John Oliver Returns, Asks Why The Hell Medicare For All Is Even A Question
Because while Great Britain's National Health Service has its problems, it's still better than our health care system!
By Susie Madrak
John Oliver returns to do a deep dive into Medicare for All, and as usual, does a superb job. Via the A.V. Club:
Last Week Tonight returned this week, and Sunday’s show saw John Oliver back at it, somehow making a 20-minute segment about a seemingly intractable problem simultaneously infuriating, dispiriting, educational, inspirational, and entertaining. That even though, as Oliver pointed out when highlighting the English philanthropist who’s found that Americans are far more in need of free medical pop-up clinics than the rest of the world’s people, “Normally, Americans hate it when a British person comes over to diagnose what’s wrong with you.” Still, if any nation on Earth is in more need of a cheeky naturalized Englishman to airdrop reminders about why, say, Susan Collins (R-ME) is the poster child for Republican gullibility, complicity, and hypocrisy when it comes to Donald Trump (“She can tell Trump doesn’t learn anything because he kept having kids after Donald Trump Jr.”), it’s us in the U.S. And that goes double for Oliver’s main story about Medicare For All, the Democratic hot potato issue so radioactive to Fox News that they keep wheeling out “Sarah Palin’s fourth attempt at cloning herself” to scare its elderly viewership by essentially putting on a monkey mask and screaming “SOCIALISM! BOOGA BOOGA!*” (Only slightly more ridiculous than Fox Business host Kennedy sneering about “sicko socialism” when introducing her own nuanced examination of the undeniably complex health care issue.)
I have a unique point of view. I've had good insurance, I've had shitty insurance -- or none at all.
A few years back, while I was uninsured, I had six bouts of pancreatitis. (If you've ever had it, you know how awful it is. It's like having a heart attack, only you're puking up bile.) Every time I'd go into the ER, the doctors would nod seriously and tell me I had to have my gall bladder out OR I MIGHT DIE. Because I was too stupid to know I needed surgery, I guess. So then I'd tell them I had no insurance, and they'd send me right home.
That's when I found out that Obamacare included a bridge plan that covered preexisting conditions in most states before the ACA actually kicked in. I contacted my state rep's office (they'd never heard about it) and they called me back to tell me there was a three-month waiting period. Using my most desperate voice, I said, "Isn't there anything you can do? They're telling me I'll die without the surgery." They called me back again and it was done. (Yay, Obamacare! I got shingles after the surgery, too, but at least I was alive.)
Last year, I made it to the finish line: Medicare! (Yay!) I bought the top Medigap plan, one I can't really afford, because, you know, bad luck!
https://crooksandliars.com/2020/02/john-oliver-returns-make-strong-case
Note: there is a video that has already been posted on the Media Platform thread....................
= new reply since forum marked as read
and the ACA is basically on a life line after what the US Supreme court did and what it may do, I am a strong believer that either one is more viable than what is currently being used now in this system of greed.
One way or another there is going to have to be a reckoning that there is going to be a tax to support the health care in this country.
We are presently going through a situation with my in-laws, and to place them in a senior living center the money involved is just unimaginable and they are considered a non-profit. And I think of other families that are going through the same process and just think, where are they getting this money.....................the health care in this country is in serious trouble.
We will see, I am for either a M4A or a Public Option, because both systems mean a tax, its that simple.
