Government Healthcare LOL

“You`d b!tch if he didn`t.”

“I wonder if the liberal left is questioning how they treated Joseph Lieberman? LOL! Looks like he got his pound of flesh and then some.”

“LOL? Looks like he's making sure that Americans will continue to die because they don't have access to health care. I really can't see the humor.”

“Hyperbole much? LOL!

Stop trying to kill poor people Joseph Lieberman!”

“Damn......Violin is on to us.....he knows we want people---millions and millions of uninsured people---to die.”

““Damn......Violin is on to us.....he knows we want people---millions and millions of uninsured people---to die.”
Nonconformist
8:28:58 AM
12/18/09

Good plan. Those people normally vote Democrook.”

“Everybody should also get food given by the government because some people die of not eating.”

“The government should hand out oxygen tanks to everybody because some people die of not breathing.”

“When is the government going to hand out bullet proof vests and helmets to everyone? You know, because some people die of getting shot, and stuff.”

“Don't forget about toilet paper!”

“Pappa needs a brand new coat, gloves, hat and scarf, because some people die of being cold.”

“and pappa needs a brand new air conditioner too.”

“N- People die of dirty asis?”

“No but it's very unpleasant and we don't want a global reputation of being poopy.”

“I went to see TWO doctors yesterday and then had to get a prescription filled. Who will help me pay for that? Violin? Anyone else? I'll trade some of my (unused) toilet paper.”

“Joe is just standing up for what he believes in, more campaign money for the next election. He is now a member of the 'Dependent Party', depedent on big corporations.”

“Sorry Non, you are at a loss...we got a half a trillion to turn out for the world's thugs and layabouts.”

“More I-Got-Mine-Jack "Christians".

Gotta love em.”

“Maybe Christians should give their money who YOU tell them to, because, that makes sense.”

“And God sayith: "Givith not of thine heart, but givith what thy government tells thine to, for thine government forcing thine to is soeth much better than givingith out of loveth."”

“LOL......wasn't V trumpeting the fact that his portfolio was making big $$ a few months ago?”

“Well yes, but see in the liberal "do as I say not as I do" world..he is happy in his hypocrisy.

Vile I uh DO give to charity (quite a bit as a matter of fact). Like Most Conservatives we tend to give more than liberals. Since we see private charity as better than Government Charity.

As for the layabouts I perfer to remember that God Helps Those WHO help themselves.”

“More I-Got-Mine-Jack "Christians".

Gotta love em.”
vioLin

More I-gotta-have-what-you-earned "atheist"

Gotta fear em”

“‘Public Option Please’: NEA Propaganda Revealed
by Stage Right

When Big Hollywood correspondent Patrick Courrielche exposed the infamous NEA Conference call, where members of the NEA staff and the White House encouraged artists to use their talents in promoting causes that were closely associated with President Obama’s aggressive, left-wing agenda, apologists and defenders on the left and in the media began to parrot the Administration’s defense as if it were Gospel Truth.

The most linked-to and referenced defense came from Ben Davis at the well-respected artnet Magazine. After spending many paragraphs attacking Patrick and questioning the nefarious motives behind his unforgiveable act of betrayal (I’m not referring to Patrick recording the conference call, the real betrayal was Patrick appearing on “The Glenn Beck Show”), Davis goes on to repeat the Obama talking point:

This notorious conference call, in other words, was essentially a pitch for artists to make glorified PSAs about volunteer work. As far as I can tell, the truth is exactly the opposite of the ominous attempt to yoke artists to the Obama Agenda that critics suggest; if anything, the call was an effort to take the inspiration for radical change that led many creative types to vote for Obama and channel it into low-level, local activism.

This article has been rallied behind and taken as the final word on the subject as far as the left-wing blog world is concerned. Only problem: it’s spin and obfuscation. First, through the Freedom of Information aAct, Courrielche further proved that artists responded to the call with tangible, policy-oriented ideas that went way beyond a call for volunteer work.

And now, after four months, we see some real, tangible propaganda. Enter Justin Kemerling.

