First, let’s get this one thing straight, because a lot of the astroturfers and even reporters and politicians are not getting it. Health care is when you get sick and the medical profession fixes you up, or some version of that. How good our health care system is becomes a matter of how good the medicine is. We in the United States and in Europe, Canada, etc. have pretty good medicine, though there are impediments to quality medicine built into our political and social systems..

Heath care INSURANCE is the system for paying for the medicine. The current discussion in the US is about health care INSURANCE reform. The United States might (or might not) have the best freakin’ health care system (the medicine) in the freakin’ world, but it has one of the suckiest health care INUSRANCE systems in the world. And that is what we are trying to fix.

There are two major kinds of cracks in the health care INSURANCE system. One is the uncovered or uncoverable (because of economics or because the insurance companies just don’t want to). The other crack, and the one that about half the middle class falls into, and the one that should have galvanized the politically powerful in this country, is this one:

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Zuska is writing quite a bit about the Health Care industry, from both a personal and analiticopolitical perspective. You should check out her last few posts on this topic. These are must read posts.

Betsy McCaughey (see this) has been receiving $30,000 per year from a medical supply company to be on their “board.” This is of course totally unrelated to her efforts to kill health care reform under both the Clinton and Obama administrations. And Pink Unicorns can fly.

The name of the company that has been paying McCaughey off, er, I mean, paying for her I’m sure very useful service as a board member is Cantel Medical. Cantel provides a wide range of medical products. They still list McCaughey on their web site as Elizabeth McCaughey, Ph.D. Chairman – Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, on the Nominating & Governance Committee. So, her statement that she is off the board appears to be questionable.

The story is reported by Salon.

Betsy McCaughey is the wackaloon who invented the idea that the Obama Health Care Plan would involve killing off all the old people. John Stewart and she spent a little time with a draft of the plan, going over details. Below the fold. (This video will probably start automatically)
Continue reading John Stewart pwns Betsy McCaughey →

Mike Haubrich has an analysis that you should have a look at.

While I prefer a single-payer plan, I will also support a public option. Yes, this will drive some private insurers out of business. Considering the piss-poor way that they have been enacting the so-called “invisible hand” I don’t feel too sorry for them. The reliance on private industry has led to a huge drag on our economy. If a raise in taxes leads to a reduction in overall costs to employers and employees, and if the covered 250 million benefit financially through reduced debt and co-pay shares for health care, and if employers benefit because their employees get early treatment, and if enterpreuners benefit by being able to make it through tough stretches by not having to pay incredibly high individual plan premiums; then it makes economic sense.

There is a lot more to it than that. Read it here.