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More Health Care Reform Scare Tactics: A 30-Minute Infomercial |
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Sunday, the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights—the extremists trying to sink President Obama’s health care reform efforts—bought 30 minutes of Sunday morning network talk show airtime for a so-called documentary.
In reality, it was a paid infomercial featuring “horror stories” about the Canadian and British health care systems and warning us the U.S. government is about to take over health care here. The production values may have been high, but the truth factor was zilch.
Of course, that should not come as too much of a surprise when the well-paid hack behind the outfit is Rick Scott, who has a $5 million stake in the group’s drive to derail health care reform, according to the Washington Post.
Our friends at Think Progress have struck back with their own video—and a detailed fact sheet—highlighting Scott’s history with Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America and his effort to take down health care reform.
Scott who, according to Think Progress, was forced to resign following a scandal-plagued tenure at Columbia/HCA,
is actually credited with transforming the American health care system into the profit-above-all-else culture that is currently plaguing America.
Rick Scott is not only known for his efforts to build the “McDonald’s” of the health care industry, but his company was also forced to pay a $1.7 billion fraud settlement, the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, for systematically stealing from taxpayers.
Scott’s attack on health care reform is just part of an increasingly desperate effort by extremist and conservative groups and segments of the health care and private, for-profit health insurance industries to preserve their profits and control. The Think Progress video poses this question.
Now that we know what his vision for our health care system looks like, the question is—will the public buy what Rick Scott is selling? Will we let him block efforts to provide access to all Americans, and give more choice and stability to those who already have health care? Or will we let Rick Scott impose his profits-at-all-costs vision of health care on America once again—and do nothing to fix the high costs and instability that are causing hardship for millions of hard-working Americans?
Click here for the video and fact sheet.
4 Comments
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My husband has many cousins in Norway who told us about their medical system. It is a one payer system that works very well because they don’t have the three bloodsuckers that will torpedo any US system: the pharmacy companies, the HMOs that siphon off 35% off the top for themselves and the malpractice lawyers. After spending some time there, we noticed that the people definitely looked much healthier than most Americans. They are strongly into prevention and the responsibility of taking care of their own health instead of depending on expensive prescriptions to repair years of neglect. He became ill while we were there and we went to a clinic in the town. Cost? Less than $20.00. No prescriptions, it was a virus and the doctor told us it would run its course in a day or two. Two days later he was fine and we continued the trip.
When we compared tax rates we paid in the US against the taxes they paid (which covered their medical insurance and free education through college) we were paying more for a lot less….Their taxes came mostly in one deduction, we had a whole page list of all the taxes and fees that we paid on a daily basis.
Smart people would look at what works for other countries and copy that, instead of letting big money ruin it for all but a few people!
Funny you should mention the Swedish Health Care system. I was just doing a search for the wealthiest person in the world, and it is no longer Bill Gates, it is the owner of IKEA, (yea, I forget his name)
I watched that video, then I watched the video put up by SEIU showing Fox News of all networks taking that guy to task, He claimed he did no wrong, and was convicted of no crime, and the Fox Announcer asked him 3 times what about the Federal Fraud conviction with the $1.7Billion settlement… He never replied to her questions about that at all! And after reading the Comments Pro his video, one was a guy seemed to be on his payroll, the other was a 26 year old guy in Poland…
Go to NRP, click Morning Edition, this poor lady in Canada was involved in a serious car accident (hit head on by a drunk driver), when asked what the cost of her hospitalization and rehabbing was, she said it was $0. She married and moved to California, tried to purchase health insurance, and was DENIED because of her pre-existing condition. The greed dogs of the HC industry saw her as a liability, not a human being. Shame on them, why is Obama including them in the “reform” of health care?