Rep. John Conyers on single-payer healthcare 5/09

[FRSFreeStateES]

Single Payer for Health Care or retirement will never happen in America because its never had the votes or support. You'll never be able to convince americans that they're better off being forced on to a government Health Care program. Instead of them choosing for themselves where they get they're Health Insurance.

[dgate007]

Fuck this nigger. Kill him now!

[dgate007]

Please, please, please. Somebody kill this goddamn nigger now. Jesus fucking Christ! Put an end to this nigger asshole from the goddamn buttocks of the world, fuckin Detroit asshole nigger city Michigan. Jesus, just drop a bomb on the whole fuckin state. Goddamn union asshole mother fuckers

[aicram62]

No that was the Patriot Act.

[Mindsi2]

You are an idiot. A public option offers people the hope of expanded freedom. The kind of freedom that comes from not having to be tied to a job that's keeping you down just because you need the health insurance. The kind of freedom where you could start your own busniess and not have to worry about what happens if you ir a family member gets sick. My health insurer is giving us a 25% rate increase this year. So go ahead and keep spouting the party line. Sheep like you don't deserve freedom.

[Sheeple102]

it is what, by letting the same ones that brought you the money crises (now doing to the world what they did in the states) now want to control your total privacy. all your medical information and private information is now in the hands of the feds. some say they have anyway but why make it easier for them.

[byebushsupobama]

If we are the wealthiest country on the planet....healthcare is right .

[klim8hokes]

"....healthcare is right ."

A right? Really? If you have the "right", who has the responsibility? How do you, by your very existence have the right to create a debt for me? I'm a doctor. Are you telling me you have a "right" to MY labor? Are you going to 'force' me to treat you to satisfy your 'rights'? I'll quit. I'll withhold the product which I produce. Your rights end when they infringe on mine.

[AntipodalReasoning]

AMEN, Doctor.

[peteykkk]

To find out all about conyers, Juan Williams and marc Lamont Hill, Go to: Her Name is Ms Ann, on YOUTUBE. It will explain everything! A MUST READ!

[CrowdPleeza]

I have no big problems with folks who view health care as a right. Just make sure you implement a health care approach that avoids long waiting list,deficit problems,doesn't cause people to over consume services and can be sustained over a long term regardless of demographic changes.

[nohealthcare62]

Hey President Obama Wake UP ! You Promised all of us who voted for YOU Health Care and No More Lobbiest ! Are You SICK Mr.President or just Lyin ? Hr676 NOW ! I am a Health Care Voter !

[SAMRAM29]

Yes our President is backing off his endorsement of Single Payer.  Pressure should be applied to him and rest of Congress.

[hms08KY]

Raised in Canada, I know single payer works. A parent taking a sick child to the doctor does not undergo a humiliating interrogation about ability to pay. College students and grads aren't burdened with health premiums on top of college loans. Entrpreneurs can start a new buiness without losing family coverage. No one goes bankrupt because they got cancer. No distressing hospital bill adds to the worry about a serious illness. Everybody in. Nobody out!. Call your own DC rep today.!

[AminCad]

Single payer is crap, although it's probably better than the corporate run medicare program in the US. The best system is the free market with no government impediments on health care providers.

[adrienrain]

ACtually amincad - that's how we got to where we are - which is serious crap.

[AminCad]

Where you are right now is not "free market", it's massive government subsidies to huge corporations that spend millions lobbying politicians (e.g. Medicare D).

[adrienrain]

Right wing libertarians, listen up: Because of antibiotics, the world has enjoyed a relatively epidemic-free 50-75 years. Antibiotics are too ubiquitous now, and losing their potency. Soon enough, we will all have cause to remember WHY we once built an advanced public health system - and it will be HELL trying to repair it in time to save the rich from the epidemics that will ravage the poor.

[AminCad]

Not going to happen. The main cost for health care will increasingly be taking care of the elderly. Societies will go bankrupt sponsoring the major corporations and guilds of the medical-industrial complex which have a monopoly over the medical industry by controlling medical spending by government.

[siweltnek]

if no one had insurance, the prices would come down, and we would all be healthier.

[bongobimbo]

In the 90s I worked for 2 health insurors. One was crooked. I quit and hired on with another which was incompetent and went out of business within 18 months. At 73 I need a Medicare supplement. Question: why isn't everyone on Medicare? Answer: the lying health insurors!

That's PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, AMERICAN STYLE. Pipe dreamers can't wake up to the greedy reality of privatization of any enterprise since the days of Reagan. The difference is that shoddy private health insurance KILLS people.

[thomaserossi]

You're a liar. You're not 73. You're just an internet troll.

