Bulworth: Yo, everybody gonna get sick someday / But nobody knows how they gonna pay / Health care, managed care, HMOs / Ain’t gonna work, no sir, not those / ‘Cause the thing that’s the same in every one of these / Is these motherfuckers there, the insurance companies!
Cheryl and Tanya: Insurance! Insurance!
— Bulworth
There’s no reason to tolerate the outrageous profits these companies turn, there’s no reason to tolerate the outrageous rates they charge, and there’s no reason politicians should have to lie back and think of their bank accounts when dealing with it. There’s no reason any and all of it can’t be changed, and changed starting right now. “That’s the way it is” is not an answer to any question about any of the ways we make health care a business, and “that’s the way it’s always been” is not and never has been either a reason or an excuse.
There’s no reason, at all, for any of the way we do business in health care in this country and I for one am glad that the Democrats we elected and put in power are going to start doing something about it:
Good news: Harry Gets It. To quote: “The insurance industry is the Enemy.” This was part of his response to questions about health care. Although he won’t oppose it, as it’s “something,” he’s not impressed with Arnold’s bill, because he’s worried about the Mass. example, that is, forcing the poor into plans doesn’t really help anything and in fact hurts those who can’t afford ridiculous premiums. If Harry had his way, people in this country would enjoy “the same plan as [he] has.” Mmmm!
Reid believes that the heart of the problem is that insurance companies, “like the only other group to enjoy them, baseball” are overly powerful as a result of exemptions of the anti-trust laws that would otherwise prevent them from colluding to fix prices. I am so ignorant of a lot of things, and I had no idea that the McCaren-Ferguson bill of 1945 was in force. Harry hates it, that much is clear. He asks you to start demanding more discussion about the problems this condition creates in letters to the editor, phone calls to your reps, etc. But as others have noted, this is a declaration of war on the insurance industry. Not to gush, but this is what we’ve been waiting for, peeps.
You know, every time the health care debate starts again people start yammering on about how it’s just too hard to do anything but let poor people die and rich people live. That’s not what they say but it is what they’re saying. Can we for once not have that incredibly obtuse conversation? Just fix it. Spend half as much time fixing it as you spend fapping around telling me why it can’t be fixed. Fix it.
A.