This guy really cracks me up. “I want, not personally for me, but for working Americans […]”
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
Good for him. Probably his early Catholic training finding that rare bit of sunshine.
He didn’t read his talking points memo.This blows me away.
So how about just doing free (or subsidized) health-care (not insurance) for poor people?
And “poor” gets defined as some percentage of the poverty line.
I just don’t understand why Democrats don’t love this guy. His solution is ALWAYS the “Federal Government should [INSERT HERE]”
If he were an actual Conservative his answers would be the Federal Government Should back off and reduce it’s authority.
Bill O’Reilly is becoming an Obama apologist.
I long for when Glenn Beck beats O’Reilly in the ratings. With that overblown Irish ego of his, you know he’ll go nuts!
OReilly is an Obama Apologist because he supports giving the working man a choice when it comes to insurance?
Hah, hah.
Dolts.
Ma! What’s wrong with the Telly? Fox says public option is good!?
#5 – Breetai,
If anyone were truly conservative enough to remember what the word meant, instead of mistaking it for radical right wing nutjob, we would take a rational look back and note that an icon of conservatism from an earlier time actually proposed the public option long before any of today’s politicians. The public option is not the Obama plan, but instead, is actually the Nixon plan. *
So the real question is why don’t today’s self-proclaimed conservatives jump on the Nixon plan and support it wholeheartedly?
* From wikipedia (http://tinyurl.com/npknum)
Sure sounds like the so-called Obama plan to me, at least at the gross level. So, how is this not a conservative plan?
As I think most of corporate America will drop high risk people and force them to choose a public option. So the government (AKA taxpayer)
will end up flipping the bills on the sickest Americans. I do not see the public option lowering anything but standards of care. I guess for many some insurance is better then none. But if we look at our governments track record on budgeting and spending. AKA does anybody remember the $10000 toilet seats? We all know government does not spend money or manage it efficiently. Hence the trillions in debt we are already in. How many times I have heard that a new project won’t cost taxpayers a dime. Boy, if I had a penny for every time I heard that! They always tell us that when government wants us on their side. Its getting pretty old and the smart Americans are figuring it out.
#10–jescott418==and private enterprise is raking off profits and bonuses giving us twice the cost and half the coverage with overall the worst outcomes.
Should poor people get healthcare in America or not? If not, why? If so, how?
#10 jescott418: yes, they will, if we let them get away with it. That’s why we need a bill that doesn’t let them get away with it.
And spare me the tired old complaints about the government can’t do anything. We have private, for-profit healthcare and it’s among the worst in the world comparing civilized nations. If your mythical invisible hand of the marketplace worked, we’d have the best and the cheapest. But it doesn’t, so we don’t.
Keep in mind that total US health care spending is currently split about 50/50 between public and private. The US has public health care now – the real question is whether you want to be good at it.
#14–qb==not to quibble without a point but the US half is only “public funding” of private healthcare. Makes a difference in a number of areas. One model to consider is actual US Government delivery of direct patient care like the VA does.
Any half assed decent government run healthcare WITH its inefficiencies will run most of private insurance out of business==just like the USPO vs Fed Ex. Let Executives continue to get health care as stealth income as long as our fellow citizens get the base level of care that all deserve as a matter of right.
it’s not hard to understand why he’s saying this. i mean i think he’s heard and seen that the public option is not going to be in the bill.
#10–jescott418==and private enterprise is raking off profits and bonuses giving us twice the cost and half the coverage with overall the worst outcomes.
If I’m doing the math right then private enterprise is inefficient by 4. So why can’t the feds cut the waste and greed, collect a nominal premium and deliver a reasonable product? I thought Obama was going there with his most recent speech. I almost cheered but then he said that the govt. could do it for free for only $1,000,000,000,000. Huh?
I’ll hang up now and let Bobbo tell me why the math doesn’t add up.
hmmmm, a bloviating, pinheaded popinjay… the yellow-bellied, forked-tongued two-faced variety… seen live, in the wild at Fox News!
What genus/species is that?
#17–Robart==”So why can’t the feds cut the waste and greed, collect a nominal premium and deliver a reasonable product?” /// Because the Repugs run an effective fear and smear campaign everytime it is brought up. See above this post for Nixon and Reagun for instance. – or – It does. See Medicare. 3% overhead compared to 30% overhead. Obamagod may want to do the right thing, but he is still lying with dogs. SINGLEPAYER is REQUIRED to actually wring cost out of the system.
The time is right to go tooth and nail for single payer. Get a plan all worked out that would actually work. It won’t pass (probably) but it can be put on the shelf for 3-5 years from now when our government goes tits up for lack of business competitiveness because of excessive health care costs which is already TOTALLY EVIDENT!!!!
2X2=4. Well done grasshopper. You did the math, but missed the lesson. Go rake the rocks.
It’s really sad how little people understand about our current health care system.
The change we’re gonna get is not the change we need.
#17 Robart,
The core of the problem with Medicare is that there is no legislation that governs what doctors can and can not do in order to provide you treatment. So right now, if you have a headache, the doctor can ask for arthroscopic examination of your knee, and Medicare will pay for it even though it has nothing to do with your problem, after all… it’s what the doctor ordered. And doctors abuse that privilege over and over, just so they can make more money. Part of the bill currently being considered is a way of measuring the effectiveness of the treatments that the doctors provide, and pay them according to outcome.
And that is where much of the savings will come from… we know that doctors are abusing the Medicare system, but there is nothing that we can do about it since there are no laws governing it.
Doctors are not all saints… there are quite a few crooks amongst them that prescribe treatments and exams purely for monetary reasons… it’s no coincidence that a medical clinic that owns it’s own advanced (expensive) diagnostics equipment is 3 times as likely to prescribe (and charge for) the use of that equipment as a facility that does not own it themselves, with ZERO increase in positive outcomes.
So yes, we can save Billions and Billions of dollars, but it will take oversight and regulation of the medical profession.
I agree with bobbo. Single payer is the best option available.
Every other industrialized country not only has it, they beat the US in every measure that counts except Health Insurance CEO bonuses.
#14 – qb,
Please provide a count (I don’t need names) of all of the people you know who qualify for medicare and have opted out.
Thanks.
#23 Nobody I know, and I work for an American company. I’m just basing my numbers on OECD data. For instance here in Canuckistan the public/private split is about 70/30.
#10- your argument for the private sector doesn’t jibe with the private sector’s handling of banking, mortgages, military services, etc. Some of those trillions you mention are being spent to prop up the private sector. If you don’t know of any examples of inefficiency and malfeasance in the private sector, you haven’t been reading the news.
I’m with Bobbo, Ralph et. al. Single payer is the best way to go.
#10- I agree with #25. Private corporations generally exist for one goal. To enrich the CEO. They often do that to the detriment of the business. Customers, HAH! They are something to be used and kicked aside. The same often goes for employees. Case in point – Circuit City. It’s CEO, got rid of the companies best people, so he could give himself a fat golden parachute. Then he bailed, knowing that his actions would destroy the company. What did he care, he got what he wanted, and he was responsible to no one. The same thing almost happened at HP.
The fact is that a government run health care system would be far from perfect. However, it would be better than what we have now, because of one simple fact…It could not be any worse.
#21 Awake
Not sure where your coming from with your info about Medicare but I’m in the biz. If you file an insurance claim with Medicare and your CPT code and/or your E/M codes are not consistent with your diagnosis code the claim with get kicked back. Medicare patient files are twice as thick as a comparable private insurance patients file because of all the bs paperwork that has to be done for a Medicare patient. Medicare audits are a huge time sucker and even the most honest buttoned up office hate them. To top it off Medicare reimbursement rates have gone down every year to the point that they are less than half of private pay for us. The waste in Medicare comes from the industries that lobby govt. to get their special scooter or digital widget paid for at 5 times its market value. That is probably my biggest concern with a government system. Coverage decissions are made not based on need but based on who has the strongest lobby and can effect the laws. I had a patient in my office yesterday that is from Canada. He said that the system in Canada is run by the unions. They are powerful enough to pressure the government for raises while at the same time cut reimbursements to doctors and ration care. My counter part in Canada is so frustrate by the low reimbursement rates that he is considering
a new career.
I’m am not a fan of the private insurance industry but I don’t want it to be replaced with a government corruptable behemoth. That’s why I like the idea of a government option that would be competitive with private insurance as long as it wasn’t a trough for groups with big lobby groups to feed.
I want Bobbo to figure out we could
#27–Robart==please finish your thought. I was going to go into CPT coding and what not, but too technical and not interesting to most.
I “feel” my answer to whatever your question might be is to closely review all the other single payer systems in the world and cherry pick their best ideas. If we “really” did that, I think we would have the worlds best care, for everyone in America, while cutting current cost levels.
Silly Me for wanting all that instead of thinking health care for the poor is an assault on my liberty.
open email to O’Reilly
Oh-No! Bill you said what you believe in an unguarded moment .
Bill your a Pro the Big Dog the Man>>we expect better of you.
watch it!
Your comrade in broadcasting crime The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves, Howard
Scott, while Nixon may have some conservative instincts or temperament, he was not a conservative. According to The Age of Reagan, conservatives wanted to dump Nixon in 1972, the year he won 49 states for reelection.
Affirmative action, OSHA, wage and price controls, are just a few of his non-conservative positions. Kennedy was the more conservative candidate in 1960.
#27 Robart
As I said, you guys down there have to decide whether you want to be good at public health care or not. Right now you’re not since all patients require far, far too much paperwork. The only difference is that your public system pushes it onto the physician, the private insurers push it onto the patient.
As for your friend, I’ve done work for three different medical corporations in my city (hospitals, clinics, and labs) all owned and run by doctors. These guys are very rich. One problem in Canada is that almost every physician must run their own business, there are no options for salaried physicians like in the US. Unfortunately most of them can’t run a business worth shit. I know physicians who would like nothing better than to stop trying to run a marginal business and would be happier as a salaried employee somewhere. I think that’s a huge problem in Canada.
Cows. Fly.
The guy is one of the world’s biggest a-holes, if he now supports Public Option then the end is near. At least I may finally be covered as I run to the Emergency Room, while in flames, as the world is engulfed into burning pyre.