Bill Maher: "The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism"

[Better Believe It]

New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit
by Bill Maher
Huffington Post
July 24, 2009


It wasn't that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.

But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.

Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.

When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/24-8

[Larkspur]

1. Regarding Maher's comment about the firemen, Bob Newthart

already did a skit on what a privatized fire department would act like and that was done about 30 years ago but it would fit right in today.

[progressoid]

3. And 30 yrs later we're still fighting that faux argument about socialism

makes ya wanna :banghead:

[ProSense]

2. So glad Maher clarified that. This will do one of two things:

help Obama or be completely irrelevant.

[applegrove]

4. I usually love New Rules but this one was over the top in how educational it is.

[Vidar]

5. I'm not a Mahr fan, but he's right on this.

[earth mom]

6. "soulless vampire bastards making money off of human pain"

Yep, that about sums those fuckers up.

Go Bill! :thumbsup: