What will it take to make you BELIEVE in the health insurance industry?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

Will your mind be changed when it's argued that it's so much worse in other countries that have government subsidized medical care?

Just today I learned on the DU that other countries with universal health care aren't perfect. That it's a long wait for certain procedures, that it creates bad nurses, that imaging equipment is apparently prohibitively expensive and that foreign doctors are fleeing here to the US to escape the horrors of government funded medicine.

Well, I guess I didn't actually "learn" it, what can I say?

Or will there be a recognition that health care is a critical discussion and that the insurance industries will do, say, slander, attack, etc, anyone who dares to suggest that their profiting from the illnesses, pain and suffering (whether treated or not) of the American people is anything but reprehensible.

Starting today I'm seeing the sentiment expressed here, right on the DU, that looking to remove the insurance companies from health care could be worrisome, scary, even NOT GOOD.

Just because it's Sunday, I ask again, do you BELIEVE that the insurance companies are the best to provide health care?????!!!

Or can I get an Aetna sucks, AMEN!

:headbang:

on edit, spelling, as usual

[ixion]

1. I don't believe in ANY industry...

none are to be trusted, IMO.

[Radical Activist]

2. I guess it takes Hillary for a lot of people.

Universal single payer is the way to go. I don't like the implication that mandatory health insurance is somehow going to provide everyone with good healthcare. It won't.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

3. If the insurers' have their way, it won't even be discussed.

Oh, and big Pharma, everyone's favorite.

[Mojambo]

4. Profit has no place in healthcare or in warfare.

Unfortunately in this country it has a BIG part in both.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

10. True that.

[AlienGirl]

5. For the medical insurers to give up the profit motive entirely, all go nonprofit

Open their books and open their decisions to citizen's review panels or other public oversight; provide insurance that is not based on employment status (so people who are too ill to work may still be insured); and fire all the current top echelons of executives who have been making decisions that benefit stockholders rather than patients. Maybe then I'll trust them.

Tucker

[JDPriestly]

15. Most, if not all, were prior to 1980.

This is another aspect of privatization that was part of the Reagan plan to destroy our society.

Obama is all excited about this Reagan stuff and all the changes. That is why I do not want to vote for him.

[leftofthedial]

6. the insurance industry engages in wholesale theft and murder

as its standard business modus operandi

other than them voluntarily going out of business and paying restitution to their victims and their senior and nid-level managers all committing honorable suicide, I will never trust them AT ALL.

[fenriswolf]

7. the health insurance industry is a for profit fraud

and no amount of legislation can fix it. single payer is the only fix.

[TheDoorbellRang]

8. Aetna sucks. AMEN!

I believe that sums it up succinctly. :D

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

9. Thanks!

They are among many that are wretched, their name sounded good with Amen. :-)

[U4ikLefty]

12. I'll take that & add a Kaiser sucks!!!

Can you feeeeeeel the testimony?!?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

14. I'll see you and raise you a Humana, United Health Care and Cigna!

on edit,

I feeeel it, I feeeeel it!

[Hekate]

11. I believe in rattlesnakes & scorpions when I see them, why not the health insurance industry?

Blue Cross sucks money out of my bank account, amen.

Bottom line capitalism is the wrong paradigm for health care. The business model is the wrong paradigm for education. An MBA shouldn't be running the US government, either.

The business model is fine for business, with regulations imposed by for-the-common-good government.

Hekate

[JDPriestly]

13. I lived in four countries with national health insurance

single-payer plans, and loved every minute of it. The medical care here is just as good, i.e., the doctors are just as good, the technology is pretty much the same, but, but, but, but you get the care you need not the care you can pay for in countries with single payer plans. We do not need insurance companies. They are just an unnecessary impediment to getting the care you need.

In the four countries in which I lived (had babies and raise small children on a low teacher's salary or worse) with no exception, i could simply walk into the office of the doctor of my choice and get the care and specialist referrals that I needed. I loved it and miss that kind of care.

I invite anyone who thinks we need insurance companies to go to France and talk to the French about their coverage.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

18. Yet,

the attack of the insurance industry/AMA bloggers...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4368636

[warren pease]

16. A lobotomy.

[RainDog]

17. France has been rated as having THE BEST HEALTHCARE in the WORLD

repeatedly over the last few years that I've been keeping track. And Canada, with it's health care system and other things is consistently ranked at the top the quality of life index while the U.S. has a higher infant mortality rate than some second world countries.

I have family members who have lived in a western european country all their lives and have received excellent care and btw, one of my ex-s-i-l's father was a high-ranking person at Smith-Klein. The attitude there, among the very wealthy (because that family was very comfortable... in addition to their own home(s), they gave each of their children a NICE house for a wedding gift...) anyway, people at his level of wealth thought it was DISGUSTING that the U.S. did not have universal health care (and other things to make a society more just and democratic) because to do otherwise was barbarian. A guy in a pharmaceutical co.

So, I guess I just don't understand the issue. They had good doctors, they're healthy and happy and I really do not understand why any American thinks it's decent to deprive other Americans of basic health care - because when people cannot afford health care they don't go to the doctor. Which means children don't go to the doctor sometimes too.

I know people who live in three different western european nations and none of them has ever had a complaint about their medical systems and access to doctors and medication. Where do all the scare stories come from?

[varelse]

19. Oh, I believe in the health insurance industry

I believe in insurance companies' dedication to their bottom line, and I think actually paying claims for necessary health care tends to conflict with the goal of inflating their profits as much as possible.

What I don't believe, is all the lies their corporate executives are paying to spread far and wide to US voters about single payer health care systems around the world.

[cushla_machree]

20. If the other insurance models suck so bad

Why aren't all those countries jumping ship and creating a system like ours? If we have 'the best health care in the world' one would think everyone else would want to emulate us. Perhaps with all their problems, it still doesn't even come close to how fucked WE are.

I just don't buy the crap that Canadians are unhappy or the care is terrible in the UK. Says who??