Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
to put it in a nut shell only in the united states has healthcare and the insurance of health
care
been treated like a business
%uh where investors and investor owned enterprises
%uh become a very important factor
in delivering the service only in the united states
more recently some other countries are beginning
to try to copy us
and entrepreneurs are beginning in other countries to say well if there's money to be made in
health care as it is in the united states why cant we do the same here in our country
but for the most part we are alone
in the extent to which
healthcare has become
%uh a an investor owned enterprise
I want to pursue that extensively but before i do
other than is there any reason other than the fact that foreign investors see money to
be made in their countries
doing what investors in america do
aside from that is there any other reason
why other countries would want to copy
%uh a system which
from what i understand is widely considered a failure
%uh well %uh
you would think the answer is no but but in fact
what is being propagated is a lie is a lot of propaganda is a lot of
PR
the people who make money
from delivering healthcare or from insuring health care
who profit
as investors in these fields
are telling these other countries as they
claim in the united states
that it's cheaper and more efficient
it's better for the public to have these things
privately %uh delivered
%uh and %uh delivered as part of a social public system
it's not true
the evidence is
strongly against that claim but that's what they claim and that's what you read in many
%uh the
media here in the united states
now to pursue that line just for a moment
the claim is that we do it faster better cheaper
%uh how how is that how can that claim stand
in the face of
%uh a number of what I take it are facts
number one don't you take the position
and aren't you correct
that the cost of %uh
health insurance and cost of medicine
and the trends in the cost
have been increasing dramatically for the last thirty years without any corresponding
benefit
yes
%uh
what is the burden on government and
companies and individuals
of health insurance
and what percentage of our population has it
%uh
about fifty million people in the united states are now without any health insurance at all
and probably at least an equal number
don't have enough insurance so that they are threatened all the time
by financial disaster if they should become seriously ill
and %uh the the evidence that
%uh health insurance health insurers in the united states
are efficient
%uh simply is nonexistent
the facts are that on average
private
for-profit insurance plans
take-out of the premium that
we pay them
on average about twenty percent some as many as much as thirty percent a few as little
as fifteen percent of the premium for their own profits and their own business expenses
and overhead before they pay any money to health care providers to doctors and hospitals
and as as far as anyone can see
there's nothing of comparable value that you get for that
twenty or twenty five percent of the premium which they take away
furthermore
their billing and collecting practices impose on the providers on the hospitals on the doctors
an additional overhead cost
so when you add it all up
we're paying
hundreds of billions of dollars
of %uh overhead costs
to because of
private insurers and we don't get anything of anywhere near comparable value in return