Barack Obama Weekly Address: Health Insurance Reform, Small Business and Your Questions

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Single-Payer Healthcare Gets a Vote

by David Swanson

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D., New York) has introduced an amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee that would replace the convoluted please-the-public-and-the-insurance-companies-at-the-same-time healthcare bill with the single-payer plan found in HR 676 and backed by 86 members of Congress. The vote has been delayed beyond Wednesday, support for the measure is growing, people are phoning in constantly, and a whip count is being kept online.

An amendment introduced by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D, Ohio) was passed last week by the House Education and Labor Committee that will allow states to create single-payer systems if the federal government does not. So, if Weiner’s amendment fails, we could still achieve single-payer state by state, and eventually nationally, if we are able to persuade congressional leadership not to strip Kucinich’s amendment out behind the closed doors of a conference committee.

But it is entirely possible that Weiner’s amendment will pass, and even if it does not pass the support it musters will nonetheless serve to improve the bill and maintain a useful public option. Weiner is a supporter of the existing bill and the public option, but clearly sees a value in pushing for something better both as a bargaining position and as an attempt to achieve a solution that we can be more confident would really solve our healthcare crisis. Weiner’s column in the Politico today is worth reading in its entirety. After reading that, please come back here and watch this video of Weiner addressing the concerns of Republicans in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

While Weiner doesn’t say this, I will: Everybody now knows that Republicans will oppose any healthcare bill. Worsening a bill in order to win over a few of them provides not a single person with better healthcare. Republicans are not needed and have nothing to add. But of course to pass healthcare reform you do have to win over all of the Democrats. And are you more likely to do that with a bill that wastes public dollars on an inefficient for-profit system, or with a bill like HR 676 that guarantees significant savings? While HR 676 is an approach that forces congress members to go against the wishes of health insurance and drug companies, the mixed-bad approach allows legitimate criticism of wasting money, and the insurance and drug companies still hate it.

Whichever approach you favor, we’re going to be better off with a significant show of support for single-payer. With it, a useful public option becomes a compromise. Without it, the compromise to win over the worst Democrats has to begin with the current bill and move down from there. So keep the phones ringing.

Americans consistently tell pollsters that they want single-payer. And this is true in Blue Dog districts and Republican districts too. Single-payer is not a tough sell with the public, only with certain Congress members.

Other nations that have public health coverage (government spending on private or public healthcare) provide their people with better care. The U.S. system is ranked 37th by the World Health Organization. The United States is 24th in life expectancy and 29th in reducing infant mortality. Infants who do not survive the U.S. system do not get a chance to enjoy the free market and glory in the absence of socialism.

A single-payer system would cover everyone at all times with no exceptions, allow completely free choice of doctors, invest in preventive care, allow patients and doctors to make their own decisions free of insurance company restrictions, reduce the 30 percent waste in the current system to the 3 percent overhead in Medicare, and create a net gain of 2.6 million jobs, $317 billion in business revenue, and $100 billion in wages. Single-payer is a real economic stimulus, something Washington has been looking for in all the wrong places. Imagine being able to make that argument. We can if we pass Congressman Weiner’s amendment.

Source: The LA Progressive

Keep calling your reps and especially those on the House Energy & Commerce Committee (E&C)and tell them you want a single payer health care plan like Expanded and Improved Medicare for All - HR-676.

Waxman Prepared to Bypass His Own Committee for Sake of Health Care Bill

Faced with continued opposition from conservative Democrats on his House Committee on Energy and Commerce, committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., today threatened to take his own committee out of the process of crafting a final health care reform bill for a vote in the House of Representatives, angering members of the Blue Dog (Democratic) Coalition. A week after two other House committees passed the bill that Waxman had negotiated with Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Ways and Means committee, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the Education and Labor committee, the Blue Dogs continued to hold up passage of a bill in Energy and Commerce, citing 10 provisions with which they took issue.

So Waxman threatened to take his committee out of the bill-crafting process altogether, so that the House could move forward to vote on the bill as already passed in the other two committees.

It's a brilliant tactical move, and one that few committee chairmen would dare to take -- to win by threatenting to render one's own committee irrelevant to the process. But Waxman clearly saw the Blue Dogs as being in league with Republicans who are looking to scuttle health care reform altogether. "I won't allow them to hand over control of our committee to Republicans," Waxman said, according to Ian Swanson and Mike Soraghan of The Hill. "I don’t see what other alternative we have, because we're not going to let them empower Republicans on the committee."

