More government will not reform health care

[genYprogressive]

Why isn't this slimy crook in jail.

He need to share a cell with Tom Delay.

[AtlasShruggery]

Voldemort discusses health care.

[langov3]

I live in the U.K and i can tell you this is bullshit. EVERYTHING is fucking free. The only thing they deny you access to is experimental drug, and thats decided by your doctor, not some insurance companies accountant!

[dayglowgreendoor]

Why can't we have this weasel waterboarded. He has to know about a whole lot of criminality and thievery perpetrated by him and the other corrupt and criminal weasels of the health insurance industry. Let's waterboard this weasel and find out just how much he knows!!! Torture this weasel today!!! Make him tell us what he knows!!!!

[jeanJenner]

Why is this guy not in jail for fraud?

[classicallady]

Fuck you Mr. Creepy Scott.You are a MURDER

[MasterMark123]

This guy is a bloody crook and an outright liar. He wants your money so much he's willing to sell his soul. He was found to be a fraud by the US Government and paid the highest fine ever paid in restitution ..He somehow escaped serving any prison ( paid them off as money always speaks ). He makes hundreds of millions of dollars by lying.. he's gotten pretty damn good at it by now.

[getplaning]

Who believes Rick Scott?

Anyone?

[rakrobn]

We need more people like Rick Scott - who committed fraud by bilking Medicare and Medicaid drugs.

[stephfitness]

this group CPR is just putting more people in who will require CPR!..... the INSURANCE COMPANY is making the choices for my dad, not the doctor. the doctor told him to quit his job and get on Medicaid. So he can get treatment.. Who can afford 400 to 600 a month with a 10,000 deductible for insurance. Who can defend this system. You know they say you have to stand in line in canada, but at least you get a line to stand in to see a doc. there are millions of Americans you cant get a line!

[stephfitness]

I dont need any information im one of these people. My dad is getting denied Care from his insurance company. He had cancer before and it came back and now they are refusing to treat him. So he has to pay for it.. Some choice. Now he will go broke trying to save his life. If he was in Canada he would get treatment. Thats your choice, Pay up or die. Atleast we can vote out gov officials, i cant vote out a ceo, and as they merge they are just getting bigger. Big gov no. Big insurance! be scared.

[davidg1234]

If your Dad was in the UK (or Canada) they would tell him that he could only have his screening checks if he was above a certain age, regardless of family history. And when they decide to bestow the honour of screening him, if they do diagnose him then he will spend many months in the queue and probably wouldn't be cured anyway.

Your story is very sad but I have had family die of Cancer in the UK and it isn't a basis to destroy an entire system.

[XFuncCaRteR]

That's the UK, NOT Canada. UK is not single-payer. It's a top-to-bottom government system. Doctors are government employees not self-employed as they are in Canada.

[mattfd69]

I really don't know what else to say:( This guy is an idiot.

[garthggarth]

He's not a idiot, I'm afraid. He's an outright liar and a thief!!! He counts on people's ignorance and preys on thier fears!!! Don't be afraid to embrace new ideas, America. If Big Business is so damn efficient, why can't they compete against an 'inefficient' system where the government writes the checks instead of a guy who gets bonuses if he denies coverage? The Gov wouldn't have tried to drop me when i got cancer. If it weren't for my brother's lawyer, i would be so toast. I'm 37.

[blogegog]

I think you misunderstood obama. He WANTS government run health care, mr. whoever is speaking in this video.

What gave you the idea that he didn't want it?

[davidg1234]

Socialized medicine is designed to crowd out the private sector. Obama says that people will be able to keep their private insurer if they want, but what he doesn't say is that they will then have to pay twice.

Sometimes I use private healthcare in England but I still get the socialized medicine payments stolen from my pay cheque each month.

[hauskalainen]

Davidg1234 - I don't think you are who you say you are. People in England never use the term "socialized medicine". Its an American buzzword.

[davidg1234]

In case you hadn't noticed, this is an American video for American people.

In England we call our healthcare "NHS" - "National(ized) Health Service". We have had socialized medicine for so long that in peoples minds it is a foregone conclusion referred to by a simple acronym.

In England we don't even have a debate about whether socialized medicine is good or bad because it is so ingrained that it is like a religion.

[jkerouac02]

England doesn't have a particularly good system, but trust me, as an American, our system is terrible in many respects. Your country could improve in areas- Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and others have instituted some reforms to privatize certain aspects of the system. But you definitely don't want to switch to an all-public system. Everything is expensive as hell, and the insurance co's are far more inhumane than any gov't bureaucrat.

pbs . org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sicka­roundamerica/

[hauskalainen]

Davidg1234. You can use private health care in England if you want to. Everyone has access to it. Few people do. Everyone relies on their NHS GPs (which in practice are private doctors choosing to contract with the NHS) . There are very few private GPs even though its perfectly legal to operate a private practice. Both GPs and the public like that their healthcare is "socialized". Its as clear as it could be. Brits are clever and not stupid as you seem to imply.