Earlier this week Big Hollywood exposed the tangled web of left-wing blogs and political agitation groups controlled by Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher. ”Hollywood” Jane Hamsher used her considerable clout within the Hollywood Left mafia family to pressure celebs from supporting Susan G. Komen for the cure as long as they continue to retain Hadassah Lieberman (or, I suppose for as long as Haddasah retains Sen. Joe Lieberman as her husband).

While investigating one of Hamsher’s many left-wing confrontation pages, Public Option Please, we discovered that people who donate to the cause and become members of the movement receive free art work (a button or a poster) designed by pop artist, Justin Kemerling.

Kemerling was on the conference call that day with Patrick Courrielche. He heard the same things Patrick heard. Within weeks of the call, he designed this neat little button for Hamsher’s Public Option Please campaign:

popbutton

He also designed this poster for Hamsher:

popposter

And these stickers:

POPsticker

I know that our friends from the left in the art world recoil and get defensive when accused of creating propaganda, but look at these designs…. What would YOU call them? Propaganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Seriously, what do YOU call this stuff?

Kemerling created propaganda. He created the propaganda exactly the way the NEA and White House requested him to on the August 10th conference call. “Public Option Please” was launched on October 8th, so the propaganda Kemmerling made was done about a month after the NEA and White House told him to.

So Kemerling is a left-wing artist located in Nebraska and Hamsher is a Hollywood Producer/Activist now located in Virginia. How do these two star-crossed lefties hook up to create the “Propoganda Opportunity”?

Enter Yosi Sergant.

Remember Yosi? After he took the fall for the NEA conference call (even though it was really pushed by the White House Office of Public Engagement, right Yosi? Come on, you can tell us…) Yosi laid low for a while. We hadn’t heard from him or about where he ended up employed. And then, we saw this article in the Washington Post announcing an art contest for Jane Hamsher’s Public Option Please. (BTW: Notice how the winning artistic design put a symbolic heart of our country right smack in the middle of Washington DC? These people really do think that Government is the heart of our country).

At the end of the article Hamsher reveals a key fact:

You can vote for your favorite on the group’s Web site, though the winner will be picked by a panel of judges including Arianna Huffington, Margaret Cho and Jesse Dylan. Hey, why not Yosi Sergant (the publicist behind “Hope,” who resigned his NEA job after a conference call in which he exhorted artists to support the Obama agenda)? “He’s been advising us,” Hamsher said.

Well there you go. Looks like Yosi landed on his feet and scored a cool little consulting gig for the woman who promulgated a picture of Joe Lieberman in “Sambo Blackface” and is shaming Hollywood celebs into dropping their support for a breast cancer charity until the charity dumps Hadassah Lieberman.

So let’s connect a few dots, shall we? Yosi knows Kemerling. Yosi coordinates a conference call that Kemerling is on. As Director of Communications for the National Endowmant for the Arts, Yosi encourages Kemerling to ”pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service… And then my ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities utilities and bring them to the table.” Within weeks of Yosi’s “resignation” Hamsher launches Public Option Now and focuses the fundraising campaign around Kemerling’s art.

Many will contend that there is no link between the conference call and this propaganda. And that Kemmerling has a history of supporting left-wing causes through his art; he would have done these posters without White House encouragement. Those who hold this position are probably right, actually. But the fact that I can so easily reach the conclusion that Kemerling was motivated and inspired by Yosi Sergant and Buffy Wicks call to action is exactly the reason why the conference calls and the policy behind them should never have been made. And, it is exactly the reason why Yosi Sergant no longer works for the NEA.

I would love to hear Ben Davis’ honest reaction to this article. I wonder if he would honestly and openly re-visit the subject and if he would be tolerant enough to recognize that there are many people (many, Ben) in the art world who disagree with him on this subject and just about every social and political view that he holds. I doubt it, given this passage from the same article:

Of course, there are all types in the art world, but in general, it is a cosmopolitan group; urban, educated and tolerant. Not really the Sarah Palin crowd. You have to defend the art world’s right to be what it is.

Yeah, that’s some impressive tolerance on display, Ben. Aren’t you even a little bit hesitant to speak for the entire art world in such a way? Can you find any room in your oh-so-tolerant world view to grasp the idea that you have many colleagues who actually like and respect Sarah Palin, but because of your totalitarian methods of politically correct manipulation of thought, they would never tell you? Isn’t it possible, given your refusal to acknowledge the obvious reasons why Sergant was fired and your ability to call Sarah Palin supporters (about half of our country) as the antithesis of tolerant, educated and cosmopolitan, that YOU Mr. Davis are the intolerant, un-educated, parochial, mind-numbed, knee-jerk reactionary?”

