quote:

Originally posted by lithos:
There was a doco (not Sicko) on the US health system, and it was fucking amazing to see how a charity that normally works in Africa set up a "free health fair" in a stadium in Kentucky, and couldn't treat everyone who turned up.

quote:

The Immigrant Song (Taken from Craigs List "Rants & Raves" Section)

I cross ocean, poor and broke.
Take bus, see employment folk.
Nice man treat me good in there.
Say I need to see welfare.

Welfare say, 'You come no more, we send cash right to your door.
Welfare cheques - they make you wealthy! Obama will keep you healthy!
By and by, I get plenty money.
Thanks to you, you American dummy
Write to friends in motherland.
Tell them 'come fast as you can.'
They come in turbans and Ford trucks,
And buy big house with welfare bucks!
They come here, we live together.
More welfare cheques, it gets better
Fourteen families, they moving in,
but neighbour's patience wearing thin.
Finally, American guy moves away.
Now I buy his house, then I say,

'Find more immigrants for house to rent.'
And in the yard I put a tent.
Everything is very good,
and soon we own the neighbourhood.

We have hobby, it's called breeding. Welfare pay for baby feeding.
Kids need dentist? Wives need pills? We get free! We got no bills!
American's crazy! They work all year, to keep the welfare running here.
We think US darn good place.
Too darn good for American race!
If they no like us, they can scram. Got lots of room in Afghanistan !

quote:

WENDELL POTTER: I was. I went home, to visit relatives. And I picked up the local newspaper and I saw that a health care expedition was being held a few miles up the road, in Wise, Virginia. And I was intrigued.

BILL MOYERS: So you drove there?

WENDELL POTTER: I did. I borrowed my dad's car and drove up 50 miles up the road to Wise, Virginia. It was being held at a Wise County Fairground. I took my camera. I took some pictures. It was a very cloudy, misty day, it was raining that day, and I walked through the fairground gates. And I didn't know what to expect. I just assumed that it would be, you know, like a health-- booths set up and people just getting their blood pressure checked and things like that.

But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. Or they'd erected tents, to care for people. I mean, there was no privacy. In some cases-- and I've got some pictures of people being treated on gurneys, on rain-soaked pavement.

And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee-- all over the region, because they knew that this was being done. A lot of them heard about it from word of mouth.

There could have been people and probably were people that I had grown up with. They could have been people who grew up at the house down the road, in the house down the road from me. And that made it real to me.

BILL MOYERS: What did you think?

WENDELL POTTER: It was absolutely stunning. It was like being hit by lightning. It was almost-- what country am I in? I just it just didn't seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me.

BILL MOYERS: People are going to say, "How can Wendell Potter sit here and say he was just finding out that there were a lot of Americans who didn't have adequate insurance and needed health care? He'd been in the industry for over 15 years."

WENDELL POTTER: And that was my problem. I had been in the industry and I'd risen up in the ranks. And I had a great job. And I had a terrific office in a high-rise building in Philadelphia. I was insulated. I didn't really see what was going on. I saw the data. I knew that 47 million people were uninsured, but I didn't put faces with that number.

Just a few weeks later though, I was back in Philadelphia and I would often fly on a corporate aircraft to go to meetings.

And I just thought that was a great way to travel. It is a great way to travel. You're sitting in a luxurious corporate jet, leather seats, very spacious. And I was served my lunch by a flight attendant who brought my lunch on a gold-rimmed plate. And she handed me gold-plated silverware to eat it with. And then I remembered the people that I had seen in Wise County. Undoubtedly, they had no idea that this went on, at the corporate levels of health insurance companies.

BILL MOYERS: But you had, all these years, seen premiums rising. People purged from the rolls, people who couldn't afford the health care that Cigna and other companies were offering. This is the first time you came face to face with it?

WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, it was. You know, certainly, I knew people, and I talked to people who were uninsured. But when you're in the executive offices, when you're getting prepared for a call with an analyst, in the financial medium, what you think about are the numbers. You don't think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you're going to meet Wall Street's expectations. That's what you think about, at that level. And it helps to think that way. That's why you-- that enables you to stay there, if you don't really think that you're talking about and dealing with real human beings.

quote:

Originally posted by editengine:
HA, is a realted note this is apparently posted on Craigslist.

It was reposted to FB by an acquaintance.

quote:

The Immigrant Song (Taken from Craigs List "Rants & Raves" Section)

I cross ocean, poor and broke.
Take bus, see employment folk.
Nice man treat me good in there.
Say I need to see welfare.

Welfare say, 'You come no more, we send cash right to your door.
Welfare cheques - they make you wealthy! Obama will keep you healthy!
By and by, I get plenty money.
Thanks to you, you American dummy
Write to friends in motherland.
Tell them 'come fast as you can.'
They come in turbans and Ford trucks,
And buy big house with welfare bucks!
They come here, we live together.
More welfare cheques, it gets better
Fourteen families, they moving in,
but neighbour's patience wearing thin.
Finally, American guy moves away.
Now I buy his house, then I say,

'Find more immigrants for house to rent.'
And in the yard I put a tent.
Everything is very good,
and soon we own the neighbourhood.

We have hobby, it's called breeding. Welfare pay for baby feeding.
Kids need dentist? Wives need pills? We get free! We got no bills!
American's crazy! They work all year, to keep the welfare running here.
We think US darn good place.
Too darn good for American race!
If they no like us, they can scram. Got lots of room in Afghanistan !

What I think is funny is that it seems that the writer is a Brit judging from the spelling choices.

quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:
What just nonplusses me, as someone who has lived in Canada and Australia with functioning (though, as lith says, not perfect) public health care systems, is how many Americans *seriously* believe you cannot have public health care without also getting Soviet communism and the gulag archipelago...

quote:

still to say 'if steven hawking were american he'd be dead'

quote:

Originally posted by greendreams:
The us, should provide a baseline for everyone (slines) but the best care in the world is what a rich american gets.

quote:

They should still have the right to forge on into new frontiers. Hell when something works we all copy it so we need those guys..