WOW! "Fresh Air" interview with T.R. Reid author of "5 Myths About Health Care Around the World"

[Cell Whitman]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112172939">MUST HEAR "FRESH AIR" interview with T.R. Reid

August 24, 2009
Journalist and author T.R. Reid set out on a global tour of hospitals and doctors' offices, all in the hopes of understanding how other industrialized nations provide affordable, effective universal health care. The result: his book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.

Reid is really good at describing the various systems around the world, warts and all. This is exactly the kind of information our media should have been discussing.

I know that Reid writes for the WP and this interview is on Fresh Air so conservatives will not pay any attention, their handler's won’t allow it, but for the rest of us this is must hear info-filled reality radio.

Links to Reid's article in the WP - “5 Myths About Health Care Around the World” and the 2008 Frontline that Reid work on can be found at the Fresh Air link.

[Cell Whitman]

1. It isn't that anyone is saying that all other nation's healthcare systems are perfect

Conservatives have this "all or nothing" view that if you are critical of anything and look for better alternatives that means you are 100% against the way it is and you think any alternative is 100% perfect. Like when you explain to them why some policy a Republican proposes is bad for the nation, they think you are saying anything a Democrat says about it is perfect. The real point is, which way is the best way overall and fair for the country.

If you say something like, "We shouldn't misuse our military in this manner" that becomes in their conditioned minds that you "hate everything about the military."

Conservatives have no sense of proportion which makes it difficult, at best, to discuss any issue with them.

Seems to me that the question is, "Do we want to spend twice as much on healthcare as these other countries, our competitors in areas, while not insuring 50 million citizens - under insuring many more. Do we want to continue pissing money up a dead hog's ass?"

[housewolf]

2. Great interview! VERY informative

Thanks for posting the info. I was able to catch most of the interview.

He talked about differences in health care in Canada, England, France, Germany, Japan, India & Taiwan and personalized it by talking about his own experiences with each system regarding his own shoulder problem. Most interesting was his comments about Taiwan's experiences in setting up their own system in the 1990's - during that decade they became very wealthy, increasing their GDP from about 100th to in the 20's in terms of the world's GDP. The liberals in the country took a position that since they were now a wealthy country, they had a moral obligation to provide health care to all of their citizens. At first the right dissented but eventually took the position that yes, that was the right thing to do, and pre-empted the liberals by passing universal health care before the liberals got around to doing it! They adopted a Canada-style system.

VERY interesting. I hope we get to see more of T.R. Reid on other media outlets in the days ahead.

'Course Fresh Air recordings are available at NPR.COM all the time for your listening pleasure/convenience.

[nilram]

3. I heard much of this, and will hear the rest online. Excellent. -nt