“So, it all gets down to what the church says about abortion and some pork for a state with more pigs than people and more corn than porn and more chit than wit. LOL”

“Strat - Its not really a rule, but your posts are supposed to relate, at least a little bit, to the thread topic.”

“*snicker*@vileboy”

“BoooWhooooNoooWateroooooOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

“ALL IT TOOK WAS SOME BORROWED MONEY .....
By
Neal Boortz
@ December 21, 2009 9:31 AM

... that your kids will have to pay back.

Amazing, wasn't it? All it took was a little money to make Nebraska Democrat Senator Ben Nelson come across and pledge to vote for ObamaCare. His state will get a permanent - not temporary, permanent - exemption from paying certain Medicaid costs.

Oh yeah ... Ben Nelson was a real man of principal. By God he wasn't going to vote for DemCare unless that government funding for abortion was removed. Period. End of story. That pretty much puts him in the sack with Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu. She sold her vote to Obama for $100 million plus. She actually says it was about $300 million.

What did Nelson get? He got full funding for Nebraska to expand Medicaid to all people in his state up to 133% of the poverty level. Nebraska will now be the ONLY state that doesn't have to pick up at least part of the cost. How's that for "equal protection under the law?" He also managed to roll back some cuts in the qualifying amount for health savings accounts and some tax breaks for some Nebraska insurance companies. Over time the goodies that were used to buy Ben Nelson will amount to over $100 million. This money doesn't exist. It will have to be borrowed. Your children and grandchildren will pay it back. Maybe.

Don't you think this is just wonderful? Aren't you thrilled at how our government in Washington actually works? The Democrats want to take over about 17% of our entire economy ...and all they had to do to was pay off a few Senators. Principle be damned .. it's only about money. But I don't think that anyone is at all surprised here.

We'll have plenty of time to go over the details after the holidays. For the time being, just know that this is going to take at least $400 billion in new taxes. If you think that you'll escape paying some of those taxes ... well ... you probably have an Obama bumper sticker on your car.”

“'...and some tax breaks for some Nebraska insurance companies'

Our kids haven't done well paying back the money borrowed in the eighties, because of more tax breaks for Nebraska insurance companies.”

“I hope they ride him out on a rail....”

“Bring back Terri Shiavo. Weekend late knight congress. LOL”

“Health bill money for hospital sought by Dodd


The Associated Press
Sunday, December 20, 2009; 11:32 PM

WASHINGTON -- A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night.

The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut.

The provision is included in a 383-page series of changes to the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., outlined Saturday. Scattered throughout are numerous items sought by individual lawmakers, many of them directing money explicitly to programs or projects in their home states.

The one sought by Dodd provides $100 million for "a health care facility that provides research, inpatient tertiary care, or outpatient clinical services." It must be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States "that contains a State's sole public academic medical and dental school."
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The money can cover a maximum of 40 percent of the facility's construction costs.

Based on the criteria set out on the bill, it appeared that state-affiliated hospitals in about a dozen states could compete for the funds.

Dodd has played a key role in development of the health care bill in the Senate. He wielded the gavel earlier in the year when the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee spent weeks drafting its version of the measure. The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was chairman at the time, but unable to preside.

Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is seeking a new term in 2010, but polls so far show him in a tight race.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122002956.html”

“Payoffs for states get Harry Reid to 60 votes

By: Chris Frates
December 19, 2009

Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” as the GOP is calling it, got all the attention Saturday, but other senators lined up for deals as Majority Leader Harry Reid corralled the last few votes for a health reform package.

Nelson’s might be the most blatant – a deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade.

But another Democratic holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, while denying it was a “sweetheart deal.” He was clearly more enthusiastic about a bill he said he couldn’t support just three days ago.

Nelson and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) carved out an exemption for non-profit insurers in their states from a hefty excise tax. Similar insurers in the other 48 states will pay the tax.

