Brock Lesnar: Canadian Health Care System is from the Third World

[The True Adonis]

I told you not to try to bring up shit you know nothing about.....I have been to Robbinsville many times.....the actual town of Robbinsville doesn't have a hospital, but there are 3 within 20 miles.....Murphy, Bryson City and Andrews....not to mention Sylva and Franklin...."no access to medical care" is total bullshit.  And using the "remained there" is idiotic....you could say the same thing about many suburbs of big cities that don't have their own hospital and people have to commute 30 minutes to a hospital.

As for Hiddenite you have Alexander, Iredell and Caldwell within a half hour drive.

And all of these towns have plenty of physicians and access to adequate medical care.

And I notice you didn't have anything to say about the hospital on the Cherokee reservation, that the govt runs, and is so bad the people in the tribe travel to Bryson City, Sylva and Waynesville to get care......and pay for it, even though your lovely govt care would be free.

Uh, the distances were about the same for Brock Lesnar in Canada.  So you did nothing to validate your position at all.

If you had what Brock Lesnar had and remained in Hiddenite or Robbinsville, you would die.  You even confirmed what I already knew in that neither city had a hospital nor are they equipped for any type of emergency service.

[The Showstoppa]

Uh, the distances were about the same for Brock Lesnar in Canada.  So you did nothing to validate your position at all.

If you had what Brock Lesnar had and remained in Hiddenite or Robbinsville, you would die.  You even confirmed what I already knew in that neither city had a hospital nor are they equipped for any type of emergency service.

I don't care about Lesnar.....what I was saying is that you can expect to travel 20 or 30 minutes to hospital for surgery, and even in very serious cases, such as being airlifted.  MANY hospitals, including larger ones aren't capable of handling every situation that arises.  And besides, the whole point is that the situation would not be made better by Obama's proposed plan.....like I've mentioned a couple of times, the govt run hospital in Cherokee is one of the worst in WNC.  There is no reason to think a govt run healthcare system would be any better. 

[The Luke]

.....like I've mentioned a couple of times, the govt run hospital in Cherokee is one of the worst in WNC.  There is no reason to think a govt run healthcare system would be any better. 

The real question would be whether there are any shockingly sub-par hospitals in Canada... whether on Native American reservations or not?


The Luke

[The Showstoppa]

The real question would be whether there are any shockingly sub-par hospitals in Canada... whether on Native American reservations or not?


The Luke

I don't know....do you?  And what people throughout the world fail to realize is that just because a govt run program works in one country, does not mean it will work in the US. I think here we need to look at how well, or badly, out own govt programs operate and decide if we think they are capable of handling it....I personally do not.

[The Luke]

I don't know....do you?  And what people throughout the world fail to realize is that just because a govt run program works in one country, does not mean it will work in the US. I think here we need to look at how well, or badly, out own govt programs operate and decide if we think they are capable of handling it....I personally do not.

Is the current corporation-run system working?

There are 300 million Americans. Fifty million have no insurance cover. Another 50 million can't afford their deductibles/medications if they do get sick.

Of the 200 million with full coverage who seemingly can afford to get sick... approximately half of them are on Medicare (or similar government run system)... of the approx 100 million with private full coverage, about 17 million (one in six) of them will be denied coverage when faced with catastrophic illness (insurers have to make those exorbitant profits right?).

So...
-one third of Americans are unhappy because they can't afford proper coverage
-one third of Americans are unhappy because they are being ripped off for proper coverage
-one third have access to some sort of subsidised socialised government-run plan, and are happy with it

...don't get me wrong, I don't like Obama's blow-job to the insurance companies plan.

But Showstoppa... are you sure you won't be one of the one in six denied coverage?
Are there more than six people in your immediate family? 'Cause chances are...


Rather than attack Obama because he's black/socialist/liberal... maybe Weiner's plan of simply opening up Medicare to everyone would be a better first step?


The Luke

[The True Adonis]

I don't care about Lesnar.....what I was saying is that you can expect to travel 20 or 30 minutes to hospital for surgery, and even in very serious cases, such as being airlifted.  MANY hospitals, including larger ones aren't capable of handling every situation that arises.  And besides, the whole point is that the situation would not be made better by Obama's proposed plan.....like I've mentioned a couple of times, the govt run hospital in Cherokee is one of the worst in WNC.  There is no reason to think a govt run healthcare system would be any better. 

