about the revenue boasts if I were you. To paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen, "... a mint here... a mint there... pretty soon you're talking about one BIG, fat julep" and health care is one hellaceously monstrous, caustic, expensive cocktail in this country. The specialist practitioners are making a mint, big pharma is making a mint, the insurers are making a mint (many "non-profit" so they're not required to tell us how much). Meanwhile, down in the trenches, the really important GP's make less than dentists and the counsellors/therapists who try to salve and soothe an increasingly stressed and desperate patient pool, make diddly. I'll say this for the Elephants. They've got one thing right. With increasing deductibles and co-pays, lots of us just don't go to the doctor anymore. And self-rationing is such a beautiful, efficient thing. Until the pain you've ignored for months lands you in surgery and the ICU. Or you finally go postal and and cold-cock the boss who's trying to get just one more % of productivity out of your hide. In a world that's "Flatter, Hotter and More Crowded" (apologies to T. Friedman), the U.S. is probably going to be (relatively) less prosperous and ascendant. Whether we respond with fairness and compassion to an enlarging lower/middle class who really need help will say a great deal about the true character and humanity of the richest, most powerful country the world has known. We may yet pass that test, though I have serious doubts. To the young, the prosperous, the immortal, the "winners" it's all so simple and obvious. "Ya reap what ya sow, Bud. So get digging!!" But then again, there may still be hope - http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local_state/v-print/story/161435.html Peace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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