[davidg1234]

They don't "rely" on the NHS, they "depend" on it, because the money is automatically deducted from their pay cheque each month and they have no say in the matter or on how it gets spent so they can't afford to go private.

Whether you pay £1million in taxes or 1p, you join the back of the queue.

What I do know is that Americans aren't stupid and can see through this. They can look at our NHS as a model of what healthcare shouldn't be. Politicians shouldn't decide who lives or who dies.

[rakrobn]

You don't know what socialized medicine is. Offering a public plan to compete with others is NOT socialized medicine.

[davidg1234]

It's not a competition if you are up against the Government and they can decide the rules and tax as much as they want to put you out of business.

[XFuncCaRteR]

Why is it in the government's interest to put business out of business?

[hauskalainen]

The Board which he refers to is actually run by the medical profession (tho the government pays for it). It advises the profession of best practice. And its about rationality in medicine and not rationing.

NICE looks at what works, and in what circumstances. And it will of course sometimes say things don't work. And righly so. I don't want my taxes spent unwisely, just fairly and rationally.

[davidg1234]

What you are neglecting to point out is that in England, the government has already taken a lifetime worth of taxes from people. Money they could have used for their own private provisions.

So when NICE turns around and tells someone that they can't have a cancer drug because it is too expensive for the system, that's a slap in the face to the people who have been forced to pay in to the system all their life.

Involuntary taxes crowd out the private sector because people's money is taken away.

[hauskalainen]

Tell me Dave. You are asking me to imagine that there was no taxes or insurance. If you could live another 3 months by taking a drug but the cost of that meant selling the house and putting its value towards your drugs cost (and your wife and kids on the street) would you do it? There ARE limits to what extending a life is worth. Whether you pay it, the govt pays it, or the people in the insurance pool pays it.

[davidg1234]

The price of someone's life is not for you to decide and it is not for the Government to decide. You have no right to deny people access to medications in the name of equality. That is what the NHS and NICE do.

Furthermore, if the NHS refuses to pay for a medication, they do not allow you to bear the cost yourself. If you attempt to pay privately to top up then they kick you out and all the taxes you paid over the years aren't worth a thing.

[hauskalainen]

You cannot get "kicked out". If you choose to pay for a course of treatment outside the NHS then you are outside only for that course of treatment and its consequences. So if you pay for a private operation and it is ballsed up, the NHS may have to fix it, but then you have to pay the NHS for the corrective surgery. You can't be OUT when it suits you and IN if it all goes wrong.

Society got NICE to answer the tricky conundrum you refused to answer. Its a tough but necessary question.

[hauskalainen]

@davidg1234 You are wrong. NHS and NICE do not "deny people access" as you put it.

All they do is (very occasionally) deny paying for very expensive medicines with very little efficacy from public funds. You can buy them yourself if you want to pay for them. That is NOT denial.

[davidg1234]

You cannot buy private medications in the NHS. If you attempt to improve your treatment by getting outside help then the NHS refuse to treat you period and you have to pay the entire cost of your treatment episode.

[hauskalainen]

@davidg1234Most people think that getting a free family doctor, free preventative medicine (jabs of all kinds) and free family planning (condoms, pills, coils or caps or sterilization or whatever you choose) free presciption medicines (for under 18s and over 60s- and subsidized for everyone else), free hearing aids, hospital treatments or whatever, is all well worth the small amount we pay in tax.

[davidg1234]

Apart from the ones who die waiting in the queue to receive sub-standard treatment even though they paid taxes all their life.

[jkerouac02]

18,000 people die every year because they lack health insurance

We're the only rich nation that denies healthcare for everyone.

Republicans and Democrats must demand real reform. PUBLIC OPTION NOW!

[kaziqbal]

That is a distortion and its nothing compared to the number of people who die in places around the world with government run public healthcare

[jkerouac02]

It's really not. If you want to prove me wrong, do it. Find some statistics and credible sources to support your claim that more people die in other healthcare systems. Those systems are better. If they were so bad, people would switch back to a private system...but not one ever has.

The 18,000 dying every year (that's six 9/11s yearly, or sixty 9/11s every decade). That's a conservative estimate by the Institute of Medicine & others. Newer studies say 20,000 yearly, and others far more.

[jkerouac02]

Here are credible sources indicating how many die in the US because they lack insurance:

usatoday . com/news/health/healthcare/200­2-05-22-insurance-deaths . htm

iom . edu/?id=19175

christyhardinsmith . firedoglake . com/2009/04/02/20000-americans­-die-each-year-due-to-lack-of-­healthcare/

Great Frontline special on the healthcare system:

pbs . org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sicka­roundamerica/

Just keep an open mind. 50% of conservatives support a public option for a reason.