[bongobimbo]

Thanks for the compliment, Tom. I just look young--svelte and gorgeous--and have a sharp 20 year old mind. Yours seems to have fossilized at age 3.

I don't look at all like a troll, but often when I meet people like you I have an impulse to say "Trip-trap, trip-trap!" You won't understand what that means since it's a literary reference. Or maybe you will. It's from a children's book.

[MMCmedMD]

Good for Conyers! Where are the rest of our representatives--no where to be found on important issues like this. I'm going to send this video to all my friends.

[garyupyours]

I'am afaid the man we elected as president. I voted for him, will sell us out to the drug cos. hmo's and the insurance companys. We are not stupid. we know all are politicians our owned by them. You dont vote for what is right. You vote for what makes your buddys rich. Hang them all or no change will come.

[healthhavencom]

Single Payer Healthcare = The unnecessary Death and Suffering of countless individuals.

How can anyone (with a conscience) support that ???

[ShiatsuPeace]

Healthhaven, the current for-profit insurance industry = the unnecessary deaths and suffering of countless individuals from lack of coverage and denial of needed services. Single payer is straightforward: everybody in, nobody out. That alone is an improvement. How can anyone with a conscience NOT support that?

[healthhavencom]

Single Payer Healthcare WILL lead to...

The Unnecessary Death and Suffering of Countless Individuals.

If that's your goal, continue your fight.

Why do you think the prices for electronics/software decline or stay flat even as the innovative nature of these items continues to improve rapidly?

Answer: The industry is essentially a Free Marketplace and NOT Single Payer.

By the way, these devices also play an increasingly critical role in the medical industry. Lives depend on their quality.

[gvt2u]

healthhavencom, the health insurance industry is hardly a "Free Marketplace," so please stop fooling yourself. The US Justice Department has been asked to probe the insurance industry for collusion and monopolies. Electronics/software prices have declined or stayed flat because they are produced overseas at wages that are not sustainable in the USA, and they are produced and sold worldwide. US Health care is the the most expensive in the world, is draining the economy, and controlled by few.

[healthhavencom]

The real fools are those who equate insurance with Health.

The even bigger fools are those who have no idea of how free markets work to the benefit of all, mostly the poor.

Here's a simple example: How much does it cost you to use services like Yahoo and Google? These relative new-comers deliver great value to millions of people worldwide, most of whom pay very little. That's how free markets work. The same exact thing would happen with Healthcare, if we let it.

[gvt2u]

healthhavencom, your arguments are so unbelievably stupid that you may find that people you discuss the subject with may stare back at you like deer in the headlights because it's just stunning that anyone would equate web communication services with insurance. Watch Bill Moyer's Journal tonight on PBS. He'll be discussing the subject of single payer. You need to watch because you need to listen to some experts and get some education.

[healthhavencom]

gvt2u: Your reading comprehension is abysmal.

Where in this thread does anyone equate insurance with web services, as you suggest?

Answer: Nowhere

Health insurance is NOT health.

Life Insurance is NOT life.

What you need to understand is this:

Innovative and affordable Healthcare requires FREE MARKETS.

We don't have that now.

At some point you need to pull your head out of your ass and start fighting for the only solution that will benefit everyone: FREEDOM of choice in healthcare.

[bashia]

The best hospitals in this country are public hospitals (those that are well funded), VA until the funding was cut and private non-profits. For profit hospitals cut staff to increase profits. I remember in the 80's when we were sold on HM0's. Our state has stated we could cover 5000 more people if we dump the HMO's cause not that many people love to spend their spare time going from doctor to doctor wasting our health care dollars. The idea the government cant run anything is BS.

[thomaserossi]

You're full of BS.

DMV?

Post Office?

Medicare?

Medicaid?

Social Security?

Public Schools?

You're trying to pawn off public hospitals as "good" when you don't even know the costs. Public Hospitals are the worst. The lowest of the low. They don't have "funding cut." What they have is taxpayers who are not going to be forced to pay someone else's bill.

Healthcare isn't a right.  No more than eating is a right. Or driving is a right. Don't pretend to be charitable, it's stealing.

[adrienrain]

Again: when a real epidemic comes - which it will r, because we've overused antibiotics & they'll eventually be outmatched - Americans will remember why we once built a public health system, now in tatters, thanks to the conservatives & neocons' tactic of starving government til it can be drowned in the tub. Also, the welfare system was partly a reaction to the gov's discovery at the outset of WW2, that a very large # of young males were MALNOURISHED and WEAK. A society must cooperate.

[gvt2u]

tomaserossi, I don't want to sound mean, but you are a really sick person. Thank God there are few people in the USA that think like you do. And yes, eating is a right.