The Indian Reservations are not under Federal Law.  They are merely permitted under Federal Law and governed by Tribal Law.  They are separate from the United States Government.

[The Showstoppa]

Is the current corporation-run system working?

There are 300 million Americans. Fifty million have no insurance cover. Another 50 million can't afford their deductibles/medications if they do get sick.

Of the 200 million with full coverage who seemingly can afford to get sick... approximately half of them are on Medicare (or similar government run system)... of the approx 100 million with private full coverage, about 17 million (one in six) of them will be denied coverage when faced with catastrophic illness (insurers have to make those exorbitant profits right?).

So...
-one third of Americans are unhappy because they can't afford proper coverage
-one third of Americans are unhappy because they are being ripped off for proper coverage
-one third have access to some sort of subsidised socialised government-run plan, and are happy with it

...don't get me wrong, I don't like Obama's blow-job to the insurance companies plan.

But Showstoppa... are you sure you won't be one of the one in six denied coverage?
Are there more than six people in your immediate family? 'Cause chances are...


Rather than attack Obama because he's black/socialist/liberal... maybe Weiner's plan of simply opening up Medicare to everyone would be a better first step?


The Luke

Where did I attack anyone?  And not everybody who disagrees with Obama is a racist....  I would like to see medicare ramped up, but thats not what he is proposing.  Also, the issues with the pharma companies, hospitals and insurance companies all need to be agressively addressed.  Many of the problems could be fixed with stricter oversight, but not by "blowing up" the current system and turning it into a govt run clusterfuck like almost everything else the US govt attempts to do.

[The Showstoppa]

The Indian Reservations are not under Federal Law.  They are merely permitted under Federal Law and governed by Tribal Law.  They are separate from the United States Government.

The Cherokee Indian hospital is a federally owned hospital...

http://www.healthgrades.com/hospital-directory/north-carolina-nc/cherokee-indian-hospital-authority-hgstd2797b36340156

[The Luke]

Many of the problems could be fixed with stricter oversight, but not by "blowing up" the current system and turning it into a govt run clusterfuck like almost everything else the US govt attempts to do.

...this point really piqued my interest.

The idea that corporations would allow or tolerate any oversight that would essentially divest them of obscene amounts of easy profit seems somewhat niave. After so many years of suckling at the teet of their monopoly such corporations now have the money and clout to directly dictate policy. They must be removed before effective reform is possible.

Why do you ASSUME goverment fails when running big social programs?

Maybe we disagree, but I've noticed that government failing is usually the deliberate end result of corporate lobbying/bribery efforts... perhaps this is why so many Americans express this oddly unquestioned assertion that the private sector is intrinsicly more efficient than the state.  

This has never been demonstrated objectively.

Besides, America could very easily adopt an exact copy of one of the functioning universal systems working so well in countries such as France (purportedly the best system in the world).

Just hire the guys running the French system as consultants and do exactly what they tell you. Easy.


The Luke

[The True Adonis]

The Cherokee Indian hospital is a federally owned hospital...

http://www.healthgrades.com/hospital-directory/north-carolina-nc/cherokee-indian-hospital-authority-hgstd2797b36340156

Indian Reservations are not under Federal Law.

[The Showstoppa]

...this point really piqued my interest.

The idea that corporations would allow or tolerate any oversight that would essentially divest them of obscene amounts of easy profit seems somewhat niave. After so many years of suckling at the teet of their monopoly such corporations now have the money and clout to directly dictate policy. They must be removed before effective reform is possible.

Why do you ASSUME goverment fails when running big social programs?

Maybe we disagree, but I've noticed that government failing is usually the deliberate end result of corporate lobbying/bribery efforts... perhaps this is why so many Americans express this oddly unquestioned assertion that the private sector is intrinsicly more efficient than the state.  

This has never been demonstrated objectively.

Besides, America could very easily adopt an exact copy of one of the functioning universal systems working so well in countries such as France (purportedly the best system in the world).

Just hire the guys running the French system as consultants and do exactly what they tell you. Easy.


The Luke

We can adopt all the foreign systems we want, but that is going under the assumption that everything is on equal ground.  That will not occur unless the private sector is completly cut out, which the current proposal does not do.....not even close.  The insurance companies are still going to shaft the public, so why would anyone want to pass something that doesn't really fix the problem?  That is the main point.  Its seems that a certain sector just wants change for the sake of change, not being realistic if it's going to be better in the long run.  Does that make sense?

