Bill Moyers - Single Payer Insurance [VIDEO] - (Old Show, Still Informative)

it sucked years ago when it was first tried. It sucks now.

BTW, I rec this thread.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/transcript4.html

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: The seats at the table, or the witnesses at the hearing are, in a sense, controlled by the health insurance industry. They don't want someone essentially saying, "We don't need a health insurance industry. We can do what most other countries in the world have done. Have the government collect the money and pay the bills and get rid of all these people who are wasting $400 billion a year on excessive administrative costs."

So, we have got a fragmented health insurance industry. And it thrives on being fragmented. The drug countries make much more money with the fragmentation, because there's no price control. The insurance companies make much more money, 'cause they can push away people who aren't going to be profitable. The only people that suffer are the patients.

It's- 1968, I was one of a group of physicians that disrupted the American Medical Association's convention, because they were saying then, and in, for all practical purposes it's still true, "Health care is not a right. It's a privilege." And we said, quietly, as we took over the microphone, "That's wrong." We're now 41 years later, and it's still a privilege. And too many people in this country don't have that privilege. It's resulting in huge numbers of people being ill, sick, and almost 20 thousand people dying a year because they don't have health insurance...


...DR. SIDNEY WOLFE: Here's an example of what David's talking about. Over the last 30 plus years there have been maybe two and a half, three times more doctors and nurses. Pretty much in proportion with the growth in population. There are 30 times, 3-0 times more health administrators. These people are not doctors. They're not nurses. They're not pharmacists. They're not providing care. Many of them are being paid to deny care. So, they are fighting with the doctors, with the hospitals to see how few bills can be paid. That's how the insurance industry thrives by denying care, paying as little out as it can, getting the healthiest patients, and yet getting reimbursed as though these patients were sicker than they really are.

So, it's a system that is guaranteed to waste a lot of money. And what we've said is that the amount of money that's just being wasted in one year is enough to pay for more than enough of the premiums for those that are uninsured and the people that are underinsured. So, it's not a matter of bringing more money. I mean, the industry is now saying, "We could save $2 trillion over the next ten years. Let us. Trust us. We will lower our costs and everything." The amount that can be saved over the next ten years by just eliminating the health insurance industry is $4 trillion, in one fell swoop..."

Love Moyers!