We know that our present healthcare system of private insurance doesn't work. Now Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York has even gotten Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, to admit that a single-payer system of healthcare has virtues.
As Weiner acknowledges, there two powerful forces against change are the status quo and the insurance lobby. The real question is "why we do we have a private plan."
The Nation's Leslie Savan has noted:
Something rather remarkable happened on Tuesday's Morning Joe. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York pointed out that the health insurance industry has no clothes, and Joe Scarborough, after first trying to spin it some gossamer threads, broke down and said, By God, you're right, this emperor is a naked money-making machine!
Well, he didn't use those exact words, but Joe did seem to finally get that America has granted insurance companies the right to create bottlenecks in the financing of healthcare in order to extract profits out of the suffering of ordinary people--without providing any actual healthcare whatsoever.
"Why are we paying profits for insurance companies?" Weiner asked Scarborough. "Why are we paying overhead for insurance companies? Why," he asked, bringing it all home, "are we paying for their TV commercials?"[...]
"It sounds like you're saying you think there is no need for us to have private insurance in healthcare," Joe asked at one point.
Weiner replied: "I've asked you three times. What is their value? What are they bringing to the deal?"[...]
Maybe the real turning point came when Weiner asked, "How does Wal-mart offer $4 prescriptions?"
Rep. Anthony Weiner Discusses Public Option Health Care Reform on Morning Joe - PT 1
Rep. Anthony Weiner Discusses Public Option Health Care Reform on Morning Joe - PT 2
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