As for the US govt running social programs.....not sure how much you know about them, but just a few examples of horrible failure are the social security system (won't exist in a few decades because of the govt "borrowing" against it), welfare (abused on a very regular basis) and medicare and medicaid which have been very mismanaged and abused over the years. 

Another issue isn't just govt mismanagement, but the abuse/corruption by the very people it would be intended to help out.  Many are the same ones on welfare, etc.... who abuse that system, so why would we think they are going to do anything different?

[The Luke]

Interesting, but very misguided opinion you seem to have...

We can adopt all the foreign systems we want, but that is going under the assumption that everything is on equal ground.  That will not occur unless the private sector is completly cut out, which the current proposal does not do.....not even close.  The insurance companies are still going to shaft the public, so why would anyone want to pass something that doesn't really fix the problem?  That is the main point.  Its seems that a certain sector just wants change for the sake of change, not being realistic if it's going to be better in the long run.  Does that make sense?

I think you hit the nail on the head right there... private healthcare for profit should be outlawed. It's simply immoral.

As for the US govt running social programs.....not sure how much you know about them, but just a few examples of horrible failure are the social security system (won't exist in a few decades because of the govt "borrowing" against it), welfare (abused on a very regular basis) and medicare and medicaid which have been very mismanaged and abused over the years.

The American Food Stamp program is wildly out of control: one eighth of all Americans (one in four American children) are currently on Food Stamps... JP Morgan run that, for profit.

The American prison system is packed with non-violent drug possession offenders (70ish%) who pose very little threat to society; poor black defendants go to jail much more often and for much longer than white offenders accused of the very same crimes under the same circumstances... that's because private prison corporations have so powerful a lobby that they effectively set judicial policy, for profit.

The American war machine is out of control... Halliburton and Blackwater run that, for profit.

Americans live in a toxic food environment... Big Agri-business (Corn lobby) runs that, for profit... with no consideration of the long term health costs involved.

Medicare and Medicaid are faltering because HMO's lobby for such inefficiency... it keeps them in business.

Even if government was as inexplicably wasteful and disorganised as you Americans like to believe it is (despite a chronic lack of evidence)... even if this was all true... government run programs would STILL be preferable to corporation run systems. 

Another issue isn't just govt mismanagement, but the abuse/corruption by the very people it would be intended to help out.  Many are the same ones on welfare, etc.... who abuse that system, so why would we think they are going to do anything different?

...all the welfare/Medicare/Medicaid fraud suffered by the American taxpayer in a hundred years PALES in comparison to the yearly cost of the current cleptocratic corpocracy.

Get that shit in perspective... it's in the interest of the private corporations bleeding the American taxpayer for hundreds of billions, to convince the populace that minorities grifting the occasional shady dollar is the problem.

Besides... how exactly do these greedy lower classes abuse a free socialised healthcare system?

Do they get TOO healthy?


The Luke 

[Soul Crusher]

Interesting, but very misguided opinion you seem to have...

I think you hit the nail on the head right there... private healthcare for profit should be outlawed. It's simply immoral.

The American Food Stamp program is wildly out of control: one eighth of all Americans (one in four American children) are currently on Food Stamps... JP Morgan run that, for profit.

The American prison system is packed with non-violent drug possession offenders (70ish%) who pose very little threat to society; poor black defendants go to jail much more often and for much longer than white offenders accused of the very same crimes under the same circumstances... that's because private prison corporations have so powerful a lobby that they effectively set judicial policy, for profit.

The American war machine is out of control... Halliburton and Blackwater run that, for profit.

Americans live in a toxic food environment... Big Agri-business (Corn lobby) runs that, for profit... with no consideration of the long term health costs involved.

Medicare and Medicaid are faltering because HMO's lobby for such inefficiency... it keeps them in business.

Even if government was as inexplicably wasteful and disorganised as you Americans like to believe it is (despite a chronic lack of evidence)... even if this was all true... government run programs would STILL be preferable to corporation run systems. 

...all the welfare/Medicare/Medicaid fraud suffered by the American taxpayer in a hundred years PALES in comparison to the yearly cost of the current cleptocratic corpocracy.

Get that shit in perspective... it's in the interest of the private corporations bleeding the American taxpayer for hundreds of billions, to convince the populace that minorities grifting the occasional shady dollar is the problem.

Besides... how exactly do these greedy lower classes abuse a free socialised healthcare system?