[thomaserossi]

You are completely Libtarded. You don't know a damn thing about rights. Healthcare is not a right. What are rights? You don't know. When Libtards use government to create rights out of thin air rather than secure rights which exist in a state of nature you end up with Sharia Law (Youtube Search Malmo Sweden) and Prop 8. Then again, you're too dumb to read the deposition for Prop 8. It was going to be a predictable loss for civil rights, because Libtards like you don't know a damn thing.

[highhorse313]

The crazy bastards trust their government to run their war machine but they don't trust government to administer healthcare? Blatant in-your-face bullshit!

[AminCad]

you're absolutely right. Innovation and advancement only comes with the freedom of people to provide and buy services of their own choice, without coercive wealth redistribution.

[adrienrain]

That's funny - the Cubans are way ahead of us - so much so that their infant mortality rate is lower than ours. Oh! And they are cashing in too - People going there for medical services from all over the world.

[AminCad]

That's why Americans are getting on rafts to escape to Cuba..

Cuba doesn't include prematurely born babies that die towards its infant mortality tally, while the US does. This makes Cuba's infant mortality statistics appear lower than they really are, or contrarily, the US statistics appear higher than they really are.

[thomaserossi]

Bwahahahahahah!

Another Michael Mooron.

[dszecsei1]

This is the first I've heard that Single Payer could be seriously considered. When I looked into this years ago the whole thing made perfect sense. But the power of the insurance lobbies cannot be denied. Can this Obama Administration stand up to them? Let's hope so!!

[IreneH55]

For profit insurance does not cover our needs, and we're way down the list in the quality of health care, with higher birth rate deaths, more money spent, and less results.

[tmgibs34]

Clearly the lack of a national health care policy has been tragic. Presidents since Teddy Roosevelt have wanted to implement a national health care system but every attempt until Medicare was shot down by the medical establishment and the AMA, before there were health insurance companies. Our education system costs too much so we don't have the doctors we need. Doctors decide who can be a doctor. Blaming finance for a non-existent health system or changing finance won't change anything.

[IreneH55]

We need single-payer now! I'm tired of a bean-counter telling me what health care I can have. They won't cover pre-existing, yet the CEOs can take home multi-million dollar paychecks. My Army veteran husband was turned down for insurance. Went to Korea, got shot at, but the disgusting insurance system we have says he's not worthy of health care. Bush fucked over vets by changing their benefits in 2003, so that he can't even go to the VA. He's just screwed!

[highhorse313]

Single payer healthcare now. Why do I need 100 billing clerks handling my medical records when I only have 1 doctor? This ratio and the whole system is ludicrous. Consider how much money AIG has made in the last 15 years? How much have they lost? Where the hell did it go?

And now they want sick people to spend a fortune keeping their industry alive?

It's time to stand up and say NO to all this bullshit - YES WE CAN!

[tmgibs34]

This is one of the problems with people promoting this bad idea-100 billing clerks? Really? How about a more factual analyses and looking at what has worked and what hasn't in other countries. Single payer isn't a panacea. Medicare has no preventative care, dental, and routinely denies claims for services ordered by doctors. That isn't the health care I want.

[highhorse313]

Well, that's fine for you especially since you are so certain that single payer is not right for you.

By the way, how are things at AIG since we discovered what a sham managed care really is? We all know now that it's just another needless layer injected into the healthcare system with the full support of GOP leaders.

And blah blah blah about Medicare - it ain't perfect but it's available whether you like it or not!

[guylesmith]

With 60%+ support for single payer in all the polls, Obama could safely take this to the American people in a heartbeat and threaten every sitting Congress person and Senator that won't vote for a bill including single payer with political extinction come the next election cycle. Any electable populist candidate on the right or left could beat an incumbent against single payer. Single payer's time has come to America. It's time to call or email your Congress person, Senator, and the White House!

[highhorse313]

You are absolutely right!

[tmgibs34]

These lies are the same kinds of tactics the Nazis used to take over Germany in the 1930s and the far right use to try to dominate the discussion. Lies, distortions, and straw man arguments are old stuff. It is sickening to see they have found such fertile ground in the US.

60% of people want single payer-in your dreams. Sounds like someone went off their medications.

[highhorse313]

I don't have a clue as to what you are trying to communicate here or how it relates to the topic. But anyway, good luck to you.

[gvt2u]

CNN, CBS, the NY Times and Opinion Research polls have all shown that 64% of Americans support single payer health care.

[tmgibs34]

Provide links to the exact stories instead of propaganda. This thread is like the Bush-Cheney news service. Spreading false reports then refering to them as news. Hurray for the health gestapo!