You didn’t see “a commercial against health care.” I doubt any such commercial exists (“Don’t go to the doctor, people! Or dentists either!”).
You saw a commercial against single-payer government provided health insurance.
The conflation of “health insurance” with “health care” really irks me.
Of course, Obama’s plan is a government-provided health insurance plan which allows you to get private insurance if you want to. Whether or not that’s how the final plan that comes out of Congress will look is an open question. But my reading leads me to believe that the major issues up for debate are whether or not there will be a mandate and whether or not there will be a public health insurance plan available to choose from. Nobody seems to be seriously proposing government-provided health care to the general public.
Of course, we already have government-provided health care in the form of publicly-owned hospitals, which I think most jurisdictions in the US have some form of or other.
Yes, it also irks me that the policies and price points of large, for profit companies, legally enforced courtesy their cadre of lobbyists and their staggering donations to legislators, have created a barrier rather than open access for 1 in 6 Americans to receive proper, regular, quality health care.
Oh wait, that’s not what you meant.
I’ve lived in the U.S. for 4 years now and I will never ever understand people who are against public healthcare. All those lies about socialized healthcare they feed people with. It makes me sick. Back home I would have constant care if I needed it. I would have free preventive medicine, very low cost or free care in hospitals and doctor’s offices. Europeans don’t know such non-sense as pre-existing conditions because if any insurance even tried, they would face a lawsuit. I’ve never been denied a test or a treatment. I’ve scheduled operations and waited a month because it was far from urgent (and didn’t pay a penny!!!). Urgent matters are dealt with immediatelly. I hear this ridiculous argument from Americans all the time “but the quality will be worse”. Bulls**t! I come from the Czech Republic which is, for many Americans, a third world country (yes, I was told that!). My country has one of the highest rates for fast response to heart-related problems and saved lives. I could give tons of examples to prove that socialized medicine does not mean worse care. It means better care because it is not driven by hungry insurance companies and ridiculous profit. It’s also not really controlled by government. Insurance companies still compete amongst each other to get more people enrolled. Government does not deny health treatment. How do they come up with these things?! I’ll tell you what is different. Since it’s not drived by profit only, hospitals don’t look as nice as in America. We don’t have marble on the floor and we share rooms in hospitals. On the other hand, if you do want to have your own room or marble on the floor, you can get it. Just pay a little bit more because it is available. We don’t know such thing as sick days or using vacation time to be sick at home. If we’re sick, we stay at home as long as it’s necessary. Higher taxes? Just add up how much you pay for your premiums, doctor’s visits, prescription medicines or treatments. What portion of your salary goes to pay for all this? They scare you constantly because they don’t want you to know that you’re getting ripped off. It’s shameful how many millions don’t even have health insurance. Wake up, people. They’ve been feeding you lies for decades. Just watch the news and you’ll see that you’ve been isolated from the rest of the world because they don’t want you to know anything.
Your unsupported anecdotes about European healthcare systems are not valid evidence. Valid evidence consists of unsupported assertions that VA hospitals are bad and the government can’t do anything right.
So you hush up with your talking now, and we’ll go on believing what the Conservatives for Patients’ Rights tell us. After all, we know they’re on our side (unlike suspect and probably socialist foreigners such as yourself), because they support our rights: it says so right there in their name.
This is true. However, anti-single-payer conservatives definitely seem to be doing the lion’s share of the lying just now.
That guy promoting the Conservatives for Patient Rights commercials is the same guy who got Columbia/HCA in legal trouble many years ago by ripping off Medicare for millions (billions?). He now runs a bunch of walk-in clinics in Florida. I’m not sure what his group is opposed to (or promoting) but if he’s agaist it, he’s probably afraid it will affect his wallet, and not “the people”.
So that’s an argument against government taking care of anything, rather than an argument towards strongarming the gov. into improving VA. Gotcha.
I’m old enough to remember the anti-Medicare scare ads from the early '60s. It never ends.
And I think I’ve seen an ad, a while back, with the characters from the anti-Clinton ads co-opted in support of UHC.
I live in Detroit and have Canadians in the family. None of them would trade even for our system. They act like I am crazy when I ask them.
They were doing laser surgery on eyes way before us. A lot of Americans went to Windsor to get the latest and greatest. They were way ahead of us on hernia surgeries. A lot of Michiganders go there for prescriptions.
Our system makes a ton of money and has strong political power. They will fight dirty to keep the money rolling in.