I know, I know
I just couldn't help myself.
I usually don't watch Tucker, because it invariably gets my husband yelling at the TV and Chibi Xandra thinks Tucker routinely rudes out his guests and thinks Tucker is, for the most part, a waste of skin (she borrowed that from the Klingons) and not worth her time.....but they were out and I could watch the Twit to my heart's content.
The Twit delivered.
Tucker doesn't know much about health care and it shows when he talks about it. He didn't do his homework before the show yesterday and said some things that are factually wrong and worth refuting.
... and that's what I find so entertaining, about Tucker. He gives me something to write about.
Tucker gives voice to right wing nut thinking and what goes for right wing nut logical assessment of current issues. He's less annoying than Red State or Little Green Footballs.
Yesterday, Tucker Carlson, Cliff May and Peter Fenn were talking about health care. I would have written this yesterday, but I already had a diary lined up, so I waited for the transcript today. Tucker started out the health care segment by saying
...it is an article of religious faith among the Democrats that universal health care is a good thing and that we‘re going to get it. I believe that we probably are when a Democrat is elected.
Peter Fenn pointed out that both Schwarzenegger and Romney believe in Universal Health care also, which brought out this Tucker quip:
And I leave the country.
Some of you probably hope for that. Let Tucker go and twit about politics in another country....but I digress.
More to the point, Tucker's main problem with Universal Health Care seems to be:
Here is Barack Obama‘s plan for a healthy America, I got in an email today. He said making a new national health plan that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health care, similar to that available to federal employees. No one will turned away or charged more due to illness, and everybody who needs it will receive a subsidy for their premium.
In other words, it is free. There‘s nothing—That is like [a] fairy tale. That supposes that health care doesn‘t cost anything and that once you get the rapacious health insurers out of the picture—that is stupid.
I have to admire a guy who works in a word like "rapacious" when talking about for-profit health insurers. What an apt description! Insurers prey on their members by selling the security of a health care policy full of waivers and exemptions that let them deny care with impunity. ...and Tucker likes this system?
Tucker's logic is faulty. Why would anyone want to pay a 30% surcharge for a health care policy? I suppose he would if his stock portfolio is rife with health insurance and pharmaceutical stocks.
....but no, Tucker, Universal Health Care won't be free. We can get an idea of how much it will cost us. Pull out your pay stub and look at how much is deducted for Medicare it's about 1.4%. Medicare covers the sickest of our population, anybody over 65 + those who qualify as disabled for a total of about 56 million people. We have about 300+ million people living in the US. I haven't done the math, but I would guess about 8-10% payroll deduction would do it.
Peter Fenn attempts to insert some sensible thought:
The question is, I mean he [Obama] is trying to get to a point where it is universally available and where it is universally affordable.
Then Fenn goes onto say that figuring out how to do it would be difficult, but Tucker pulls out the "waiting time" mythical argument:
Why don‘t the Republicans stand up and say, let‘s spend a week in Great Britain, and take a look at what national health care means. Or Canada; do you ever talk to the Canadians. Do you know what I mean? You don‘t want to need a voluntary procedure in either of those countries, because you‘re going to wait a long—why don‘t they that?
and then Cliff May chimed in with the big, bad government meme:
...If you have had any dealings with the government, whether the IRS or the Motor Vehicle Department of Washington, DC, surely you don‘t want such a bureaucracy handling your health care. That‘s what it would come down to.
Ok, first the waiting time issue. The US currently has some of the worst waiting times. The Commonwealth Fund' report equates the US with Canada on the time it takes to see a physician for an acute health care problem.
The U.S. and Canada rank lowest on the prompt accessibility of appointments with physicians, with patients more likely to report waiting six or more days for an appointment when needing care.
snip
Overall, Germany ranks first on access.
All that money and we rank dead last with Canada on wait times. England came out ahead of the US on wait times. Yep, the best care in the world, so they say.
As for the bureaucracy argument, make no mistake; Aetna, WellPoint and United health Care are corporate bureaucracies. They are huge organizations that are just as stodgy and move at a glacial pace - just like the government does. Interestingly, the Wilson Health Information Reports (you need to go to the library to see them) shows that TRICARE has the highest satisfaction rate for the 5th straight year.
That's right Tucker and Mr. May, a government provided insurance is the top rated insurer in terms of customer satisfaction. Some of you read way back in January that I said TRICARE, not Medicare is the best government insurance. If we really want Medicare for all, I suggest we use the TRICARE program, but call it Medicare. A student told me this week that she dropped her US Postal Service insurance in favor of her husband's TRICARE coverage. TRICARE cost about the same, but the coverage was better and less hassle to use.
Which government insurance is the worst? It's a neck and neck race between Worker's Compensation and Medicaid with W/C winning by a nose.
Here's another spin on the bureaucracy argument. What do you think of your Cell Phone provider? What happened the last time you called their customer service? What do you think of Citibank's call center's services? Ever tried to return a purchase to Walmart? Do you go grocery shopping on a Saturday? Ever been a victim of identity theft? How long did it take you to straighten things out? Tucker goes on about how the government screws up, but big business does too.
The one area Tucker says the government does well is, well, questionable:
Name a single service that the government provides better than the private sector, apart from fighting wars.
Apart from fighting wars! Who is he kidding! How's the War on Terror going? What a twitism.
Anyway, May and Carlson challenged Fenn to say what government service is done well. He said roads and he'd be right, our roads are well developed, crumbling, but well developed. I've had time to think about government services. I have to say getting my daughter her driver's license was a vast improvement over the last time I renewed mine. We made an appointment, we were in and out with the license in about 45 minutes. The US postal service gets flak for raising prices and not controling junk mail (and I'm sure some of you have some horror stories), but considering the number of pieces of mail they move every day, they are reasonably efficient. ...but FEMA and HSA still suck as does getting a passport this year. ...but I digress again.
Fenn rallies and tries to make an excellent point toward the end of the health care segment:
..if you have 51 percent of the people right now, according to the Pew poll, who are dissatisfied with the insurance that they have got, something has to be done. The costs are going up. The quality is going down.
but May won't let that go unchallenged:
There is no problem so serious that the government can‘t make it worse if it tried.
Tucker's an elitist. The health care system works just fine - for him it does. He's no compassionate conservative. He's got his, but what about you? That's too bad, so sad.
My question to Cliff May and Tucker Carlson is, "How can you defend the status quo? We have 45 million uninsured and about 20 million underinsured people. We spend over $7,900 per capita on health care, but 65 million - 21% of our population - don't have adequate access to health care. So, 234 million people get health care while 65 million are left twisting in the wind - actually suffering and in pain is more like it.
Why? How is this defensible in the Best Health Care System in the world?
and there we are...
it's not.