Vermont and Massachusetts were given additional Medicaid funding, another plus for Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Three states – Pennsylvania, New York and Florida – all won protections for their Medicare Advantage beneficiaries at a time when the program is facing cuts nationwide.

All of this came on top of a $300 million increase for Medicaid in Louisiana, designed to win the vote of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Under pressure from the White House to get a deal done by Christmas, Reid was unapologetic. He argued that, by definition, legislating means deal making and defended the special treatment for Nelson’s home state of Nebraska.

“You’ll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislating is all about. It’s compromise," he said.

It was Nelson who proved that he who plays hardest to get, gets the most.

He forced Reid to redraft the bill’s restrictions on federal funding of abortion. And while most insiders were focused on that deal, Nelson was quietly ensuring that his state would never have to pay for the Medicaid expansion being written into the bill – an agreement that had been in the works for weeks.

Medicaid is usually paid for with a mix of federal and state funding, but Nelson’s carve out means that any Medicaid beneficiaries who join the program under the bill will be fully paid for by the federal government…

But Nelson’s deal could be a pittance compared to where the Nebraska compromise might ultimately lead – to 49 other states demanding that the feds pick up their share of health reform’s new Medicaid burden when it kicks in during 2017…

Nelson and Levin also pushed a provision that exempts non-profit insurers in Nebraska and Michigan from an annual multi-billion dollar excise tax on insurance companies.

Not surprisingly, both states are home to non-profit insurers who control a high-percentage of the industry’s profits. In Michigan, non-profit insurers control 76 percent of the industry’s profits – one of the highest percentages in the nation – while Nebraska non-profits control 46 percent of their state’s profits…

Republicans, meanwhile, expressed outrage at the wheeling and dealing, as if their party had never cut a legislative deal in its 150-year history.

“This bill is a monstrosity, a 2,100-page monstrosity full of special deals for people who are willing to vote for it,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “And they’re playing these kind of games with the nation’s health care. This is an outrage.” …

Republican Sen. Mike Enzi accused Democratic leaders of favoring Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in Pennsylvania, New York and Florida at the expense of seniors in other parts of the country.

“The Democrats are playing ‘Let’s make a deal’ with trillions of your hard-earned tax dollars. You and all the American people should know that the majority leader is buying his votes with your money,” said Enzi (R-Wyo.) “The Reid bill gives sweetheart deals to a few states and the rest of the country will foot the bill. Making unfair deals like this is the wrong way to legislate and the American people know it.” …

And the scandal of this bill is goes beyond these preposterous deals.

After all, what does the healthcare reform really boil down to now that everything has been stripped out?

It seems that all is left now is that we will be forced to buy health insurance.

Do wee really need to spend $1.2 trillion dollars to force people to buy insurance?

Of course what it really proves is that it is all about redistributing wealth, and nothing about healthcare reform.”

“NEWS: Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in
Reid-Obama Health Bill UPDATED
From Ryan Ellis on Saturday, December 19, 2009 1:46 PM
http://www.atr.org/news-comprehensive-list-tax-hikes-inbr-a4345

PDF Version

List of tax hikes in original Reid bill

Manager's Amendment

CBO Score of Manager’s Amendment

JCT Score of Manager’s Amendment

(Page numbers reference ORIGINAL REID-OBAMA BILL unless noted):

Individual Mandate Tax (Page 324/Sec. 1501/$15 bil/Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following (page 71 of manager’s amendment updates Reid bill):
Single 2 People 3+ People
2014 $495/0.5% AGI $990/0.5% AGI $1485/0.5%/AGI
2015 $495/1.0% AGI $990/1.0% AGI $1485/1.0%/AGI
2016+ $495/2.0% AGI $990/2.0% AGI $1485/2.0%/AGI



Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS).

Employer Mandate Tax (Page 348/Sec. 1513/$28 bil/Jan 2014): If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $750 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees.

If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).

Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Page 1979/Sec. 9001/$149.1 bil/Jan 2011): Starting in 2013, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($8500 single/$23,000 family). Higher threshold ($9850 single/$26,000 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. Longshoremen have been exempted (page 362 of the manager’s amendment)

From 2013-2015, the 17 highest-cost states are 120% of this level.

Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 (Page 1996/Sec. 9002/Min$/Jan 2011): Preamble to taxing health benefits on individual tax returns.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 1997/Sec. 9003/$5 bil/Jan 2011): No longer allowable to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin)

HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Page 1998/Sec. 9004/$1.3 bil/Jan 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

FSA Cap (Page 1999/Sec. 9005/$13.3 bil/Jan 2011): Imposes cap on FSAs of $2500 (now unlimited). Indexed to inflation after 2011 (added on page 363 of manager’s amendment)

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 1999/Sec. 9006/$17.1 bil/Jan 2012): Requires businesses to send 1099-MISC information tax forms to corporations (currently limited to individuals), a huge compliance burden for small employers

Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (page 2001/Sec. 9007/Min$/immediate): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance," and "billing and collection" rules set by HHS (updated on page 364 of manager’s amendment).

Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (Page 2010/Sec. 9008/ $22.2 bil/Jan 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year.

Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Page 2020/Sec. 9009/$19.2 bil/Jan 2010): $2 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to shares of sales made that year. Exempts items retailing for <$100. Rises to $3 billion annually in 2017 (updated by page 364 of manager’s amendment).

Tax on Health Insurers (Page 2026/Sec. 9010/$59.6 bil/Jan 2011): $10 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. Phases in gradually until 2017. Fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits (updated on page 365 of manager’s amendment)

Eliminate tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Page 2034/Sec. 9012/$5.4 bil/Jan 2011)

Raise "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI (Page 2034/Sec. 9013/$15.2 bil/Jan 2013): Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only

$500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Page 2035/Sec. 9014/$0.6 bil/Jan 2013)

Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Page 2040/Sec. 9015/$86.8 bil/Jan 2013): Current law and changes:


First $200,000
($250,000 Married)
Employer/Employee
All Remaining Wages
Employer/Employee
Current Law 1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed 1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed
Reid-Obama Tax Hike 1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed 1.45%/2.35%
3.8% self-employed


The 0.9% new rate addition is not deductible for the self-employment tax adjustment. Updated by page 372 of manager’s amendment.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike (Page 2044/Sec. 9016/$0.4 bil/Jan 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services

STRICKEN: Tax on Cosmetic Medical Procedures (Page 2045/Sec. 9017/$5.8 bil/Jan 2010): New 5% excise tax on elective cosmetic surgery to be paid by the surgery patient.

REPLACED BY: Tax on Indoor Tanning Services (Page 373 of Manager’s amendment/$2.7 billion/July 1, 2010): New 10% excise tax on indoor tanning salons”

“Stossel & Mackey Blame Govt for High Health Care Prices, People Die Waiting for Health Care in Canada
By Brad Wilmouth
December 20, 2009 - 16:41 ET




On Thursday’s Stossel show on Fox Business Network, host John Stossel got to do the kind of show he was not able to do earlier this year when he was at ABC, as he devoted an entire show to the debate over access to health care, and gave attention to the market-based plan utilized by most employees of Whole Foods, which uses health savings accounts and encourages employees to shop around for health care, and to conserve their money for use in future years. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who has been the target of attacks from socialized medicine advocates despite the popularity of his company’s program with its employees, was the featured guest on Stossel's show, though he and Stossel at one point did get to debate socialized medicine advocate Russell Mokhiber. When Mokhiber cited the dubious statistic that 45,000 Americans die yearly from lack of health insurance, and contended that "zero Canadians die from lack of health insurance," Mackey charged that in Canada, "They oftentimes die from a lack of health care as they wait for services that are rationed by governmental bureaucrats."

Stossel and Mackey also charged that government regulations that forbid health insurance companies to compete across state lines, and that require insurance companies to cover procedures in their plans that are not desired by many customers, have helped create the problem of high prices:



JOHN STOSSEL: And the regulations now require insurance to cover things I don't want – alcohol treatment, acupuncture, all kinds of things. And I can't buy it from out of state.

JOHN MACKEY: You can't. Imagine if regulations required you to buy certain kinds of food when you came into the store: You must buy that food – you don't want it, maybe you're a vegetarian – but the government decided you need to purchase a certain percentage of meat whether you want it or not, so that's analogous, I think.

...

