I just got done attending a health insurance town hall here in Boulder – this one put on by Blue Cross of Colorado and New West Health Insurance. It was really something – there were angry policy holders there and people who had had their policies rescinded, and other people who had had claims rejected. But the most prominent complaint was this, voiced by a matronly lady:
My husband and I work hard – I have health insurance on the job, but I have to pay extra to have him on the policy. Right now we’re paying $600 a month, and our deductibles keep going up, and my employer keeps complaining about how expensive it is, so we can’t be sure that policy is always going to be there. My question is this: What about your own coverage? Do you worry about health care costs at all?
There was applause, and then silence. The CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield, Sherry Cladouhos, sat silently for a moment, and then said
“No – I guess I don’t really feel that. I don’t worry about that. I do worry about our costs, and we do oversee claims very carefully, but I have to say that we are often insulated from the problems of policyholders, and don’t empathize. So I thank you for asking the question, and pointing out part of our problem – that we who administer health care in the private sector have taken great pains to ensure that we never have to deal with policy holders. That’s why I’m here tonight. I go home tonight with a different attitude, and tomorrow morning, I am your employee.
Now admit it. I totally had you, right? You bit when I said that a private health care corporation would actually have a town hall meeting. Embarrassed?
Piece of Mindful 
That was like health-care erotica.
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“My question is this: What about your own coverage? Do you worry about health care costs at all?”
Ask that of Congress’s plans for themselves. How about Congress eating their own dogfood and submitting themselves and their families to any eventual Public Plan? Would Ted Kennedy and Arlan Spector even be alive today if they were just Joe Blow under the H.R.3200?
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Would Stephen Hawking be alive if he lived in Great Britain?
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Would Steven Hawkings be alive if he wasn’t Steven Hawkings?
Be bad PR to put the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics in this hospital:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5008935/NHS-targets-may-have-led-to-1200-deaths-in-Mid-Staffordshire.html
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You could be wrong – it could be that everyone in Great Britain has access to quality basic medical care.
But how the hell would you know, as you don’t seem to want to know anything about their system other that what American hatchet men say about them.
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Wow. You’ve convinced me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
When the facts don’t go your way and you personally attack, YOU lose credibility. You complain about rudeness from opponents and you are the perfect example.
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No Fred – you must not fall back on being victimized to cover up my point – that you do not know anything about the British health care system. Deal with that. It’s not an attack – it’s a plain, out-in-the-open and easily observed fact about you.
Please report back when you have learned about their system, good and bad things alike. Until that time, you are not useful.
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I side with fred on this one (hee hee hee) You got all snippy when you could have taken a few words and explained it all to us.
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No Fred.Report back to me on the British system. Be objective.
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Love the narrow format. I think we should hire the British to run our health care.
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Bozeman just flailed its way through a high-profile meeting of its own. As surreal as Mark’s. It was not a pretty picture. The media expertly drowned out most of the single-payer, and smaller government sentiment. This left Baucus, Tester, Schweitzer, and their loyal followers to bask in the aura of their own astro-turf. We should be embarrassed. Of course, we’re not because there’s nothing like a good spectacle to distract from the real and growing problems of an Empire in decline.
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