US health lobby: reform could make us as bad as the NHS

Source: guardian.co.uk

The US healthcare establishment has launched a series of television attack adverts using tragic stories from Britain's National Health Service to contest Barack Obama's plans to contain the escalating cost of treatment and make it more accessible to the poor.

In the broadcasts, by Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR), Britons complain about waiting times, restrictions to operations and access to life-saving drugs on the NHS. A top British cancer specialist, Dr Karol Sikora, dean of the University of Buckingham's medical school and former chief of the World Health Organisation's cancer programme, also appears, warning that a state-run system strips patients of control over their healthcare. "They lose control over their own destiny in the health system," he says in the advert.

Supporters of reform have accused CPR of conducting a scaremongering campaign on behalf of the medical establishment similar to one that sank the last attempt at reform by the Clinton administration 16 years ago.

The latest campaign is being co-ordinated by the same public relations firm that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks by President Bush's campaign against John Kerry in the 2004 election.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/13/advertising-campaign-nhs-us-healthcare-reforms

We spend the MOST and get THE LEAST.

We are paying for single payer healthcare and not getting it.

Private Health Insurance Must Go!

Bloody Hands. Private Insurers make self-interested and arbitrary claim and coverage denials relegating many to premature death.

Restrict Choice. Private Insurers restrict medical consumers’ choice in medical providers, inhibiting the proper function of the free market in medical services and enabling bad providers to thrive.

Adds Complexity. Over 1,200 Private Insurance bureaucracies complicate and impede the practice of medicine with differing and often conflicting billing and administrative policies.

Drains Resources. Nearly 30% of the healthcare spending funneled through health insurance middlemen is wasted on profit taking, underwriting, executive compensation and other unnecessary expense and waste.

Squanders Expertise. Our current health care model diverts providers' attention from "how to heal" to "how to get compensated" by the shameless insurers.

Manipulates the Media. Private Insurers exert a level of editorial control over the media via advertising purchases.

Corrupts Our Politics. Private Insurers manipulate elected officials with campaign donations, plum corporate jobs, and an army of lobbyists.

Brainwashes the Populace. Private Insurers use paid media to lie directly to the populace, leveraging fear tactics and other highly sophisticated propaganda campaigns in order to evade accountability for the consequences of their actions and protect the status quo.

Restricts Debate. Private Insurers’ media and political operatives dishonestly malign genuine reform as “politically infeasible” in order to limit the debate to industry-blessed half measures.

Private Health Insurance Must Go! Reform proposals that do not remove private insurers from our healthcare system are morally unacceptable, fiscally irresponsible, and unsustainable even in the near term. These “mandate and subsidize” proposals are not well meaning attempts at realism by so-called centrists. They are a sinister attempt to marginalize the opportunity our country has at this defining moment to sideline the private insurers and move to a healthcare system that works – publicly funded and privately provided Medicare for all, as implemented in HR 676 – The United States National Health Care Act.

Conservatives for Patients' Rights
:rofl:

Brits have a longer life span. At 68 I'd like a few extra years.

that I don't have to begin with.

Every time some jackass claims they don't want a government bureaucrat making their medical decisions, I answer that I don't want an insurance bureaucrat *who's incentives are to deny me care* making my medical decisions.

"They lose control over their own destiny in the health system," he says in the advert.

Right. Like we have control over our own destinies with the insurance industry. :puke:

of the public option approach. As long as single payer is out there, the opponents of any health care reform will target single payer and confuse the public into thinking that's what Obama's proposal is. Single payer is much easier to defeat than a public option.

Scare tactics like that is "socialism" don't strike fear in people like they used to.

I've only been to the doctor once in the two years that I've lived in the UK, and not for anything serious. However, the fact that there are no bills and that I just walk to the nearest clinic was pretty damned good. I did have to wait a day until the doctor had an open appointment - that happens here, because when people can go see doctors when they need them, doctors are more likely to be booked up. Oh no!! One day!!

It's not as if private health insurance didn't exist in the UK - it does. We also have private hospitals and doctors' offices. People who want to pay the premium price for premium service use them. For the rest of us the NHS is not only a damn sight better than nothing, it's a hell of a lot better than the healthcare that most americans get.

of the horror stories caused by US insurance companies. No use in wasting energy; Michael Moore has a long list. If any of you have not seen Sicko you must watch it. The movie will make you sick of course, so pay your premium before renting it. It is about citizens with insurance and the traumas these paid customers of our health insurers faced. He had calls by the 1000s he could not include. These shysters had better beware; the right ads could number their days.