MACKEY: Right now, health insurance is regulated by the states. They're not allowed to compete across state lines. And so special interest lobbyists add more and more benefits that have to be covered, and that raises the cost of the health insurance for people making the premiums higher and more expensive. It doesn't allow people to get the exact health insurance that will best suit their own personal needs.

Below is a transcript of portions of the Thursday, December 17, Stossel show on FBN:

JOHN MACKEY, WHOLE FOODS: The problem is, is we don’t have free market health care in the United States. The government controls it. The government has messed it up. We don’t allow competition to work.

JOHN STOSSEL: And even for insurance, one of your points was that you ought to be able to buy it out of state. If New Jersey has stupid rules that make it cost more-

MACKEY: You ought to be able to buy the insurance that you want, and the market will provide that insurance if we’ll take all the regulations off of it and let it meet the needs and desires of its customers.

STOSSEL: And the regulations now require insurance to cover things I don’t want – alcohol treatment, acupuncture, all kinds of things. And I can’t buy it from out of state.

MACKEY: You can’t. Imagine if regulations required you to buy certain kinds of food when you came into the store: You must buy that food – you don’t want it, maybe you’re a vegetarian – but the government decided you need to purchase a certain percentage of meat whether you want it or not, so that’s analogous, I think.

...

MACKEY: Fifty years ago, our country spent 16 percent of our disposable income on food. Today we spend only about eight percent. So the cost of food has gone down steadily for the last 50 years, while the cost of health care in the last 50 years has gone from four percent of GDP to 17 percent of GDP. So food’s getting cheaper, due to the market system. Health care is getting more expensive, due to the absence of market freedoms. [AUDIENCE MEMBERS HECKLE] The current system is not a market-based system. The government controls it and regulates it and does not allow markets to work, and that’s what’s wrong with it, and that’s what needs to be reformed.

...

MACKEY: Right now, health insurance is regulated by the states. They’re not allowed to compete across state lines. And so special interest lobbyists add more and more benefits that have to be covered, and that raises the cost of the health insurance for people making the premiums higher and more expensive. It doesn’t allow people to get the exact health insurance that will best suit their own personal needs.

...

STOSSEL: And the lawyers say, "Oh, tort costs are less than two percent of health care costs," but that doesn’t include all the defensive medicine, all the tests done that don’t need to be done.

MACKEY: Exactly.

STOSSEL: And if we did this, this would make a big difference?

MACKEY: I think it would make a huge difference. Also, if we allowed, if we repealed the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which was implemented in 1945 which prevents health insurance companies from competing against state lines. It’s the only part of business that I know that doesn’t compete across state lines that really limits competition. Competition is what we need. We need competition in order to drive down prices. Every other business has competition. Why shouldn’t health insurance have competition? It largely doesn’t.

...

STOSSEL: Russell Mokhiber says 60 people die a day because they don’t have health insurance.

RUSSELL MOKHIBER, SINGLE PAYER ACTION: It’s 120 now, John. It’s 45,000 Americans every year die from lack of health insurance, so we’re not saying people aren’t going to die, we’re saying in this country, 45,000 Americans are dying from lack of health insurance. You go over the border, zero Canadians die from lack of health insurance. Why? Because when they’re born, they have a health insurance card that gets them free access to any doctor at any hospital in the country, so zero Canadians die from lack of health insurance. They die from other things, but not from lack of health insurance.

MACKEY: They oftentimes die from a lack of health care as they wait for services that are rationed by governmental bureaucrats.

MOKHIBER: Very few Canadians would come here and exchange places with us. I have a friend in West Virginia who-

MACKEY: Many Canadians come here every year to get their health care because they can’t get it in Canada. I don’t know many Americans that go to Canada to get health care.

MOKHIBER: John, I would ask you to pick up a phone and call any Canadian and ask them if they would exchange their system for our system.

STOSSEL: We’ll never solve that, Russell, but state your main point. In your ideal world, government would just manage it? The way it’s done in Canada or England?

MOKHIBER: We believe in the death penalty for the health insurance industry. Right now, we have a corporate bureaucracy telling us where and when we can get health care. I went to Johns Hopkins. I got a bill because they told me that the hospital was-

STOSSEL: Tell me your ideal world. What should we have?

