What’s That In Your Water Bottle?
by Mike on Jul.05, 2009, under Political
I had an interesting discussion regarding the Obama health care proposal this afternoon while eating pizza after the North Ride.
One of the guys first told us about his 82 year old mother-in-law who has some form of cancer and is about to undergo chemo. He said the doctor felt the planned treatment regimen had some opportunity for success and he did not indicate he had any issues with the planned treatment given her age or the stage of her cancer diagnosis.
Later in the conversation, he stated the U.S. health care system was a mess and something needed to be done. When I asked him why, he stated because 45 million Americans have no insurance coverage. When I asked him if these 45 million were not getting health care, he acknowledged that they were receiving health care, “but we need to do something.” When asked why the other 85% of the country needs to change its current coverage (to a single payer system) he had no answer. He also had no answer when I told him his mother-in-law would not be receiving the planned treatment if we have the government managing (read “rationing”) health care.
He also told us about some investigative journalism (the DMN??) which found that the Medicare reimbursement rate in McAllen, TX was double the rate throughout the country. He then related a plane trip he took where his seat mate explained how several McAllen doctors setup clinics, hired Phillipino nurses, and were bilking the system to the tune of $5M – $10M per year per doctor. When I asked him why we would want to institute this type of government administered program to all the citizens in the U.S. he said someone needs to clean-up this fraud.
In summary, although this guy knows someone personally who would not receive the treatment they are currently receiving under a government managed program, he admits that we do NOT have people in this country who are living without the health care they need, and that current government managed health care is rife with fraud and abuse, “we need to do something.”
Perhaps that is not a sport drink in his water bottle and is “kool-aid” instead.
