"Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex" by Robert Parry (6-22-09 Consortium News)

[bobthedrummer]

"The usual knock on government programs is that they're not as efficient as the private sector, which we're told can provide the same product for less money and with higher quality. Thus, it should be no big deal when the public and private collide because the private sector should prevail.

However, in providing health insurance, those rules clearly don't apply, which is why congressional Republicans and so-called "centrist" Democrats are going to such lengths to deny the American people access to a public option on health insurance."

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/062209.html

There MUST BE a public option, that's where I'm at-what are your views on this? Fwiw, just visiting a hospital is one of the leading causes of death in The United States of America. We may be #1 in medical education, but we are currently hostage to our "medical-industrial complex".

[damntexdem]

1. Although run by a horrid bureaucracy, Medicare is much-more efficient than private health insurance.

The real fear of opponents of a public plan is that private health insurance simply cannot compete with a public plan. Far from defending 'the market' in health care, private insurers are very afraid of actually having to compete with a public plan in such a market. The reality is that both 'the market' and 'the horrors of government bureaucracy' are facades meant to hide the consolidation of health care and its coverage into a huge private bureaucracies.

[glitch]

2. K & R "consolidation of health care and its coverage into a huge private bureaucracies" nt

:scared:

[nightrain]

3. true enough... so what added value will a public option bring to

ending the medical industrial complex? Not much if the health insurance corporations are still out there.

[wroberts189]

4. Excellent point that needs to be made more:

"The usual knock on government programs is that they're not as efficient as the private sector, which we're told can provide the same product for less money and with higher quality. Thus, it should be no big deal when the public and private collide because the private sector should prevail.

However, in providing health insurance, those rules clearly don't apply, which is why congressional Republicans and so-called "centrist" Democrats are going to such lengths to deny the American people access to a public option on health insurance."

knr