Debate: Cenk Vs. JJ of Boston Globe On Public Option

[mntribefan]

One thing I really liked about this discussion was that the partisan element was toned down. They acknowledged that they were coming from different perspectives, but I believe that they all made a good faith effort to deal with facts to make their points.

I WISH there were more discussions about important issues like this and much less sniping and yelling.

[theUSER101]

That banana analogy worked in the other guys favor actually. That really made no sense.

[20nothing]

I'm from Belgium western Europe and we have universal healthcare which is very competitive and scores very good on cost and care relative to other 1st world countries but he does have a point it still is possible to install regulators if you believe in the competition or effectivity of private health insurance

@MrRobertGulabo

I agree with you I think most Americans wanted Obama to go much further and this compromise feels like a bailout to the private health care sector by the forced insured

[MrRobertGulabo]

Now that new law... will force people who don't have insurance to GET insurance with private insurers. It's a total sell-out.

[killerbunny132]

Here's the problem though. The public option has been removed. After the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the health care law) was passed this year, it means that within the next eight years, if you don't have health insurance you will be forced to buy from private insurance or be fined by the government. So.......no public option and no valid points anymore.

[upplsuckimcool16]

Yes and you know what else amounts to the drop in a bucket for the insurance companies.... When someone dies.... OR when someone gets a small bonus for denying a cancer patient treatment for cancer because they had to have had it before they signed on to that particular health insurance company... I could care less about them making all that money... I just want to put another option out there where the top, instead of taking that money put it back into the buyer pockets and health insurance.

[zombieiscool]

Another difference between food and medicare, what if you bought a banana, and the store owner said, nope, you'll not going to receive this banana, even after you paid for it, because you had a pre-existing criminal record, Theft, which means you cannot receive our services.

[zombieiscool]

The difference between food and healthcare. Healthcare is INSURANCE. There is no "Insurance for food"

Also, the reason why healthcare is insured, is because IT'S EXPENSIVE!! You can go buy a banana for 50 cents, if you get into an accident and need to go to the emergency room, you need to have thousands of dollars. THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE.

[colebee99]

Please do part 2!!! That was a great discussion!

[ChameleonDave]

There should indeed be a public option for food.

[teleutube]

Bottom line, treating "Health care" as a for-profit commodity, that can be bought and sold in open market like cattle, sheep, bushel of wheats, corns....fails.

THIS GREEDY BUSINESS model DOES NOT WORK, as clearly demonstrated

Acting as the middle-man...what kind of benefits does he bring to the health care table? Not a thing!

Somehow, Jeff Jacobo failed to understand this vital point.

[Synopsism]

Jeff is a fucking idiot, he can't understand incentives at ALL.

[sidplicity]

Lets use good ole Jeff's arguement about shareholder as as source of control. When the CEO's own 100 of millions or even billions in shares who's vote counts more than the typical guy that may have a couple thousand shares? Is the CEO going to vote against himself/herself, have they recently at anytime.

[devourerofbabies]

This guy he's interviewing is has such a simplistic take on things. His arguments are scarcely more complicated than PRIVATE INDUSTRY GOOD. GOVERNMENT BAD. He seems to be against the public option as a matter of ideology rather than being concerned with what will actually work best.

[DiverseLA]

Exactly. This applies to a lot of conservatives. Shackled by obsolete ideology.

[RelaxingSin]

you are correct sir :-)

[rarehunterz]

i want to kick that guy in the nuts!

[EGC69X]

I wonder what is the percentage of the federal budget that the health care public option is going to be, I don't know but I have a feeling that its a small fraction of what we spend on defense and military, why not cut the defense budjet to cover health care, who needs all these thousands of nuclear weapons, can you imagine just what the maintenance cost of that is?

[RelaxingSin]

seriously

y 1,000 nuculear weopons

it only takes 10 to destroy the world.

[Irbubble]

Please do explain what you mean by destroying the world, and add sources and/or calculations.

By my estimates ten nuclear bombs, if ten times more powerful than the ones hitting hiroshima and nagasaki, would only suffice to destroy one country, and I would guess this would not be enough to cause a nuclear winter. Feel free to prove me wrong though.

[RelaxingSin]

well typo on my part i meant to say 100,but you also do relize our nukes are 100x more powerful then they were in the 1940's

[Irbubble]

I would still like a source or some calculations on that. It still does not sound very likely.

[RelaxingSin]

well first let me clarify i define "destroy" as in no civilization so my bad of cours it takes millions of nukes to destroy the earth itself.

it is common knowledge that atleast 100,and or 200 would mean 28 nukes for each continent.

the point is,is that we don't need a thousand.

and technically with other paranoid countries it would only take one and a chain reaction will happen with countruies launching bombs.

[dfrutled]

Did you see that in many states there is only 1 or 2 healthcare companies that have ALL OF THE BUSINESS?

[DeadKennedysNirvana8]

JJ Health Insurance should not be a business you fucking moron.

Lets look at the facts something you have failed too do.

Every other industrialized nations have Universal Health Care. They are ranked better in life expectancy, health care system rankings, infant mortality is not as high, lower cost yet more effective.

You are talking about the companies failing and going out of business.

WHO GIVES A FUCK YOU DUMB CUNT? I sure as hell do not care.

JJ just keep your mouth fucking shut.

[dEdGrimley]

Profit margins aren't that large? Neither are oil company's, and yet, they still have far more profit being generated than is reasonable. It's not all about margins.

[djzacmaniac]

Did createyourcartoon strike a marketing deal with anonymous?

[needparalegal]

What a fucking JaCKASS. The difference between car insurance and health care is that we NEED health care to live.

[MrSmartBob]

Jeff Jacoby...you suck.

[23albanian]

to claim that human life, the most precious thing on earth, is the same as car insurance is despicable. I guarantee that if he or someone he knew didn't have health insurance, he would be fighting for the public optIon.

these ceo's are literally making billions off the deaths of americans. it is time to make a stand and stop this atrocity

[MrSmartBob]

@23albanian you are right. This guy is a douchbag.

[Webarton]

Jacoby's last point is crap.

"Go back to the bananas, if you keep providing lousy bananas..." This guy is bananas.

The public option is for the PUBLIC. The masses, who cannot afford private health insurance. If this option makes the people "lousy bananas" these people DIE, literally. They have no choice.

Realize your delusions.

[bangurdead102]

Secret lobbyist...yep

[Shisho2k]

Jeff Jacoby... no credentials.

Public scrutiny will solve it. Hahahaha. What? Apparently he's not aware of people who are shameless.

Health isn't something we should be "profiting" from.

[dangerouslytalented]

Profit should be directionally proportional to the amount of good you are doing.

The current system does not provide for this. In many ways the opposite is true. This factor must be reduced or eliminated as much as possible.

[politicalfarce]

40,000 die every year from lack of healthcare. That's THIRTEEN TIMES as many as died on 9-11. And it's every year.

i don't want to hear a SINGLE WORD about profits.

They are making billions while thousands are dying.

Fix it. Period.

[dangerouslytalented]

Plus the fact that 60% of all US bankrupcies are due to healthcare costs.

Even GM got into serious problems with healthcare costs.

[aaronsande]

Life insurance? This is this idiot's answer? Does Life insurance provide continuing services/benefits, or is it just a one time thing? Thanks. Can't use it to compare.

[Mxyzptlk562]

And of course it is necessary to ask how is the current system so great when insurance companies automatically exclude many potential customers because they have a pre-existing condition?

[aaronsande]

"That puts ****US**** way below" other profit margins...did anyone else catch the use of the word "us"? LOL

And regarding his opening point, who cares? This is about more than ridiculous profits.

[Mxyzptlk562]

There is some questions that people who are for the status quo don't real seem to be asking themselves: If the current for-profit system is so great, then why is it that there are at least 40-50 million Americans who are left out of the system? Why is that other 1st World countries' health care systems work for a significantly much higher percentage of their population as compared to the US? Why are people so many Americans unhappy with the current system?

[clownpenisfart]

These problems don't occur in the other insurance fields?

