Conservatives For Patients’ Rights?
By ThePresidentialCandidates.US on May 31, 2009 in Barack Obama
You may have seen some ads / infomercials from a group calling themselves “Conservatives For Patients’ Rights.” It’s very important to be aware of who this group is and what their real purpose is.
Consider these points:
1. This is a group which is being bank rolled by the same people who brought us the distortions which were the “Swift Boat” ads against John Kerry in 2004.
2. Rick Scott (the clown you see hosting these commercials) was forced to resign as CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare because of fraud charges.
3. These commercials argue against something that President Obama is not proposing. The health care reform proposals being considered do not include a single payer health care plan like the one being attacked (through the use of distorted information) in these ads. This is what is known as a “straw man argument.”
4. These commercials pick out a few unfortunate cases in other country’s health care systems but the same could be done with our own current system far more easily. Over the past two years 86.7 million Americans went uninsured at some point. Read that line again. 86.7 million! 86.7 million vs. a few distorted half truths in these sickening infomercials for the insurance companies!
And perhaps most concerning for you (if you have what you think is good health insurance) is that many people who think they are fully covered end up not getting their health care costs covered when they actually get sick. Why? Because the insurance companies will do anything they can to avoid actually paying out what they are supposed to.
5. The health insurance companies make billions of dollars in profits each year. These profits are what “conservative” groups like this one are designed to protect, they are not about protecting your rights as a patient.
6. The current failure of a health care system (which this group seeks to protect) is directly linked to our failing economy. Furthermore health care reform could be a very effective stimulus for the economy. Not only would people get better health care, but it would help people to get new jobs as well.
7. Obama wants a plan which allows people to keep their current health care insurance if they want to. What he wants is more choice, not less. On the other hand, “Conservatives For Patients’ Rights” actually want us to have less choice by not allowing a public health care option. Why don’t they want this public option? It has nothing to do with patients’ rights and everything to do with “corporate rights.”
Safe to say that their real name should be: “Conservatives For Insurance Companies’ Profits.”
For more info on this group:
1. Think Progress on Conservatives For Patients’ Rights.
Watch Michael Moore’s Sicko
Stop Linking To Their Official Site
I’ve noticed that many are linking to their official site and I think that’s giving them more respect than they deserve. This group is doing their best to keep millions of Americans uninsured just so the health insurance companies can keep making billions of dollars in profits. They are beneath contempt. We should not be linking to their website, instead link to websites which expose them for who they really are.
Your article is nothing but dishonest tap-dancing and propaganda. There will be no free lunch for you, but only for me!
Not everyone needs insurance. To force insurance onto the ones who don’t need it means making them pay for the ones who take advantage of the system of free care. Why are we supporting the free-loading illegal aliens and the drug-users? This is because some are filled with the compassion and passion to get into somebody else’s billfold.
The hog-wash that government can deliver health care more efficiently is just hog wash. For government efficiency means the opposite what it implies. Just look at Medicaid and Medicare.
By the way, why quote the number of uninsured over the time of two years? It would have been way more impressive to use 5 years because that number would tell us that 110 % of the population (380 million) are uninsured.
I have experienced the European, government run health-care and the staggering fraud and inefficiencies that go with it. UK and Canadian examples indeed are only “a few unfortunate cases” because there are thousands more! Last one was the H1N1 swine flue fatality that was the direct result by the hospital’s refusal to admit and treat the patient.
Think of the new health-care-automation you are insisting to run down our throats: Endless lines of patients sitting on long benches waiting to be efficiently processed by a doctor at a rate of 210 patients per 8 hour shift!
By the way, I forgot to mention, I am an illegal, and un-insured because I don’t want nor do I need insurance. For me it’s free already. No sense paying for it because as you state, the new healthcare will be free to everyone.
However, I can promise you: whatever government touches turns into excrement! Excrements have a very repugnant odor. Do not let government touch my free health-care!
Werner Strasser | Jun 8, 2009 | Reply
Like many Americans I am wondering: If publicly provided health insurance is such a bad thing…why do most legislators have a public plan
We taxpayers pays a significant portion of each legislators insurance approximately…. 75 percent of the premiums. The legislator pays approximately 25%. How does that compare to most employer contributions?