Do they get TOO healthy?


The Luke 

Stick with physics bro. 

[The Luke]

Stick with physics bro. 

Yeah... I'm wrong.

I must be, because the Palin-voters "feel" my point of view is faulty... they don't have any numbers to back up their delusional worldview. But they're honest, highly educated people who are immune to corporate media influence... so they must be right. Right?


The Luke

[The Showstoppa]

Interesting, but very misguided opinion you seem to have...

I think you hit the nail on the head right there... private healthcare for profit should be outlawed. It's simply immoral.

The American Food Stamp program is wildly out of control: one eighth of all Americans (one in four American children) are currently on Food Stamps... JP Morgan run that, for profit.

The American prison system is packed with non-violent drug possession offenders (70ish%) who pose very little threat to society; poor black defendants go to jail much more often and for much longer than white offenders accused of the very same crimes under the same circumstances... that's because private prison corporations have so powerful a lobby that they effectively set judicial policy, for profit.

The American war machine is out of control... Halliburton and Blackwater run that, for profit.

Americans live in a toxic food environment... Big Agri-business (Corn lobby) runs that, for profit... with no consideration of the long term health costs involved.

Medicare and Medicaid are faltering because HMO's lobby for such inefficiency... it keeps them in business.

Even if government was as inexplicably wasteful and disorganised as you Americans like to believe it is (despite a chronic lack of evidence)... even if this was all true... government run programs would STILL be preferable to corporation run systems. 

...all the welfare/Medicare/Medicaid fraud suffered by the American taxpayer in a hundred years PALES in comparison to the yearly cost of the current cleptocratic corpocracy.

Get that shit in perspective... it's in the interest of the private corporations bleeding the American taxpayer for hundreds of billions, to convince the populace that minorities grifting the occasional shady dollar is the problem.

Besides... how exactly do these greedy lower classes abuse a free socialised healthcare system?

Do they get TOO healthy?


The Luke 

You mention all these programs and how its all the fault of the evil corporate America, as if the govt has no roll in it.....wake up.....the American govt/greedy politicians are at least as much to blame (moreso in my opinion) than the private sector.  The private sector is only allowed to do what the govt regulates them to be able to do.  So to think suddenly the US govt is going to clean itself up and run some utopian version of healthcare is naive.

And as for how the lower classes will abuse the healthcare system.  Have you ever been to an American hospitals emergency room on a Monday morning, or the day after a holiday?  Packed with these "lower classes" who are abusing the system by a) putting a huge burden on the staffs time b) most are on medicare or medicaid so not paying for it and c) causing long waits for those who have legit reasons for being there.  The vast majority of them just want the day off or some prescription meds.  Ask anybody who works in a hospital and the will tell you the same thing.

Also, visit an American "health dept facility."  Same thing.  Parents with too many dependents that they can't pay for, yet the US taxpayer has to cover them.....complete bullshit and it's exactly what the proposed healthcare system would be like.  It would be those willing to work and pay into it paying for those who don't.....I don't believe the bs line that everybody is going to share the cost.  Middle-class will get screwed as always.

I just think you are putting a lot of trust in the US govt on this one topic, yet you point out numerous situations (blackwater, haliburton, etc..." where the govt is allowing the private sector to screw the american taxpayer.  Explain to me why you think that healthcare will suddenly "be different"  Because Obama says so? 

[Soul Crusher]

You mention all these programs and how its all the fault of the evil corporate America, as if the govt has no roll in it.....wake up.....the American govt/greedy politicians are at least as much to blame (moreso in my opinion) than the private sector.  The private sector is only allowed to do what the govt regulates them to be able to do.  So to think suddenly the US govt is going to clean itself up and run some utopian version of healthcare is naive.

And as for how the lower classes will abuse the healthcare system.  Have you ever been to an American hospitals emergency room on a Monday morning, or the day after a holiday?  Packed with these "lower classes" who are abusing the system by a) putting a huge burden on the staffs time b) most are on medicare or medicaid so not paying for it and c) causing long waits for those who have legit reasons for being there.  The vast majority of them just want the day off or some prescription meds.  Ask anybody who works in a hospital and the will tell you the same thing.

Also, visit an American "health dept facility."  Same thing.  Parents with too many dependents that they can't pay for, yet the US taxpayer has to cover them.....complete bullshit and it's exactly what the proposed healthcare system would be like.  It would be those willing to work and pay into it paying for those who don't.....I don't believe the bs line that everybody is going to share the cost.  Middle-class will get screwed as always.

