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Who Has a Choice on Health Care?

<em>Orlando</em>'s pic

Mitt Romney was on Meet the Press on Sunday, where he argued essentially that the United States doesn’t need a public health insurance option because Americans like to have choice when it comes to health care. After hearing this, I realized a couple of things.

First, Romney needs a Thesaurus for Christmas. Badly. Desperately, too.

Second, the only choice I’ve ever had when it comes to my health insurance is whether or not to accept the insurance offered by my employer. In my current job, every year I get to choose during open enrollment whether to continued to be insured—despite the rising premiums and deductibles, the constant conflict with the insurance company over coverage, and the general feeling that I’m getting screwed. My other (Romney, pay attention!) option is to roll the dice, pocket the money I pay for premiums, and hope I don’t have a major health problem.

That is, of course, no choice at all. So, I pay. I get to choose my doctors, but only if they accept my plan. I get to choose when I visit my doctor, which is as infrequently as possible, because it’s expensive, even with insurance.

I think a public option is putting us on the road to single-payer, and I think that’s why the insurance industry and the conservatives are so freaked out. When it passes, I’m opting out of my company’s plan and into the public option as soon as possible.


Thanks for letting the cat out the bag O! They aren't supposed to realize that a successful public option will signal the death knoll for private insurance companies and lead to single-payer. If the insurance companies were smart, they'd stat thinking about supplemental coverage and stop fighting a losing battle. Single-payer is the future. You have more choice at work than many in that you can refuse coverage. In every company I've worked for, you can't refuse health insurance without proving you have coverage elsewhere. That's right - it's a mandate! At least we have a Preferred Provider Organization set-up where you are incentivized to stay with doctors in the circle but can choose to go to any doctor (at higher cost to you), rather than an HMO that only provides coverage if your doctor is in-network.

Bad news, D. Those crafy insurance industry lobbyists cracked our code. They already know the public option is a move toward single-payer. That's why they hate it.

My dad said that angrily over dinner tonight.  But I think he heard me say it on the radio last week, which literally tipped him on it.

I'd like to give Mitt a shovel upside the head.

Really. All my life, people have told me, "Blah blah violence... blah blah no way to resolve disputes...." To which I have always responded, "Oh yeah?"

And lately, well, I'm feeling as justified as the ancients of mu mu. I'd like just one piece of evidence that says, "Debating Mitt Romney is better than smacking the prick upside his do avec shovel."

And meanwhile, we've just wasted so much time. Time we could have used discussing precisely which form of violent shovel-wielding assault would pay the biggest dividends. Is it just one giant roundhouse swing and SmackMitt, down he goes, over and out? Or maybe better to pepper him with sugar-coated shovel-smacks cross the snout?

These are the questions that keep great minds awake at night. (At least, until I get my milk.)

My problem with this thread is the complete lack of any reference to Michael Jackson.  Look how much he spent on health care.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars on individual doctors in one month.  What would a single payer system have meant to Jacko?  You're from northern Indiana (just like Michael Jackson!), come on, step up and talk about what our readers (well, us) want to talk about endlessly.  Then you'll have billions of comments, like Genghis and Deadman.

I want her to come out as an Axl Rose fan. Yep. 'Nuther Indiana boy.

And so is David Lee Roth of Van Halen. Now here's something I waaaaay did not know, from Wickedpedia. His uncle, Manny Roth, built and owned NYC's Cafe Wha?, where Dylan and Hendrix et al showed, and "seven-year-old David Lee got his first taste of, and desire for, show business from the inside by hanging out at Cafe Wha?."

To sum up. Kid gets excellent start on life, courtesy NYC. Goes home to Indiana, turns into... David Lee Roth.

I had my fill of hair bands as a teenager in the 80s. When it comes to Indiana's favorite musician sons, Michael's got the on the northwestern corner of the state, but the rest belongs to John Cougar.

Now, about that shovel...

We all know and love (to dislike) Frank Luntz, the rightwing republican wordsmith who has a few things to say.  Well, not things to say, but ways to say things, rather.  Below are his top 3 rhetorical tools to defeat single-payer healthcare

1)  Rationing:  Republicans are using this term to suggest that government controlled healthcare will result in the rationing of healthcare - ooh, scary

2)  A bureaucrat between you and health care:  as opposed to a money-hungry corporate monkey?

3)  One size does not fit all: implying that the single-payer option will treat a newborn exactly the same as an 80 yo - looks like the newborn will have to get used to prescription strength Ben-Gay, sorry baby. 

You can read his full list here.

And just when you ask yourself if people are stupid enough to buy this rhetorical cow-pie, remember, we reelected Bush in 2004.  Oh, and the new Transformers movie is #1.

Frank Luntz called insurance industry executives "money hungry corporate monkeys?"

Maybe I misjudged him.

Sorry, I should have been more clear.  Everything after the colons are my own take on his assault on the English language and Americans' intelligence.

You were clear. I was kidding.

Oh, I'm an idiot. Look, a cartoon!

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