Under 2009 Fee For Service health plans a congressman and his family , regardless of age and health condition can get a standard family plan from Blue Cross and Blue Shield for $1120 a month in premiums. Of that, the taxpayer picks up $763 of the cost, leaving the Congressman to pay $356 out of pocket
So what do other Americans have to pay??
My wife and I are in our 60′s.
We are self employed and pay ALL our own health insurance premiums. No employer contributions. No pretaxed benefits
Being 60 our health is not perfect. My wife has a pacemaker, takes medications for osteoporosis and high cholesterol.
So here’s the only insurance plan that people like us can afford with Blue Shield
Premiums=$900 per month
Deductible=$8000 per year
Essentially our health insurance doesn’t provide anything but protection. We pay for everything out of pocket
The problem with most legislators is they have very little idea of how tough it is out in the real world to get affordable insurance coverage. They live in ivory towers where they get a paycheck every month…no matter how bad the economy…and where their benefits are subsidized by the same US taxpayers that are struggling to make ends meet.
The federal plan is one of the best health plans out there. According to the US office of Personnel Management, ” Federal employees, retirees and their survivors enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country.” With millions of federal employees, they can bargain with insurance companies for the best rates. Preexisiting conditions are no problem for legislators. And with taxpayers picking up the majority of their premiums, the cost of health care becomes a minor issue.
Compare that to the millions of self employed Americans out there who struggle to pay exorbitant premiums while getting little heath care in return…and you can see why so many Americans are mad as hell…especially since some legislators are doing everything they can to oppose any real health care reform and to keep things the way they are.
Add to that an economy that has turned most self employed people into the unrecognized “unemployed”
As long as legislators get guaranteed taxpayer subsidized health care, they aren’t likely to comprehend what is really going on out there in the real world.
No wonder many legislators think that health care in America is just fine. If I had a cushy “publicly funded” health care plan like members of Congress I probably wouldn’t be concerned either
Wasn’t it Marie Antoinette who said of the masses of starving Parisians “If they have no food, let them eat cake”
Norris Hall | Jul 7, 2009 | Reply
Werner – Stop it with the ridiculous scare tactics about “socialized health care.” It’s all BS spread by the health insurance companies and the politicians they have bought and paid for (just about all of the Republicans and too many Democrats) to make people afraid of the necessary changes our health care system needs.
I find it quite amusing that you used the word “propaganda” to describe my article when it’s you that is actually doing that by trying to scare people about what our system could be. The truth is you could make much scarier arguments about what our system is now. It’s crazy that folks like you keep trying to scare us about what our system could be like when it’s already TERRIBLE. We have the worst health care system in the western world.
admin | Jul 7, 2009 | Reply
As a doctor myself, I wanted to put in my two cents about CPR. I find it funny how they neglect to mention that health insurance is already heavily rationed…by third party payors. These organizations manage multiple plans from multiple health insurance companies, and will severely reduce or deny coverages they are responsible for in the interests of only one thing: More money for them. These days the people who make any money in health care are paper-pusher companies. No offense, but any schmuck can push papers, and these folks are raking it in. In my opinion, the elimination of these groups in favor of a non-profit format would a) Save tremendous amounts of money and b) Greatly reduce ridiculous (downright criminal) profit-driven rationing in health care.
Just my thoughts.
Chris Belluzzo | Jul 9, 2009 | Reply
Thank God I live in Canada where the health care is government run. In the last 2 years, I have had a corroded artery operation with a total hospital stay of 10 days, seen at least 6 specialists for heart,and other tests. Now I am diabetic. I have had MRI’s, tests for every organ, see a nutritionist etc. Prior to this I had not been to a hospital in 20 years.Guess what? All this cost me not one penny and there was no waiting for my operation. And I do not contribute anything towards health care. Amazing isn’t it. And I earn a 6 figure income. And you people are fighting that you want to continue to pay?
Liana haughton | Aug 27, 2009 | Reply