Really? That is this guy's premise?

Has he seen what has gone on in the Gulf Coast after Katrina, or New York City after 9/11? Or how many times have people been refused their claims because of 'acts of God' or because of some technicality in their coverage?

Moreover, that is assuming that providing general health care is not a moral issue, but a strictly economic issue - a point which I would not concede.

[Melpheos1er]

What JJ does not seems to understand or refuses to see is that it is not only the profit, it's also the salaries of the CEOs and stock options...

Alone they probably costs billions...

[personalperspective]

Cenk, Kudos to tyt for consistently providing interviews that give equal air to both sides, (i think you even gave more airtime for the opposing side here). The difference is night and day between this cordial intellectual discussion and a drown out shout down ala Fox/O'Reilly.

[Jazzynupe]

Wow this guy is a bit off... He is forgetting about state regulations. So to allow cross state purchases, you have to have a SINGLE national standard that all regulations work with. So do they want that or perserve the state's rights to set requirements. Again they can't always have it all ways.

[Drey4ltur]

rofl... what a dickbag.

the turks shoulda played more hardball, as they started to near the end.

they were too soft on him xD

[manuelschindler]

the cohost of cenk is making great points and his thinking is sharp, but he needs to deliver his point more clearly and shorter so that one can follow his train of thought.

[Starrz88]

booyah.

Cenk hit it home.

[franzpolak]

good debate.

unfortunately, jacobi still seems to be clinged onto the myth that the public option is some sort of relatively unneccessary add-on to the priave sector.

this is, of course, not true. mister jacobi should remember that the democrats initially ran on a single payer system reform, which was considered neccessary then.

i wonder if mister jacobi would have a change of heart if he heard about all the gruesome things insurance companies do to patients with "preexisting conditions".

[blingbling65943]

Jacoby is clinging to the irrational myth that government can't do anything right, and free enterprise can't do anything wrong.

Neither premise is rational.

We can endlessly debate why health care insurance should be private, why it should be public, but the simplest question to ask is

"has there ever been a successful Free market Health care system anywhere in the world"?

(the answers no)

[franzpolak]

the priorities of the free market and social structure are completely different - it seems jacobi thinks the objective of health insurance is making profit, and fails to recognize the fact that health is not something one can put a price tag on. private companies have a legal obligation to make profits, and that is the sole reason why they are fundamentally incapable of running a successful healthcare insurance system (but that's just my opinion).

[upplsuckimcool16]

The fact is that food is provided everywhere. If you can't afford food you can go to a shelter and get free food or food banks etc etc. You can even steel it if you really really have to, but if you are dying of pancriatic cancer and can't afford health insurance YOU WON'T GET IT, NOR CAN YOU IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM!!!

[fielsjd]

What a dumbass.

[DrQuijano]

This JJ guy seems to have the mentality of ta 10 year old. "Don't do public option do MY healthcare reform! MINE MINE MINE MINE!!!! BWAAAHHH!!!!"

[FaithNoMore1977]

Jeff looks like a shmuck.

[BobfromSydney]

This guy is a huge dick.

Firstly he tries keeps stating that health insurance is equivalent to other forms of insurance or business.

e.g. Life insurance - the payout for life insurance is a fixed amount and it is easy to determine that someone is dead. Health insurance has an incredible number of payout conditions.

As for bananas there are substitute goods, there is no monopoly on the 'food' market because the food market is too big and too open. Not the case with American health insurance.

[ridewave444]

Well said by dayati and cakeape. Amen.

[blackacadian]

Private health care providers had decades to get their house in order. They all know that most sick and vulnerable americans are not well informed consumers who are able to "shop around' for the best coverage, because all the pertinent information is not readily available. The private corporations hold all the cards and on top that they are not subject to anti-trust laws. Now, it's way too late to believe that they will change their ways without a public option for them to compete against.

[dayati]

Dear Jeff Jacoby, FUCK YOU!

How dare he have the audacity to defend the profit margins of insurance corporations. They still make billions and millions of people are uninsured. People are dying. Fuck you Mr. Jacoby. Go suck some CEO dick.