Read it all at AlterNet

Not pushing Single Payer is hurting Obama's health care reform agenda

By Dave Hornstein

As President Barack Obama seeks to reform the broken American health care system, his failure to push Single Payer as the solution has made achieving reform a more difficult process.

That is because Single Payer makes the issue far more clear-cut. As president, Obama should have been using the bully pulpit of the White House to educate Americans on how the insurance industry piles up huge profits from a dysfunctional system. When an average of 30 percent of the health care money going to private insurers goes to overhead, compared to four percent for Medicare, and when every other industrialized country has achieved universal health care coverage when spending far less per capita than the U.S., the facts are already there. Single Payer offers the best coverage at the least cost.

But instead Obama wants a public health insurance option to compete with private insurers, while tightening regulations on insurance companies to produce such reforms as limiting a person's out of pocket costs and banning denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. This has resulted in bills in Congress that are at times complicated and confusing. Under such circumstances, it can be difficult for the public to make head or tail out of what's going on, and support for reform can erode.

To a good extent, Obama has failed to learn the lessons from what happened to former President Bill Clinton's health care reform effort in 1993. Like Obama, Clinton didn't go for Single Payer, instead proposing a system of managed competition for private insurers. Then, as now, the insurance companies had no intention of changing the way they do business, and the complicated and confusing managed competition proposal died.

Republicans often get their way politically by demonizing their opponents, but Democrats are usually reluctant to do so. Probably no one likes insurance companies other than the politicians of both parties who have been bribed by them with campaign contributions.

While failing to demonize the insurance companies, Obama is right to want health care reform enacted as soon as possible. Delay only means defeat, and there is no point in waiting until after the 2010 midterm elections, as some have suggested. In the 1994 midterm elections, Republicans took over both houses of Congress, and health care reform was killed for the next decade.

Whatever happens, the public health insurance option must remain non-negotiable. It could well evolve into Single Payer if private insurers can't compete profitably against it. Another part of the health care reform proposal that should remain intact is progressively funding it through increased taxes on those making more than $350,000 a year.

Source

Kucinich Keeps Single-Payer Alive

The congressional health care reform bill, H.R. 3200, now contains the Kucinich amendment thus keeping hope alive for a single-payer system.

Two weeks ago, Dennis Kucinich proposed an amendment to the healthcare reform bill that keeps the single-payer option alive. Kucinich's amendment will permit states the power to introduce single-payer health care systems.

Importantly, Kucinich's amendment drew bipartisan support by uniting proponents of single-payer health care with states rights advocates, and it is now the crucial part of the landmark bill that is due to be voted on by the end of this month.

For years, Dennis Kucinich has been a leading advocate of single-payer health care. John Conyers and Dennis Kucinch co-authored the single-payer bill, H.R. 676, a landmark piece of legislation that has 85 co-sponsors.

America is the sole western democracy that does not have a single-payer system. Some nations in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America have single-payer health care systems.

Read it all at Huffington Post

Watch an interview with Kucinich at Democracy Now:


Interview Transcript

The Stakes of the Healthcare Battle

by Christopher Hayes

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, I think it's incredibly important for anyone even vaguely on the center-left to understand what's at stake in this healthcare fight. Talking to an immigration reform activist a few weeks ago he described healthcare reform as the "front end of the wedge. If we can't get that through, forget immigration reform." That's true for pretty much every other item on the left's agenda. Jim DeMint was speaking the truth.

Since Washington lives on drama, and the 24 hour news cycle exacerbates that tendency, it's very easy to lose perspective. But this letter from a reader at TPM summed up how I'm feeling pretty well:

if this country cannot pass a bill which insures that every citizen has access to medical care, which every developed country has managed to do (and got done many many years ago), there is something very fundamentally and structurally wrong with this country.

Such an event, in my mind, would confirm that we live with a completely corrupt and dysfunctional form of government. Forty nine states, each with bicameral legislative bodies, some of which have distinguished themselves recently with unabashed levels of incompetency and cluelessness. Then, graft a federal government over that, which is also bicameral, the non-representative portion of it being filled with officials who are certifiable morons and/or who are bought and sold like whores by wealthy contributors.

Talk about a Waterloo.

This is a defining moment in our history. Do we fulfill our supposed status as a "shining city on a hill" or continue our long slow decline into a second rate oligarchy?