I just think you are putting a lot of trust in the US govt on this one topic, yet you point out numerous situations (blackwater, haliburton, etc..." where the govt is allowing the private sector to screw the american taxpayer.  Explain to me why you think that healthcare will suddenly "be different"  Because Obama says so? 

I have a buddy who works for a Drug Company and he was telling me how the welfare queens scam the medicaide system for prescription drugs to sell on the street and how they teach their kids to fake certain illnesses to get the partcular "scrip".

Luke may know physics, but he don't know jack shit about much else, especially what goes on with out corrupt incompetent govt.   

[Soul Crusher]

You mention all these programs and how its all the fault of the evil corporate America, as if the govt has no roll in it.....wake up.....the American govt/greedy politicians are at least as much to blame (moreso in my opinion) than the private sector.  The private sector is only allowed to do what the govt regulates them to be able to do.  So to think suddenly the US govt is going to clean itself up and run some utopian version of healthcare is naive.

And as for how the lower classes will abuse the healthcare system.  Have you ever been to an American hospitals emergency room on a Monday morning, or the day after a holiday?  Packed with these "lower classes" who are abusing the system by a) putting a huge burden on the staffs time b) most are on medicare or medicaid so not paying for it and c) causing long waits for those who have legit reasons for being there.  The vast majority of them just want the day off or some prescription meds.  Ask anybody who works in a hospital and the will tell you the same thing.

Also, visit an American "health dept facility."  Same thing.  Parents with too many dependents that they can't pay for, yet the US taxpayer has to cover them.....complete bullshit and it's exactly what the proposed healthcare system would be like.  It would be those willing to work and pay into it paying for those who don't.....I don't believe the bs line that everybody is going to share the cost.  Middle-class will get screwed as always.

I just think you are putting a lot of trust in the US govt on this one topic, yet you point out numerous situations (blackwater, haliburton, etc..." where the govt is allowing the private sector to screw the american taxpayer.  Explain to me why you think that healthcare will suddenly "be different"  Because Obama says so? 

I have a buddy who works for a Drug Company and he was telling me how the welfare queens scam the medicaide system for prescription drugs to sell on the street and how they teach their kids to fake certain illnesses to get the partcular "scrip".

Luke may know physics, but he don't know jack shit about much else, especially what goes on with out corrupt incompetent govt.  

[The Showstoppa]

I have a buddy who works for a Drug Company and he was telling me how the welfare queens scam the medicaide system for prescription drugs to sell on the street and how they teach their kids to fake certain illnesses to get the partcular "scrip".

Luke may know physics, but he don't know jack shit about much else, especially what goes on with out corrupt incompetent govt.  

For sure.  There are all types of abuse of the system.  I just find it ironic that so many people who bash Blackwater, Halliburton, etc.... act like those companies are not being allowed to do what they do by the US govt......yet they trust the govt to "do the right thing" in regards to healthcare?  C'mon.....

[The Luke]

I have a buddy who works for a Drug Company and he was telling me how the welfare queens scam the medicaide system for prescription drugs to sell on the street and how they teach their kids to fake certain illnesses to get the partcular "scrip".

...we have that here in Europe too.

But in the US, the entire healthcare system is paying over the odds for prescription drugs (monopoly pricing by Big Pharma as opposed to monopsony pricing by a single payer). So Big Pharma lobbies government to reduce services to emergency rooms and free clinics (the poor) because they know overworked healthcare services end up fobbing off the malingerers with the same exorbitantly expensive pills (which Big Pharma produces).


If I was running an immoral pharmaceutical company selling a flu vaccine (for example); I'd plant millenarian apocalyptic swine-flu scare stories in the propaganda news media... didn't this happen in America?

If I was running an immoral privatised prison company (for example); I'd plant sensationalist scare-tactic crime stories in the propaganda news media while simultaneously lobbying for Draconian prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders and the underfunding of public schools... didn't this happen in America?

If I was running an immoral military industrial war machine (for example); I'd scare the shit out of reactionary simple-minded Americans by creating some phantom terrorist network against whom a never-ending yet highly profitable crusade must be fought... didn't this happen in America?


You guys make out that I'm somehow niave... yet you insist upon the believing and unthinkingly defending the very same propaganda arguments proffered by your own corporate media: that somehow the system that has worked in every other industrialised country in the world won't work in America because the US has minorities; a lower class; greedy immigrants; dysgenic population growth...