[upplsuckimcool16]

It actually sound like this guy isn't a total douche. I could be wrong but it seems like this guy really thinks that the public option would be unfair competition and force every1 to get the public option, but wouldn't that be the incentive insurance companies need to give better and cheaper care. Maybe he thinks it will be so unfair that the HC Co.,' will go out of business in which case I say AND??? LET EM!!! As long as there anren't ppl dying I could live with a few less insurance companies.

[logoth80]

i dont think having companies go bankrupt would be good idea, it wold leave lots of ppl that invested their money broke, so thats not that easy.

i would even agree that public option is a easy way out of making true reform of corporate america.

IF corporations had better regulations, antimonopoly laws, concesion systems, checks, etc, introduced years ago, then this reform wouldnt be needed. now its just too late, they crossed all lines.

[dayati]

Couldn't agree more. Corporations need to be regulated because they have no conscience. If corruption doesn't allow for proper regulation, then other methods are needed. There are certain things, like healthcare, that I believe governments can run better because profit would not be the main priority.

[dayati]

Exactly. Although he doesn't sound like a douche when he speaks, he is still a douche. Life > money.

[cakeape]

I don't think Cenk got the banana argument/metaphor right. What we have now is the option between expensive organic bananas or regular bananas. People who have been paying for bananas in the past while are suddenly cut off by the supplier if something goes wrong, and find themselves not being able to pay for them anymore, and so the customer is without bananas... with the public option there would be a shelter where they can pick up bananas at a guaranteed and fair price. That's the argument.

[LSGanon]

Wow, this tyt interview was really entertaining.

[darkwitchtori]

What a MORON!

[burntonion05]

He mentions that we should look at other insurance industries to figure out why they are successful, but I say why don't we take it step further and look what other countries are doing and why their health care is successful. Good show and you should have that guy on again.

[BionicDance]

This guy sounds like the very epitome of that old saying about how Americans will always do the right thing...after they've tried everything else first.

[NiceVideos11]

New Entitlement???????.... Jacoby... FUCK YOU prick.

[wonworld]

i like how his argument was basically, bananas are like health insurance

u lose

[cockroach2]

Hey Jeff! Ever heard of food stamps?

[HayteStreet]

people aren't fucking cars.

[CARLOSMENCIAS]

why hasnt cenk talk about obama been in the house of representative to help pass the bill. i know he doesnt like obama but he has to report that news like everything else. and i would have love to hear comment of snl skit of glenn beck that was pretty funny

[lilsorms202]

Over 60% of US healthcare markets are not competitive.

The US already provides a public option for flood insurance.

The US wrote the iraqi constitution to include a single payer healthcare system.

The US has public universities and private universities, private one's exist while their public counterparts are receiving subsidies from the government.

~50,000,000 Americans currently have no healthcare

Every 7 seconds there is a bankruptcy in the US, over half are from medical bills

[TheGiantRobot]

OK, this guy Jeff actually made an excellent point in his ideal market that we don't have - if you treat people the way the insurance companies do, they should go out of business.

So, why haven't they? Because we have made it law that employers have to buy it. If we said they had to give employees money for discretionary health care, these insurance companies would be forced to compete. I know I'd put my money in the bank and pay for my own health care off the interest and keep the rest.

[DIRTYDUNNZ]

JJ made good points and terrible points. Comparing the health industry to the food or car industry was ridiculous. Worse come to worst, people can grow their own food or find another method of transportation; however, I think we can all agree that a heart transplant is quite unique in comparison.

[cockroach2]

Agreed. An unusually intelligent conservative. he made me seriously question myself. Overall though he's wrong. Medicare is a hugely successful program. Even the Republicans like it. Theres clips of it on TYT My favorite is when Sen. Hatch was challenged to remove it when he said that he didn't think government could do anything right. He started backpedalling at supersonic speeds.

[nilbud]

Poor Jeffy doesn't understand accounts, which is a pity because he's after stating an opinion on the accounts of the Healthcare companies. Maybe he should go on some kind of forensic accounting course or perhaps keep his utterly worthless and incorrect opinions to himself.