Howard Dean: "This Is Ridiculous. We're 60 Years Behind the Times" on Fixing Health Care

[kpete]

Howard Dean: "This Is Ridiculous. We're 60 Years Behind the Times" on Fixing Health Care

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted July 8, 2009.

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AlterNet caught up with Dean to discuss the book and the larger political landscape in which the debate over health care is taking pace.

Joshua Holland: In your new book, you offer a prescription for fixing our ailing health care system. You lay out the scope of the crisis really well, both in human terms and in terms of the costs -- the financial burdens our system places on households and firms. And like the plan that Obama has laid out, like the Hacker Plan, your prescription revolves around a robust public health insurance option. Can you explain in a nutshell what that is -- what that looks like?

Howard Dean: In a nutshell, it looks like Medicare. We've had a single-payer in this country for 45 years, and the Republicans have used the same language today that they were using in 1965 to denounce it. And it works really well.

It has its faults like every system, but it is cheaper, it is more efficient and a far smaller percentage of dollars that goes into it is spent on non-health-care items. It's about five times as expensive to insure yourself with a private health insurance than it is with Medicare. So that's what the public option looks like. It's what we've had -- and your grandparents, and your parents have had -- for years.

more interview at:
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141129/howard_dean%3A_%22this_is_ridiculous._we%27re_60_years_behind_the_times%22_on_fixing_health_care/

[xchrom]

1. ...

'Howard Dean: In a nutshell, it looks like Medicare. We've had a single-payer in this country for 45 years, and the Republicans have used the same language today that they were using in 1965 to denounce it. And it works really well.
It has its faults like every system, but it is cheaper, it is more efficient and a far smaller percentage of dollars that goes into it is spent on non-health-care items. It's about five times as expensive to insure yourself with a private health insurance than it is with Medicare. So that's what the public option looks like. It's what we've had -- and your grandparents, and your parents have had -- for years.'

[msongs]

2. maybe howard's book can be used to slap some sense into congress lol nt

[xchrom]

4. well since ya KNOW they're not gonna read it --

:rofl:

[drm604]

3. Dr. Dean cuts through the bull.

Read the article. It explains why both a trigger mechanism and co-ops are non-starters that the insurance companies would love to see as a supposed "compromise".

Go here: http://standwithdoctordean.com
and here: http://standwithdoctordean.com/activities/2
for things you can do.

Go here: http://www.billpress.com for a list of Democratic Senators who have not agreed to support a public option. If you're a constituent of any of them, call them ON THE PHONE and tell them to support a true public option, not a trigger mechanism, and not co-ops.

[bertman]

5. Good to know that Dr. Dean has a book out. That's one I'll buy for sure.

The man is The Champion of the Average American. Bless him for all he has done to help raise this country from the muck.

Recommend.