MOKHIBER: The ideal world is, if you’re a citizen of this country, you get a health insurance card, and you get free choice of doctor and hospital. We pay for that through the tax system just like we pay for public parks and the public highways and public education. We pay for it through the tax system. Everyone would be insured-

STOSSEL: So public education and public parks work well?

MOKHIBER: John, would you get rid of Medicare?

STOSSEL: Medicare is $36 trillion in the hole. It’s getting rid of itself.

MOKHIBER: Would you get rid of it?

STOSSEL: Absolutely, it’s a ponzi scheme.

MOKHIBER: I know, you would get rid of Medicare, and this is the point. This point of view, this is why people are upset with John Mackey and Whole Foods. He’s taken a hardline libertarian point of view.

...

MOKHIBER: John Mackey, would you get rid of national parks?

MACKEY: Would I get rid of national parks?

MOKHIBER: Yes, would you?

STOSSEL: You’re comparing apples and oranges.

MOKHIBER: No, it’s not apples and oranges. You said this is socialism. That’s the public, national parks are a public plan.

MACKEY: I’m not advocating that government cease to exist. I want government to be into its proper sphere. This isn’t the proper sphere of government, in my opinion.

STOSSEL: Russell, you brought up national parks. It’s a good example. And maybe government should run national parks and the military. But I’ve covered national parks. They’re badly run. I covered a national park in Pennsylvania where they spent almost a million dollars to build an outhouse. It didn’t even flush. This cost almost a million dollars. They imported the stone from out of state. They manage things so badly, I can’t imagine what health care will be like once government runs it.

MOKHIBER: John, you guys, both of you guys are of the Grover Norquist school of libertarianism. That is, you want to shrink government to a size, drag it into the bathroom, and flush it down the bathtub. That’s the Grover Norquist view. That’s what you guys want to do. And what’s the result? The result of innocent-

STOSSEL: I don’t know about you, but I’m a proud member of the Grover Norquist school of limited government.

MACKEY: I like Grover, too.

...

STOSSEL: Okay, the boss of Whole Foods writes a health care op-ed based on the health plan his company runs. People get so mad they boycott Whole Foods. So what is Whole Foods’ plan? And how is it different from what government wants to do?

MACKEY: We provide high-deductible, catastrophic health insurance for all of our full-time team members, which is about 89 percent of our team member base that works 30 hours or more.

STOSSEL: "High-deductible" meaning $4,000, $5,000?

MACKEY: We round up to about $2,500. It’s actually closer to $2,300, but we said $2,500, and so they have to cover their first $2,500, and then the company picks up the cost above that. We also, though, have created personal wellness accounts where we deposit up to $1,800 into a team member’s account so they can pay for their deductibles that way. Any money they don’t use – and in any one year, 90 percent of our team members make no health care claims in a year – so money they don’t use rolls over to the next year so they can use it when they may need it. So, over time, more and more dollars builds up in their accounts so their deductible is paid for as well as any other types of wellness programs that may not be covered such as acupuncture or chiropractor.

STOSSEL: So they can use it for anything, any silly thing like acupuncture if they want to?

...

MACKEY: With the money we now spend on Medicaid in our country, if you took the same amount of money, you could buy – for all the poor people who can’t afford insurance – a high-deductible plan and put $3,000 in a health savings account that they could spend on that deductible. And any money they didn’t spend, more money would be added to it the next year. We could empower the poor people to take responsibility for their own lives and health. We don’t need the government to take this thing over.

...

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: So I’m an internist, a primary care doctor here in New York, and health savings accounts really work for only a certain type of person, but people who are sick, who are poor, don’t really get the benefits of health savings accounts. So a person, for example, I have a patient who has lymphoma. She’s 40 years old with lymphoma, and she will exhaust her health savings account because she has a lot of medical bills. ...

STOSSEL: But doesn’t she have a high-deductible policy that covers the big bills?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It covers the big bills, but it doesn’t cover the $2,000, the $3,000, the $4,000 that annually she would have to pay for her medical expenses.

STOSSEL: Let’s let them take a shot at an answer. John Mackey?

MACKEY: Well, if we had a system where we had health savings accounts and people had them all their lives when they were young and healthiest, they would be compiling surpluses that would cover them when they got older and their health spending went up, so you have to think about it through the whole life cycle.

STOSSEL: All right, but the young person who gets sick is toast?