The defining feature of this decade thus far has been elite failure and oligarchic corruption. If there's going to be a pivot onto a new path of progress this is it.

Source: The Nation

Urgency of public option: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ sued for engaging in "life threatening business practices"

Press Release:

Bayonne Hospital Center and Hospital Patient File Federal Lawsuit to Protect Bayonne, New Jersey Residents From Life-Threatening Business Practices of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ

Suit Charges Horizon with Systematic Attack on Emergency Care in Quest for Profit

BAYONNE, NJ, JULY 22, 2009—Bayonne Hospital Center (BHC)—the only hospital in the medically
underserved working class community of Bayonne, NJ—today announced it has filed a federal lawsuit against
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon), the largest provider of health insurance in the state. The
lawsuit was filed in an effort to halt Horizon’s illegal, fraudulent, egregious and unethical business practices which
are endangering the lives of the citizens of New Jersey and threatening Bayonne Hospital Center’s financial
viability, all in the name of boosting its own bottom line and prospects for an initial public offering.

Horizon’s practices and activities include, among other things: a systematic campaign of intimidating patients into
abandoning emergency care at BHC that is already underway, including calls to patients and the sending of couriers
to instruct patients to leave the hospital while still in the midst of emergency treatment; egregious and arbitrary
denials of coverage and claims for emergency care at BHC; and constant efforts to under-compensate the only
emergency care option in the Bayonne community, a hospital just rescued from bankruptcy.

The complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey provides a detailed account of
Horizon’s business practices which run counter to the insurer’s contractual duties to its customers, its obligations
under state law and its stated commitment to the interest of public health. Some of the most offensive Horizon
practices detailed in the complaint include:

• A systematic campaign discouraging patients from seeking emergency care at BHC despite it being the
closest and safest option for urgent care for the residents of Bayonne
• Intimidation of patients by threatening denial of coverage if they seek treatment at BHC
• Interference with care by sending couriers to BHC to tell patients undergoing medically necessary
treatments to leave BHC and seek care at a hospital that is “in network”
• Indefensible denial of claims, often while the patient is still undergoing care
• Unilateral determinations by Horizon bureaucrats that emergency room patients are medically stable
enough to be discharged to home or transferred to other in-network facilities without consulting the
patient's attending physician

The complaint not only details Horizon’s atrocious behavior and policies with BHC, but also exposes Horizon’s
multi-billion dollar financial success at a time when New Jersey’s hospitals cannot afford to provide healthcare to
the communities which they serve. The complaint also reveals Horizon’s gold-plated executive compensation
packages and its publicly stated plans for conversion to a “for profit” entity and initial public offering.
Joining the suit as a plaintiff is Dr. John Godinsky, a Horizon customer who was admitted to Bayonne Hospital
Center through its emergency room for atrial fibrillation (irregular and often rapid heart rhythm). While still in the
hospital, Horizon contacted Dr. Godinsky and Bayonne administration to inform him his stay was being denied
based on what Horizon erroneously claimed was a pre-existing condition. Against the advice of his attending
physicians, Dr. Godinsky left the hospital fearing the large financial obligation associated with the uncovered stay.
Given the cavalier manner in which Horizon attempts to steamroll hospitals into accepting grossly inadequate
reimbursement rates and payment policies, it should come as no surprise that approximately half of the hospitals in
New Jersey are losing money. Perhaps even less surprising is the fact that Horizon is petitioning to become a “for
profit” entity, clearing the way for an initial public offering and a big payday for its executives.

Commenting on today’s announcement was Daniel Kane, CEO of Bayonne Hospital Center who said, “Ultimately,
Horizon’s attacks are not on hospitals but on the communities they serve. Their relentless assault on patients,
doctors and hospitals for the sake of their own profits is a prime reason that New Jersey ranks last in the country for
emergency rooms per capita. Neither this hospital nor the people of Bayonne will be bullied by Horizon. BHC filed
this case to fight for patients’ rights for quality health care and hopes that other hospitals will do the same in their
conflicts with Horizon.”

A copy of the complaint can be found online at www.BayonneMedicalCenter.org
Bayonne patients with questions about their insurance being accepted at the hospital should call their Insurance
Hotline at 201-858-7342.

