Okay, here's the most risible thing I've seen in a long time. Behold as Will Ferrell, who gets paid $20,000,000 a picture, and a host of other Hollywood luminaries mount a mock defense of insurance company executives, who apparently are overpaid or something.
I can't claim credit for this thought as someone else said it first, but it's spot-on. It's just too bad that Natasha Richardson couldn't participate in this righteous project.
12 comments:
Will Ferrell didn't make his millions off of sick people.
(I am confused about the reference to Natasha Richardson. She received the injury in Canada, but she and her people turned away the emergency response people who came to help.)
Ha, the word validation on this is "bescrood.
Will Ferrell didn't make his millions off of sick people.
Anyone who saw "Bewitched" probably needed medical attention afterwards.
Oy, Amanda. You could just as easily say that the Insurance execs made their "millions" from providing insurance that paid for people to get well, for medical progress and research, etc.
We don't say that farmers make their money off of hungry people and are morally suspect. Or people that provide any "need" that people have.
And Natasha might have been saved except there was no MRI in the town she was injured in and no medical chopper in all of Quebec, despite its remote villages and mountainous terrain. Even the town of 200 that my in laws live in in AZ has one due to it's being far from a city and in the mountains. If she had chosen to go skiing in Aspen, she'd probably be alive today.
But that's OK, because the reaper is cheaper.
Thanks, Margaret. That's how I remember the Richardson incident, too. And for a little perspective on this -- Quebec is over twice the size of Texas and has nearly 8 million people. But if you have blunt force trauma of the sort Natasha Richardson experienced, you'd better hope you're either in Montreal or Quebec City. Otherwise you might as well be in Mongolia.
Mr. D - Haha! I didn't see that one because it looked *terrible.*
Margaret - I agree, you can say that about insurance companies, but on the other hand, I can choose which produce I buy at the grocery store, and if I choose to shop at the farmer's market (or make an "emergency" run to the shop down the hill while I'm cooking), I'm not forced to forced to pay 50 times as much for a cucumber, as it would have costed at the grocery store.
(I'm really not trying to be argumentative here though - I think it's good for all of us to think of these analogies, they help to reexamine our initial opinions.)
As for Natash Richardson, when she initially bumped her head, paramedics arrived, and since she was lucid, she and her group turned them away. Almost four hours later, she finally arrived at a hospital. I could go into details about the CT scan she did receive, but really the above stated fact blows the "Canada care" arguement out of the water. Find a dead person who was immediately attended to (as all the information about epidural hematomas says is needed) in Canada, and show us that the system failed them, if that's the argument. (This is fresh in my brain, as I was just reading about her literally two days ago -funny.)
Amanda, the test isn't what happens under optimal conditions. The test is what happens in an emergency situation. And that's where the lack of infrastructure in Quebec looms especially large. Margaret is right -- even if Richardson had refused treatment, had she been skiing in Aspen, a medivac helicopter would have gotten her someplace where she could have had a chance. She might still have died, but her chances would have been far superior. And that's the point -- the insurance companies get a lot of flak, but what conservatives want to conserve is the overall health care system in this country. And if the government takes it over through controlling the funding mechanisms, things will begin to deteriorate over time.
insurance companies actually help make things affordable.
imagine if you had to pay for your car accident out pocket. i bet you bought insurance,huh?
so who is more rightous: the guy who makes healthcare more affordable and is paid well for it?
or a lousy actor, who is overpaid for that?
I'm all for choice in health insurance. It isn't right that your employer gets to make this choice for you, with whatever their priorities are.
One of the false premises that is being spread around by this video and by other public option advocates is that cutting out these "expensive" execs will save money that can be re-allocated to heath insurance coverage or actual health care. It won't. I've read a couple of different studies that show that the ratio of administrative expense to cost of providing services is higher in Canada. So even if some exec has a zoo in his backyard, if he costs a lot less than the burden of a phalanx of bureaucrats, do we still want the phalanx of bureaucrats? I guess if the goal is create more federal jobs.
She refused the initial emergency treatment for several hours. It's like shooting yourself in the head in the emergency room and then saying that it was the hospital's fault they couldn't save you. I'm not talking "optimal conditions" - I'm saying that given the progression of her EH, nobody can form a meaningful argument it was a lack of MRI/helicopter that killed her.
(The #s of this equipment in the US as compared to Canada - not arguing that. I just don't think it applies in the case of Richardson.)
Dubya is only out of office 8 months and Conservatives are already throwing the term plutocrat around. Gotta love that one.
Gino,
The United State spends 16% of GDP on medical care. The most, by far, in the world. For all of that money we spend we have approximately 30 million people who want but cannot afford medical insurance.
France, which has a public/private combination, similar to what many Progressives are pushing for here, spends 10% of their GDP on health care, covers everyone, has a lower infant mortality rate, spends far less than us on emergency care per capita, and has a longer life expectancy. And you think insurance companies save money? They save it for themselves by passing riskier patients cost off on everyone else. In that sense, you are right. They do save money.
Regards,
Rich
Dubya is only out of office 8 months and Conservatives are already throwing the term plutocrat around. Gotta love that one.
Both sides have their plutocrats, Rich. Or is George Soros just a "concerned citizen of the world" or something? If you'd prefer, I could always retitle the post "Moronic Hollywood Limousine Liberals, Standing Up for You!"
Mark,
I do like that better.
Rich
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