MACKEY: No, but the point is if someone is sick, health insurance picks up the great majority of it. Like at Whole Foods, if someone spent $1,000,000 in a year on health care, they might have to pick up $3,000 themselves while the company picked up $997,000 of it, but they’d have to pay a little bit. And I think that’s fair. I think people should be responsible for making some of the payments on their own health even in a catastrophic situation.

STOSSEL: Grace-Marie?

GRACE-MARIE TURNER, GALEN INSTITUTE: Well, first of all, health savings accounts should be one of the choices that people have, not the only choice that people get. And people can accrue over time, but they save money that year for the health care that they get because they save on the premiums. Instead of spending $6,000 or $7,000 or $8,000 on a premium for a comprehensive plan that pretends to cover everything, that premium may only cost them $4,000. So they’ve got the money. You’ve got to look at the totality of their total out of pocket costs, not just what they’re spending with the deductible.

STOSSEL: Are you buying this?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: For certain populations, if you have enough money and you can afford to spend $3,000, $4,000 of a high deductible-

STOSSEL: Well, he’s giving them the $3,000 in their health savings accounts.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And what if you get sick?

TURNER: The whole point of insurance is to cover people when they get sick. And the whole point of insurance is that we can’t know when that’s going to happen. We all need insurance. If we were to have subsidies, and someone’s lower income, they can use that subsidy to buy the kind of insurance they need. They can put savings into that account if they buy a lower-premium policy, but let them make that choice. But it is important that everybody have insurance, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to be government insurance.

...

STOSSEL: Finally, I’m going to keep saying what people don’t want to hear: If we want lower prices without losing quality, we have to pay more of our health care bills ourselves because the only thing that really lowers costs and raises quality is the free market. Insurance interferes with that. The market works when you control your money. We all know what happens with everything else in our economy when customers shop around. People trying to make a profit cater to us. They keep inventing things. We get better stuff for less money. Better cell phones, faster package delivery, better everything. What makes it work is that the merchant knows that you can take your business elsewhere. And what gets you to shop around is the fact that you – not the government or some insurance company – pay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE DOCTOR: Who the heck is going to shop for price when somebody else is paying the bill?

STOSSEL: He’s a laser eye surgeon. He works in the tiny area of health care where patients still do pay the bills. And what’s happened? The technology has improved dramatically while the cost has stayed the same or gone down. Why? Because most insurance plans don’t cover lasik, people shop around. The surgeons work hard to please their customers by keeping prices low.

MALE DOCTOR: Because people are paying their money, they’re very sensitive to their experience. Does the doctor make me wait? Does he answer all my questions? Do I get a great result? If there’s a problem, I’m out of there.

STOSSEL: Nobody had to plan it or pass a law to force it. It just works. That’s the free market. So I don’t get the arrogance of a handful of people, most of whom have never even run a small business, thinking that they are smarter than the market, that they can reinvent our entire health care system. These monster bills that Congress now authors don’t address the most basic rule about incentives: We don’t care what it costs if we don’t pay the bill. These bills force more insurance, more third-party payers, more rules from Washington. These kill the benefits of the tiny amount of free market that’s still left in American health care. If we want cheaper and better, we need more Americans to have plans like Whole Foods – high-deductible policies and health savings accounts. Only when health consumers spend their own money will we get the quality care we want. I’m John Stossel. Thanks for watching. Hope to see you next week.”

“Anybody who read all that, please raise your hand.”

“Anybody who's interested in the truth, raise you hand....”

“I'm raising a finger, does that count?”

“NO, the middle finger.

Drifter, you are one ugly mug and your hair is from hell.”

“WASHINGTON - The liberals' longtime dream of a government-run health care system for all died Wednesday in the Senate, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont vowed it will return when the realization dawns that private insurance companies "are no longer needed."”

“We could've started five or six new wars with what this stupid health care for american citizens in need will cost.”

“"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago," said Dr. Hendricks. "Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything - except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.' That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards - never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind - yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of a man who resents it - and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't."

Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged”

“Filibusted now; (D)= (B)bribery party,(R)=(F) Filibusted party. Let's call in Arnold to straighten this mess out like he did here the the 'Peoples Republic of Really North Baja'.”