PBS: Sick Around America - New England Patriots Forums

***Leave No Doubt*** · 04-01-2009, 08:09 AM

Excellent stuff. You can watch the entire thing online tho I'm sure it will air again. PBS takes the debate beyond Moore's scope of coverage though it echoes the very same "profits above all else" theme:
FRONTLINE: sick around america | PBS

It also specifically explores MA's policy: FRONTLINE: sick around america: massachusetts' health reform program | PBS

wistahpatsfan · 04-01-2009, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leave No Doubt

Excellent stuff. You can watch the entire thing online tho I'm sure it will air again. PBS takes the debate beyond Moore's scope of coverage though it echoes the very same "profits above all else" theme:
FRONTLINE: sick around america | PBS

It also specifically explores MA's policy: FRONTLINE: sick around america: massachusetts' health reform program | PBS

Watched it last night. As usual, Frontline proves that it's the best show on TV by a mile.

***Leave No Doubt*** · 04-01-2009, 09:48 AM

Quote:

I would think that for-profit free enterprise is the most efficient way to do anything. But the American insurance companies have administrative costs six, eight, 10 times as much as nonprofit insurance firms overseas. What's going on there?

The insurance industry in this country is really a puzzle to me and many of my colleagues. Quite honestly, I don't really see the value added. What I do see is an awful lot of paperwork, an awful lot of incursion into my time and my patients' time and an awful lot of fuss at times about very little.

They're not regulated. You know, we're watched over increasingly; patients are watched over increasingly; federal agencies are watched over. But the insurance industry, as far as I can see, in large part is out there to make some money, to do well, to reward its shareholders if it's for profit, and I wish they were treated a little bit more like a public utility. I wish they had rules. I wish they had things that they should follow. I wish they had more constraints in what they do.

I wish they weren't such big bullies. It often feels to us as doctors that we're being bullied by the insurance industry; that our patients, who are supposed to have them as their advocates, are also being bullied by them.

FRONTLINE: sick around america: interviews: tom delbanco, m.d. | PBS

***Leave No Doubt*** · 04-03-2009, 12:01 PM

Found this and wanted to post it without making a new thread but it raises two questions, one about the validity of what we saw and two, IS there something up with PBS? I know some of their major funding comes from pharma companies, also from the Ford Foundation among others so did that affect what was broadcast?

IS something rotten at PBS?? Russell Mokhiber: Something is Rotten at PBS

Quote:

“We spent months shooting that film,” Reid explains. “I was the correspondent. We did our last interview on January 6. The producers went to Boston and made the documentary. About late February I saw it for the first time. And I told them I disagreed with it. They listened to me, but they didn't want to change it.”

Quote:

Reid said that he now wants to make other documentaries, but not for Frontline.

***PressCoverage*** · 04-03-2009, 05:49 PM

two guesses on the poster who one-starred this thread...

starts with an 'F'....

Holy Diver · 04-03-2009, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wistahpatsfan

Watched it last night. As usual, Frontline proves that it's the best show on TV by a mile.

LOST is damn good too, but Frontline has the jump on informative reporting. LOST has the edge on everything else.

Great episode of Frontline, again. The one lobbiest they interviewed for the medical insurers needed a kick to the face. I understand its his job to be a complete a-hole, but he really needs to check himself.

Profit before care! YAY America!!!!!!

makes me feel all red-white-and blue inside.

***BelichickFan*** · 04-03-2009, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holy Diver

Profit before care! YAY America!!!!!!

You can go to Nationalized Health Care countries and find that you can't get drugs you can get here (unless you pay for them yourself) because they're too expensive. It's basically the same as "profit before care", some of the better drugs are just too expensive so they aren't available.

Holy Diver · 04-03-2009, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BelichickFan

You can go to Nationalized Health Care countries and find that you can't get drugs you can get here (unless you pay for them yourself) because they're too expensive. It's basically the same as "profit before care", some of the better drugs are just too expensive so they aren't available.

you also pay for them here.

are you just spouting out of you azz, or did you watch the piece, and ignore all the parts where people had to declare bankruptcy to get drugs?

The number of non american people throughout the globe who have declared bankruptcy because of healthcare costs = ZERO

The percentage of Bankruptcies in America that are caused by healthcare costs? 50%

you can't be Cereal?

***BelichickFan*** · 04-03-2009, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Holy Diver

The number of non american people throughout the globe who have declared bankruptcy because of healthcare costs = ZERO

They don't go bankrupt, they die. And I'm not talking out of my ass, I have a cousin who's a cancer specialist in England. To get the better cancer drugs - ones which insurance and medicare DO pay for - in England you not only have to pay for those expensive drugs yourself but you then have all cancer payments voided and have to pay for your whole treatment.

Holy Diver · 04-03-2009, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BelichickFan

They don't go bankrupt, they die. And I'm not talking out of my ass, I have a cousin who's a cancer specialist in England. To get the better cancer drugs - ones which insurance and medicare DO pay for - in England you not only have to pay for those expensive drugs yourself but you then have all cancer payments voided and have to pay for your whole treatment.

maybe you should watch the Frontline piece...

you seem really concerned about people in the UK, but not a teenaged girl with Lupis in America. Cool.

Why has EVERY nation adopted these practices, and we have not? Why has medicine been adopted throughout the world as a right, but not here? Why is our cost per person twice the global avreage, yet our care ranks in the low 30s?

there are many reasons, my friend.....a lot of them are addressed in the Frontline piece.

Admin costs
Unredgulated drug prices
Profit over care

thats just a start.