About Bayonne Hospital Center
Established in 1888, Bayonne Hospital Center is a 278-bed, fully accredited, award-winning acute-care hospital
located in Hudson County. Since opening its doors more than a century ago, it has been committed to providing
quality, comprehensive, community-based healthcare services to more than 70,000 people annually. With its finger
on the pulse of the community, Bayonne Hospital Center continually develops new and expanded services to meet
the changing needs of the people it serves. For more information about Bayonne Hospital Center, visit the hospital
online at www.BayonneMedicalCenter.org

More on this at Daily Kos

The Black-White Fallacy of Public Option

by Kevin Lynn

The Black–White Fallacy as defined by the New World Encyclopedia is the presentation of “only” two choices, with the product or idea being propagated as the better choice (for example, you can have an unhealthy, unreliable engine, or you can use brand X oil.) So after all the years of clamoring for reform we have now in front of us two choices when it comes to deciding the future of how healthcare will be paid for and delivered in this country.

You can see now why Montana Senator Max Baucus worked so fervently to ensure Single Payer didn’t have a place at the table. For the ploy to work there can only be "Brand X" and a "Brand Y" that is framed through the use of clever neuro-associations as the bad choice. But try as they may, they will not succeed. They won’t succeed not because the American people aren’t stupid enough to be duped – sadly, we are. The reason they won’t succeed is because the more the citizens of this country learn about Single Payer, the more they like it.

Right now millions of progressives across the country are in a bit of a quandary. On one hand they understand the benefits of a Single Payer system, but on the other, Dr./Governor Howard Dean is steering them to Brand X. I was in a bit of a quandary myself. There is a lot I respect and admire about Howard Dean but I am not about sacrifice my principles for him.

If in his estimate we cannot get from Congress the best health insurance system possible, then it is probably too corrupt a Congress to even attempt to pass any kind of healthcare reform. Perhaps the priority should not be reforming our healthcare system but reforming the way we finance our political campaigns. After all, if we really had our priorities straight wouldn’t we expect to first pass the “reform that makes all other reforms possible!” I bet Single Payer would have a place at the table if it were taxpayer money funding Senator Bacchus’s campaigns and not the insurance industry.

Read it all at The LA Progressive

I think we are now seeing the problems with taking Single Payer off the table - the Senate has made things so complicated they can't get agreement on a bill before the August recess.

My fear is that the public option is the compromise from single payer - but the Dems are making their plans so complicated, they will scare the public and reform will fail. A simple, sustainable Single Payer plan or just opening Medicare for enrollment regardless of age as a public option - are easily understood solutions to our current health care crisis. Unless you are worried about protecting health insurance profits.

Understandably, given the current economy and unemployment numbers, transforming the current health insurance industry could be a very scary political position. However, Conyer's single payer bill, HR-676, provides for transition time, job retraining where needed and assumes that many employees would be able to find work in the govt. system as it was expanded. A good number would stay where they are and continue to service supplemental insurance plans for those who could afford and wanted them.

Personally, I am still pushing for single payer. I don't see how anything else solves all the problems we are facing and is sustainable for the long term.

To Hell With The Blue Dogs: Let Pelosi And Dems Know It!

BLUE DOGS’S NEGOTIATING LIST. Here’s what the conservative Dems are negotiating with leadership, according to a document obtained by the PULSE:

--Effectively bend the cost curve
--Realign incentives to reward high quality, efficient health care; include value-based purchasing, value index, innovation center for Medicare and Medicaid, and other delivery system reforms
--Increase small business exemption and adjust for inflation
--Address end-of-life care
--Adjust the value and cost of subsidy levels
-- Provide affordability credits on a sliding scale from 100-300 percent FPL
-- Public option must negotiate rates with providers, provide greater clarity on opt out, compete on a level playing field, and be available as a fallback
--Establish consumer-driven, state-based co-ops
--Create state-based exchanges with a federal fallback
--Maintain current state-federal partnership with Medicaid, while implementing reforms that increase its value and effectiveness

Read it all - along with Action Items - here.

Lewin Group Research Firm Cited by GOP Is Owned by Health Insurer

By David S. Hilzenrath

The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.

To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."

Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.

More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association, a physician's group, of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.

In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994.

More at washingtonpost.com

Health Insurance Lobby Cherry-Picks Data in Fight Against Public Plan

By David S. Hilzenrath
Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The industry that helped scuttle health reform 15 years ago with its "Harry and Louise" ads is back, voicing support for a central element of the Obama administration's plans: making sure everyone is covered.

That does not mean the industry is backing the administration. Indeed, the leader of the insurance lobby has sent lawmakers a message: Be careful what you change, because "77 percent of Americans are satisfied with their existing health insurance coverage."

Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), invoked the statistic to argue against the creation of a government-run insurance option. But the polls are not that simple, and her assertion reveals how the industry's effort to defend its turf has led it to cherry-pick the facts.

The poll Ignagni was citing actually undercuts her position: By 72 to 20 percent, Americans favor the creation of a public plan, the June survey by the New York Times and CBS News found. People also said that they thought government would do a better job than private insurers of holding down health-care costs and providing coverage.

In addition, data from a Kaiser Family Foundation poll last year, compiled at the request of The Washington Post, suggest that the people who like their health plans the most are the people who use them the least.

Those who described their health as "excellent" -- people who presumably had relatively little experience pursuing medical care or submitting claims -- were almost twice as likely as those in good, fair or poor health to rate their private health insurance as excellent.

The level of satisfaction expressed with private insurance was essentially the same as that with Medicare, the government program for the elderly and disabled.

The industry's stance against a public health plan revives shades of 1994, when it was instrumental in blocking President Bill Clinton's health-care proposals.

"A government-run plan would turn back the clock on efforts to improve the quality and safety of patient care," AHIP has argued. Such a plan "will ultimately limit choices and access," the big insurer WellPoint contends.

But systemic problems have persisted for 15 years, and it is not clear how much private insurers have done, or can do, to solve them.

"Insurers promise choice, they promise innovation, they promise a lot of things, but I think they've delivered very little," said Alan Sager, professor of health policy and management at Boston University. "I think net they give us very bad value for the 10 to 20 percent share of the health dollar they skim off the top."

Instead of choice, they offer "the illusion of choice," he said.

Health-care costs have continued to rise faster than personal incomes and economic growth. Even the industry agrees that much of the spending is wasted, exposing patients to unnecessary risk.

Insurers argue that a government plan could dominate the market, reducing consumers' options. But in the private market, options are limited by employers who restrict employees' choice of insurers and by insurers who restrict their choice of doctors.

Cigna, one of the nation's largest insurers, took away its own employees' alternatives in 2006 and left them with only high-deductible coverage.

"There were a lot of unhappy people," said Wendell Potter, who until last year was Cigna's head of corporate communications. For many people enrolled in such plans, "the deductibles are so high that they forgo care," he said.

Long a defender of the industry, Potter has become an outspoken critic of what he calls its "duplicitous" public relations and lobbying campaigns.

Few people have a better vantage point on the industry's efforts to improve quality and efficiency than Joseph P. Newhouse, professor of health policy and management at Harvard University, editor of the Journal of Health Economics and member of the board of insurance giant Aetna. Asked what results the industry's innovations have yielded, Newhouse said: "It's just very difficult to give much of an evidence-based answer to those questions . . . in either direction."

With respect to the disease-management programs the industry touts -- efforts to make sure people with chronic illnesses get the care they need -- "by and large, the literature suggests it works in some cases, but those cases are fairly limited," he said.

AHIP has produced a stack of glossy reports describing health insurers' efforts to improve care. In recent testimony, Ignagni said private health plans serving the elderly have been highly successful in reducing hospital admissions and readmissions for patients with diabetes and heart disease.

Yet one of the AHIP reports says that in an Aetna Pathways to Excellence hospital incentive program, "readmission rates did not improve significantly."

Opponents of a public option argue that it could put government bureaucrats between patients and doctors. Today, for people with commercial or employer-sponsored coverage, care is overseen by private bureaucracies. Where government bureaucracies answer to the body politic, the corporate versions answer to Wall Street.

The issue of whether a public plan would be more successful at bringing costs under control is harder to evaluate. As a prototype for government-run health care, Medicare has failed to control costs and makes little effort to restrict care.

Economists generally agree that if costs are to be brought under control, someone must say no to care that doctors propose and patients demand. So far, that role has fallen primarily to insurers.

"Private insurers have effectively engaged in rationing, so they're doing the dirty work for everybody else," said Jeff D. Emerson, a former health plan chief executive. "It's a thankless job . . . but somebody has to do it or health care will be even more expensive than it is now."

Private insurers might be better situated than the government to do the unpopular work of saying no, said Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, because they are less susceptible to political pressure.