...as if the other industrialised nations are miraculously devoid of such problems.


If you can't comprehend that:
-poor public schooling
-racial tension
-poorly funded public healthcare
-inefficient social programs
-chronic wealth disparity
-government incompetence etc etc
...DON'T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT, I just don't know what to tell you.

They happen because it benefits the kleptocratic corpocracy that funds the political system.

Cui bene? Cui bene? Cui bene?


The Luke

[Soul Crusher]

And whose fault is that Luke? 

The only reason these corps have so much power is because the govt has so much power.  Its mutual relationship benefiting both parties.

Just look at how our alleged HCR bill was worked by these companies?  Why?  Because Fedzilla was the gatekeeper.   

[The Luke]

And whose fault is that Luke? 

The only reason these corps have so much power is because the govt has so much power.  Its mutual relationship benefiting both parties.

Just look at how our alleged HCR bill was worked by these companies?  Why?  Because Fedzilla was the gatekeeper.   

You don't get it, do you?

You can't blame your government for letting the corporations run amok... the corporations ARE your government.


The Luke

[Soul Crusher]

You don't get it, do you?

You can't blame your government for letting the corporations run amok... the corporations ARE your government.


The Luke

Stick with physics.  At least there you dont humiliate yourself.

HCR was a fight over as to how the govt was going to spend and divert tax revenue.  We should not give this Leviathon our money in the first place and let the corps really compete for our cash rather than have that thief Obama and his bith Pelosi mandate we pay the corps he made deal with. 

 

[The Luke]

HCR was a fight over as to how the govt was going to spend and divert tax revenue.  We should not give this Leviathon our money in the first place and let the corps really compete for our cash rather than have that thief Obama and his bith Pelosi mandate we pay the corps he made deal with. 

Why don't Americans support a simple amendment to Medicare? Just remove the "over 65" requirement.

HMOs and health insurance companies would go out of business because they can't compete with Medicare... Medicare uses it's massive single payer monopsony (a buyer's monopoly) to hammer Big Pharma down on prescription drug prices... Medicare's huge unfunded liability problem disappears as the demographics of it's client base (now everyone) improves... the government, now footing the bill, finally has the incentive to invest in proper preventative care (new food standards; screening; end of abstinence only education etc etc).

After a few years, seeing as Medicare is now the only game in town... simply transfer the funding from a premium based system to a progressive tax; so no one can game the system by not paying in.

Seems like the thing to do to me. Pretty simple really.


The Luke

[Soul Crusher]

Why don't Americans support a simple amendment to Medicare? Just remove the "over 65" requirement.

HMOs and health insurance companies would go out of business because they can't compete with Medicare... Medicare uses it's massive single payer monopsony (a buyer's monopoly) to hammer Big Pharma down on prescription drug prices... Medicare's huge unfunded liability problem disappears as the demographics of it's client base (now everyone) improves... the government, now footing the bill, finally has the incentive to invest in proper preventative care (new food standards; screening; end of abstinence only education etc etc).

After a few years, seeing as Medicare is now the only game in town... simply transfer the funding from a premium based system to a progressive tax; so no one can game the system by not paying in.

Seems like the thing to do to me. Pretty simple really.


The Luke

Maybe because Medicare has 74 TRILLION Dollars in unfunded liabilities with no way to pay for it? 

www.usdebtclock.org

Check that site out if you want a look. 

[The Luke]

Maybe because Medicare has 74 TRILLION Dollars in unfunded liabilities with no way to pay for it? 

...the reason Medicare has unfunded liabilities is pretty simple: demographics.

Corporate healthcare gets all the healthy people under 65; enjoys the privilege of enforcing a random 17% denial rate for catastrophic illness; doesn't cover pre-existing conditions; runs with a 30% overhead and is government subsidised with billions in dirty cash each year.

Medicare has a 3% overhead, and a 90% approval rating from customers.

What's the approval rating of private corporate coverage?


Give Medicare access to the whole market and every single corporate health insurer out there would be out of business instantly... meanwhile Medicare would suddenly be flush with premiums and could build up a proper fund once more (provided it was protected from corporate raiding this time). Also, the corporate healthcare lobby would no longer be interfering with proper government function and the billions it siphons off would then be available for other projects.

Strange to say 333386, but I think we agree... universal Medicare is the only sensible way to go.


The Luke