McSame healthcare tour, questions the media won't ask: Day 1

"Everything's fine," McCain told reporters during a news conference. "Like most Americans, I go see my doctor fairly frequently."
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/...  

The McSame "Like most Americans, I go see my doctor fairly frequently", healthcare tour begins today at Miami Children's Hospital.

Mad as hell?  June 19, in S.F. fight back against AHIP and for-profit healthcare.

Here are some questions for the media.  

Note to fawning media. No thought required. Everything here is researched, all you have to do is take a deep breath and ask, then try a follow-up when Mr. McBarbecue doesn't answer.

1. The centerpiece of your healthcare plan is "personal responsibility, do you and your family, have high deductible insurance?

2. Why do you call a question about your own government healthcare a cheap shot?

3. In which country does a recession and the loss of employment also cause the loss of healthcare?

4. Do members of Congress and your Senate colleagues, face pre-existing condition exclusions, huge deductibles and pro-forma denials for urgent medical care?  

5. Are you aware that in the United States even for insured Americans, healthcare costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy?  How will plan address this catastrophe?

6. Why would a man who calls himself a "straight talker" foist a bogus healthcare plan on the American people? Why would you offer Americans a healthcare plan which wouldn't even cover a cancer survior like yourself?

7. What can you say to Americans who are losing their homes because they must choose between paying their mortgage or their healthcare bills?

8. Mr. McSame, do you know how many Americans are  going naked?

9. Mr. Straighttalk, why in your opinion, would your congressional colleagues  colleagues require Roger Clemens to testify under oath, but not the the CEOs of the major health insurance companies?

10. Do you have any straight talk for the family of Nataline Sarkisyan?

11. Which Americans beside the mega-rich like you and Cindy, see their doctors quite regularly?

Please add your own question for the straight talk express.

And if you want the AHIP friends and benefactors of John Mccainknow, to know their Murder By Spreadsheet days are numbered, join us:

Mad as hell?  June 19, in S.F. fight back against AHIP and for-profit healthcare.

•  Please add other questions . . .

  maybe, just maybe, a maverick in the media will read this and throw McSame a hardball.

  by nyceve on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:20:16 AM PDT

  •  The hardball...

    ...should be aimed directly at his cranium.

    by boran2 on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:26:05 AM PDT

    •  Aim just over his left shoulder

      And hit the part that does the thinking - Lieberman.

      by DemCurious on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:41:57 AM PDT

    •  Actually

      I was thinking of aiming it at his rectum, since that is the part he seems to be doing most of his talking from!

      by Spoc42 on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 07:01:19 AM PDT

•  OK, here goes

  1. Sen. McCain, how many members of your campaign staff have done lobbying work for AHIP or PhRMA, or work for companies that include their members as clients?

  2. Sen. McCain, how much money have you accepted from PACs and executives of AHIP and PhRMA members?

  3. Sen. McCain, will you support legislation requiring health insurers to accept Americans for coverage without regard to pre-existing conditions?

  4. Sen. McCain, given that your wife's fortune is based on selling alcohol, what have you done in the past to support programs that mitigate the damage alcohol does to Americans' health?

  by Dallasdoc on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:25:03 AM PDT

  •  How dare you ask such questions

    of a True Maverick?  Don't you know how unseemly and shrill it is to part the curtains of the media narrative?

    Time for more Paris Hilton coverage to wash the bad taste out of our mouths.

    by A Mad Mad World on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:29:14 AM PDT

•  To be honest

  The media doesn't take McCain seriously, he's just a novelty.  Therefore they won't ask him real questions, not at least at this time.

  And of course health care is not scandalicious (except in the many ways that you have pointed out, but corporate scandal is a big yawn to the corporate media).

  I'm looking forward to what questions regarding health care will be directed to President Obama.

  by A Mad Mad World on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:25:30 AM PDT

  •  I can think of one (by the MSM for Obama)

    "Senator Obama, does your intention to change the health care system coupled with your refusal to wear a flag pin mean you truly do hate America and everything it stands for?"

    by catnap1972 on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:37:33 AM PDT

    •  And, Mr. Obama,

      will you pledge here and now to exclude flag pin pinpricks from health insurance coverage in order to ensure that American expressions of patriotism are not unduly harmful to the insurance companies that are the backbone of our healthcare system?

      by A Mad Mad World on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:45:43 AM PDT

•  We are missing the point...

  All the questions we seek to ask, and all the outrage we feel over those left without health care, are based on the premise that having health care is a right of all Americans.  What we are missing (and so is the American public) is that Republicans do not share this premise.  So, we need to get McSame to actually go on record saying it.  The only question to ask is "Do you believe that all Americans deserve to have health care?"  Make him say "no", which is the only truthful answer.  Then no further questions need be asked.

  by SBucher on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:33:14 AM PDT

  •  Shouldn't be that hard to trick him into truth

    Just ask him if he thinks it's a good thing or a great thing that so many Americans are exercizing their consumer choice to withhold their valuable custom from insurance providers.

    by DemCurious on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:44:15 AM PDT

  •  all Americans do have health care

    health care insurance do you not mean?

    by Rudykip on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:44:21 AM PDT

    •  No, I really do mean health care.

      True, we don't let accident victims die in the street, so on some level, everyone does receive some care.  Not enough, and generally not preventive care, and etc.

      But the real reason I said it that way was that I want to steer the narrative away from "insurance".  I don't want to get too deep into this, since it could fill an entire diary itself.  But insurance is the worst conceivable way to finance health care.  Insurance is exclusionary by definition.  Underwriting is central to what an insurance company is, and underwriting is all about exclusion.  This is completely at odds with any attempt to include everyone, and actually causes much of the overcharging we are subject to in this country.  Insurance companies lose 20-30% to administrative costs, while Medicare's overhead is more like 2-4%.  If we just do the math, it would be easy to see why we need to get rid of the insurance companies.

      by SBucher on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:51:07 AM PDT

•  Somewhat off point

  Is McSame a better moniker than McBush?

  I prefer McBush because its point is immediately clear.

  by david mizner on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:34:16 AM PDT

  •  david, either one fits him like a glove (n/t)

    by nyceve on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:37:45 AM PDT

  •  Off point, but a good question.

    Since "McSame" almost rhymes with "McCain", through repetition and sloppy enunciation, we can eventually make people think of "more of the same" when they hear "McCain".  Is it better?  Not sure, but it is more subtle and thus more likely to have a subconscious effect.

    by SBucher on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:38:52 AM PDT

•  Senator McCain do you personally know

  anyone without any health insurance?

  by Wino on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:47:22 AM PDT

•  Mr. McCain

  1. Do you know how much money can be allocated into suggested tax-free healthcare savings?

  and

  2.  Do you know how much a single shot of Neulasta costs?

  by sap on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:48:42 AM PDT

•  Have you ever

  spent a weekend in excruciating pain because you couldn't afford your prescribed painkiller?

  by Rudykip on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 06:49:46 AM PDT

•  competition

  the only competition that insurance companies engage in is the competition to find the health people and to not cover sick people.

  Why are you offering more the same?

  by DrSteveB on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 07:55:48 AM PDT