Source: washingtonpost.com

Dr. Aaron Carroll discussing Single Payer on the Colbert Report - July 21, 2009

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Aaron Carroll
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

Source: ColbertNation.com

Prescription for Change: Videos

Watch 100 videos telling the stories of the real-life challenges Americans face getting affordable, quality health care - Prescription for Change: Videos

Lewis Black destroys GOP talking points on health care

Transcript

I've always had a great health care plan; I plan to someday care about my health. But I was all ready to support president Obama's health care reform until I saw these incredibly convincing arguments against it.

[House GOoP video]: 1 in 5 people have to die because they went to socialized medicine.

I've got bad news for you: 5 out of 5 people are going to die anyway. Now, I know that's supposed to scare me, but all I heard was socialized medicine means less traffic. Now, back when Clinton tried to reform healthcare, I learned to reject it from commercials.

[Harry and Louise Ad]

Who needs health care reform when you're so in love that you finish your partner's [gazes at Jon]

Stewart: What?

Black: Sentences! The word was sentences, dammit! It's like you don't even know me anymore! That's it...I'm staying at my sister's tonight!

The problem is a personal one for Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell

[McWeasel video]: I had a friend in Florida who had a friend in Canada that died because the government decided he was too old for a certain kind of procedure.

Your anti-health care anecdote is a friend of a friend? That's not even enough proof for an urban legend. I have a friend of friend who brought home a dog back from Mexico. Then he shaved it. It turns out, someone had stolen his kidney and replaced it with a polaroid of my toothbrush up Richard Gere's ass. Go figure! If you can't give me any evidence, then at least do the honorable thing and confuse me.

[1994 stylee flowchart video]

I'm so glad I don't have insurance, because that road map seems like a huge pain in the ass, which by the way, I've been suffering from for over 15 years. Should your ass bleed when you sneeze? I just admitted I have a pre-existing condition! Gosh...I'm so tired of all this health care talk and I know I'm not the only one. Noonan?

[Peggy Noonan video]: When I was a kid growing up, we never talked about health care. Why did America become obsessed with health care the past 20 years or so?

You're not fooling anyone, lady! You weren't a kid 20 years ago. When you were growing up, people didn't talk about health care because they thought that they got sick from witches! But you're right; when I was growing up, we didn't have ads about health care. We had ads like this.

[dancing cigarette video]

That was my Spongebob. And he could have taught me to dance or smoke. Believe it or not, I chose dance.

Words You Won't Hear in Canadian Health Care

Words you'll never hear in the Canadian health care system

1. "Out of network"
There are no "networks" in Canada. Doctors and hospitals are not affiliated with private insurance companies. Doctors are private business entities and hospitals are usually run by non-profit boards or regional health associations.

2. "COBRA"
Health coverage is NOT tied to your place of employment in any way. So any COBRA-like scheme is unnecessary.

3. "Co-Pay"
The government pays 100% of basic care, 100% of the time. Drugs are not covered, but are subsidized by government to a point. And because of mass buys, discounts are obtained from the drug companies. That's why our prices are so much lower. Most employers offer a drug plan that pays for 100% of drug cost coverage.

4. "monthly premium\deductible"
Wazzat? We don't consider our health to be the same as our possessions.

5. "waiting for approval"
Doctors are the sole decision makers for health care. NOBODY influences or delays their decisions, warns them of costs or prevents them from giving treatment for any reason.

6. "Government interference"
The provincial government in each province PAYS for whatever services doctors provide. No questions asked. Unless the procedure is experimental, not medically necessary or unwarranted, doctors cannot deny basic care - by law.

7. "Health insurance lobby"
There are NO insurance companies for basic care, only companies for providing insurance for travelers. No money to be made here.

8. "bureaucracy"
When we visit a hospital or doctor's office, we walk in, get treated, walk out. No "applications", "registrations" or any other kind of paperwork is required. We NEVER have to talk to a single "government official" or wait for a "judgment".

9. "PRE-EXISTING CONDITION"
This is such a foreign concept to us. A Canadian's usual reaction to the explanation of this term is astonishment.

10. "rescission"
Your health insurance won't be cancelled when you need it most, i.e., when you get sick. That's the whole point of having insurance, isn't it?

11. "individual rates"
There are no individual rates based on your age or medical status. The premium for everyone in a provincial plan is the same.

12. "uninsurable"
No one is uninsured or uninsurable. Everyone is covered.

13. "profit"
There's no private insurance companies offering coverage for primary medical care, so there's no question of profit, no corporate bottom lines to incentivize screwing people out of the medical care they need.

Read it all