right.
she was trying to provide affordable healtcare for americans.
i know she's the current whipping dog for poorly informed, reactionary conservative types, but a funnier choice would have been Barbara Bush.
Ummmm, errrr, would those be the same poorly informed reactionary conservative types that did not want 15% of our economy nationalized by a group that met in secrecy and whose members included nary a doctor nor a nurse.
Would it be the same poorly informed reactionary conservative types that looked to the experience of Canada and Europe before deciding that price controls on medical care would only lead to shortages, increased wait times and lower levels of service?
Would it be the same poorly informed reactionary conservative types who know that US medical facilities near the Canadian border are doing a booming business providing mundane tests and procedures, such as CAT scans because Canadian citizens often must wait months for such tests -- as the inevitable result of price controls? I doubt they can get MRI's and PET scans at the drop of a hat as we do here.
Would it be the same poorly informed reactionary conservative types who are watching physicians leave Canada for the US?
Would it be the same poorly informed reactionary conservative types that clearly understand how price controls on prescription drugs would stifle innovation and research? Good or bad, these same poorly informed reactionary conservatives understand that there are costs and tradeoffs for such decisions, and they are aware that laws usually have unintended consequences.
Note that these poorly informed reactionary conservative types are aware that many US health insurance issues stem from President Roosevelt's ill-advised decision to allow steel workers to receive health care as a pre-tax benefit during WWII. Poorly informed reactionary conservative types have been trying to mend this tax inequity, which hurts the lower class, for at least fifteen years.
As for Barbara Bush, she was never known to throw things like lamps and books at her husband and members of the Secret Service. Take your pick.
yes, those are the same ones.
the same ones that get taken by the spin
the same spin that "suggests" to you that the national health board is meeting in secret by launching an investigation into Clinton's plan. an investigation that turns up nothing. sorry you werent invited to their meetings. although from your "insight" into healthcare issues, i cant say i dont understand why you werent.
Do you think Clinton did not look at canada and europe- for both things that work and possible downsides? why would you think that. and what have YOU found by "looking to" these places. besides the party line of shortages and wait lists?
Under Clinton's plan (if they ever actually came up with one) i still think canadian doctors would be clamoring to be paid by our system instead of theirs, as would mexican, indian, and malaysian doctors.
The United States has a long history of efforts to establish some form of national health care, beginning with President Theodore Roosevelt’s proposed a national health insurance system in 1911. He’d visited Germany where the Kaiser set it up put it in place to keep the Socialists away. The Commission of Costs of Medical Care was set up in 1927 and delivered their report in 1932 and that called for tax-based financing, highly trained personnel, and specialty care centralized in high quality care facilities.
These ideas were incorporated in the Wagner Health Act of 1937. But when Franklin Roosevelt was willing to take it up, we had a war that changed everything. Despite the special measures you allude to, prior to World War II, a smattering of people had their health care attached to a job and that’s where we ended up and have been ever since. Our challenge was – and is – is to get out from under that system.
So in 1960 John Kennedy said he wanted a national health insurance program, modeled after the Medicaid system. While doctors may not want it, the family package is wonderful. It covers hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, drugs, rehabilitation care – it’s an excellent, extensive and comprehensive package. We’d all be lucky if we had that package. So, what happened in the Great Society of the administrations of Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson? We got Medicare and we got Medicaid. So then we got President Bill Clinton, who wanted to do deal with health care at the national level. Trouble is, he made a deal with the devil – he made a deal with the big insurers. He told them, “Look, I’ll turn everybody over to you. Just cover everybody.” Pretty soon the Harry and Louise ads popped out and that was the end of that.
Dick Gephardt needed about $251 billion extra dollars. Clinton wanted $100 billion.
If you are worried about the proposed National Health board, then you must be scared #$%*less at the prospect of innumerable bureaucrats and administrators (almost none of them doctors) trumping your doctor and hospital? It’s bad enough to be sick. It’s even worse to have some damned bureaucrat telling your doctors what they may or may not do. Doctors take an oath to serve patients, to do no harm. The guys who run the insurance companies haven’t taken any oath. The law says their duty is to their stockholders, not to their patients, and to make as much money as they can for their stockholders.
We cant change that if people are beaten down by misinformation.
this is not a defense of the clinton healthcare plan (which never achieved anything,) or clinton (who did more to hurt welfare and the working poor than reagan was able to) this is a reaction to the spin posted above. if you are interested in the real facts behind the clintons failed healthcare plan (although i cant imagine why that would interest anyone- maybe you want to form the next hplan for affordably keeping all citizens healthy(think of all the future researchers you will be saving from death)), then do yourself a favor and read about it. because the worst part about these poorly informed conservatives is that they THINK they are informed and have the soundbytes and the arrogance to spread their ignorance and convince people to avoid further study.
