Why Healthcare For Profit Is Evil
Here’s a good example of the immoral healthcare system that conservatives are trying to protect :
Authorities released a videotape this afternoon of what they say is the dumping of a 63-year-old woman on the streets of skid row.The videotape, recorded by security cameras outside the Union Rescue Mission entrance on San Pedro Street on Monday afternoon, shows a taxicab pulling a U-turn and then driving out of view. A few seconds later, a woman wearing a hospital gown and no shoes walks from the same direction, wandering in the street and on the sidewalk for about three minutes before a Union Rescue Mission staff person escorts her inside the mission.
LAPD Capt. Andrew Smith said he believes the taxi took the woman, a 63-year-old Gardena resident, downtown against her will after she was discharged from Kaiser Permanente Bellflower on Monday.
You’d think examples like this would prompt the American public to say to themselves “Hmmmm….I wonder why this doesn’t happen in other countries?”, but the very concept of providing healthcare to everyone is pilloried as a step towards despotism (unlike, say, the disposal of the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments). Here’s how Tom Neely and I sent-up the GOP talking point a couple of years ago :
If the Democrats knew what was good for them (ha!), they’d collect stories like this as evidence that the United States is long overdue for a universal single-payer healthcare system. Sometimes showing a willingness to go down in flames on principle prevents that very thing from happening.
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I’m not trying to defend the dumping of this woman, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not an uncommon occurrence.
I work with mentally retarded adults & children & a co-worker of mine is trying to get his masters in Special Education. One of his professors was leading the mainstreaming of mentally ill folk back in the 70′s & he told my friend that it wasn’t uncommon to take mentally ill patients & put a few bucks in their pocket, clip a note to their shirt saying ‘Help me, I’m mentally ill, & stick their butts on a one way Greyhound ride to another city.
Don’t know if this is true but, after 13 years of witnessing some of the halfwitted policies that are in place for folk suffering from mental retardation, this doesn’t sound all that far fetched.
Comment by Richard — March 23, 2006 @ 6:58 pm
I heard that part of the GM early retirement deal is that you give up your health benefits. If we end up with socialized medicine it will be because corporate America’s greed pushed us into it.
Comment by jimmarquis — March 23, 2006 @ 8:18 pm
I’d be willing to pay a tax for Single Payer Health Care, also we could put a Wind Fall Profits Tax on Corporate America. The wind fall seems to be the greatest in history right now.
Comment by Mike Meyer — March 23, 2006 @ 8:32 pm
People fail to ask why these horrible things don’t happen in other countries because it has somehow become an article of faith in this country that our system provides the best care in the world, despite all evidence to the contrary. I have noticed that, anytime I mention the idea of single-payer care to anyone, their response is some variant of “Oh, you mean you love rationing, long waits and getting no treatment?”, and then any attempt to contradict this or to hint that our system provides a subpar level of care in any way is taken as a delusional rant and either laughed at or ignored. It’s not just that people fail to ask why their care is worse; they honestly seem to believe that the current situation is better than what any other country has, and will allow no statements to the contrary.
Comment by Ryan Frank — March 24, 2006 @ 8:27 am
Government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.
Comment by Kamachanda — March 24, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
Just wait until (1) all the huge corporations stop healthcare as a benefit altogether, and (2) seniors realize how badly they’re getting fucked by the Chimp.
The whole system of healthcare being tied to your job is a historical anomaly anyway. Ford is not required to pay for its workers’ health insurance, and the time will come soon enough when they’ll decide not to.
I wonder if the Medicare prescription drug “plan” doughnut hole is going to coincide with the elections this year? If so, a mob of gray-haired old ladies with flaming torches will chase the Goopers straight out of town.
Comment by Cakesniffer — March 24, 2006 @ 1:30 pm
I just find it baffling that these politicians, who have their noses thoroughly up the butts of corporate America, don’t do more to push for universal coverage, when health care is such a huge albatross around business’s neck. You’d think that their corporate masters would have ordered them to do something about this by now. It don’t make no sense.
Comment by Joe — March 24, 2006 @ 2:54 pm
There was a story recently about hospitals that routinely charge the uninsured four and five times more for proceedures than they charge insurance companies. The american health care system is predatory, not the best in the world.
Comment by Kamachanda — March 26, 2006 @ 4:59 am
so if someone is to be discharged by a hospital, has no family/friends, no car, no money, and nowhere to live, and is actually from skid row, where should the hospital send them? I am not saying that was the case here, but not everyone at the hospital has somewhere to go. Not trying to troll here, just curious…I’ve talked with med personnel about this. Sometimes there is nowhere/no-one else to release them to.
Comment by Mainframe — March 26, 2006 @ 8:20 pm