The basic problem with the U.S. healthcare system is as clear as can be: Private insurance companies are corporations motivated exclusively by profits for their shareholders, not by concern for the well being of their “customers”.
And while the basic facts of this broken U.S. system are impossible to hide – 43.6 million citizens are uninsured, those with insurance are routinely denied care, when insurers deign to pay for treatment, they interfere with doctor expertise – mainstream corporate media and insurance company bitches in Congress have done what they can to silence advocates of the most appropriate solution to these problems: A Universal, Single Payer system.
ABC, for example, went as far as to dis-invite Obama’s longtime former doctor David Scheiner from it’s prime-time forum. (You can hear Dr. Scheiner rail against his former patient in this spirited interview.)
Obama’s former doctor may not get to ask him questions anymore, but executives from private insurance companies get to have long private discussions with him. In another instance of CONTINUITY, the Obama White House has refused to release a FOIA request for a list of health industry executives who have been visiting the President to advise him on health reform. As a candidate, Obama promised transparency and said that he would invite C-SPAN cameras in to document the healthcare reform process. Now, he invokes Bush arguments and practices opacity.
Candidate Obama was a proponent of Single Payer, but now Mr. Yes We Can thinks it is politically impossible – despite the fact that polls suggest a majority of U.S. Americans are open to the idea.
Last Tuesday, Obama admitted that Single Payer would be the only way to cover everybody, but healthcare reform is now in the hands of Congress, where they work out the details of a “public option” that is toothless enough to protect private insurers from their overdue demise…
Here is a discussion about healthcare reform on Bill Moyers’ most recent Journal.
And here is the actor Ronald Reagan on the subject:
