On Health Care, Diane Rehm Makes Me Sick

[NorthCarolina]

On Health Care, Diane Rehm Makes Me Sick

by Russell Mokhiber

I'm an Arab American.

If I listen to the leadership of the Arab American organizations, I'm supposed to be proud of my fellow Arab Americans who make it in American society.

So, for example, the Arab American Institute promotes all Arab American politicians - no matter their political persuasion.

At its annual dinner, the American Task Force on Lebanon gives awards to the likes of Darryl Issa (R-California) and General John Abizaid, former head of the U.S. Command in Iraq.

A couple of years ago, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee gave an award to National Public Radio's Diane Rehm, a prominent Lebanese American.

Rehm's a corporate liberal.

She'll espouse corporate Democratic Party liberalism - but won't go out on the limb for the American people.

Take the issue of health care reform.

Fifty million Americans are without health insurance.

More than 22,000 Americans die every year from no health insurance.

The underinsured are dying too.

That's why, according to recent polling, the majority of the American people want a Medicare for all, Canadian style, single payer health insurance system in the United States.

The majority of doctors want it.

The majority of health economists want it.

But the inside the beltway political establishment - of which Diane Rehm is a card-carrying member - despises it.

They despise it because the private health insurance industry despises it.

Take Diane Rehm's show this morning.

It's titled "The Politics of Health Care Reform."

On the show, three guests:

Corporate Republican, corporate Democrat, and corporate reporter.

Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute. (No to single payer.)

Ron Pollack of Families USA. (No to single payer.)

And Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal. (No to single payer.)

Was a single payer system ever mentioned on the Diane Rehm show this morning?

Yes, once.

But not by one of the four Washington insiders.

As usual, it was raised by a listener.

<snip>

Meckler rephrased the listener's question as - To what extent does the government have a responsibility to provide health insurance for its people?

And she answered it, against the preponderance of the evidence, with - "I think there's probably a consensus in this country that there is not support for a single payer system that you see in other countries - with the government as the insurer for everybody. I don't think we are going to see that. But there are things in between that and nothing at all."

<snip>

Read the entire posting here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/25-5

[urgk]

1. Have you ever heard a proposal...

...where the US would push its own, government-funded insurance as an option? I mean a sort of free-market-based competition with USA as a competitor, but a competitor that could afford to lose money? As far as I know, any other business who could get a steady stream of income and operate at a loss would be allowed to do so. The government's health care could be cheaper, cover more, and just operate in the red.

Sorry that it's somewhat off-topic, but it's something I've been thinking about.

[subterranean]

2. Isn't that pretty much what Obama proposed during his campaign?

It's also what Howard Dean is pushing now: Offer a public insurance option as an alternative to private insurance plans. It wouldn't have to operate in the red, although it probably would at some point. It would not need to generate the billions in profits that private companies do.

[ShortnFiery]

3. Agreed, IMO, there's nothing LIBERAL about "corporatism."

:(