Today, insured Americans will ultimately pay up to 20 cents on every dollar they spend for health care. However, according to MSNBC host Keith Olbermann on Wednesday night, in its “reform” talks the U.S. Senate is debating if it should allow insurers to increase that figure to as much as 35 cents for every dollar.
“In Vegas, they used to call casinos that made more than 20 percent profit a ‘flat store,’” said Olbermann. “The flat store reputation was the kiss of death, because gamblers knew they could get a better deal elsewhere. Today, Nevada laws restrict casino profits to a max of 25 percent. New Jersey casinos take no more than 17 percent profit by law.”
The difference now is, insurance companies may have a real shot at taking much more.
He continued: “So, why is the Senate Finance Committee, run by Democrat Max Baucus [of Minnesota] considering making even Americans who have insurance pay 35 percent of their medical bills?”
The iconoclastic host was joined by Wendell Potter, the former communications director for health insurance giant Cigna. Potter has since become a Senior Fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy.
Potter, speaking to PBS host Bill Moyers in July, appraised the U.S. health insurance industry as being exactly like what filmmaker Michael Moore depicted in his documentary Sicko.
Olbermann called him “one of the heroes in the current drama being played out.”
Potter explained that what the insurance providers are after is nothing short of a “vast shift” of costs onto U.S. consumers.
“It is a reason why you already have a lot of people filing for bankruptcy or losing their homes,” he said. “Right now, if you consider the average median income in this country is $50,000, if you’re asking people to pay that much out of pocket for medical claims, you’re going to have a much worse crisis of bankruptcies and foreclosures in the near future.”
“Are we, the American consumer, under attack by these insurance companies?” asked Olbermann.
Potter claimed that insurers had enlisted an unwitting mob through the use of misinformation.
“The insurance companies are very, very savvy at manipulating public opinion,” he said. “They do this through big PR firms that they hire to feed talking points to politicians to talk show hosts, editorial writers and people that these people trust, so that they think they’re hearing it from people who are telling them the truth, but not realizing it’s coming straight from a special interest that wants them to think a certain way.”
This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Aug. 19, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
No comments:
Post a Comment