Subject: [big campaign] Huff Post from Creamer -- Don't Americans Deserve Health Care As Good As French?
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:59:42 EDT
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Don’t Americans Deserve a Health Care System as Good as  the One In France? 

A few years ago there was a great uproar from the Right Wing against  
France because its government  opposed the War in Iraq.  The Republican Congress 
went so far as  to rename the “French Fries” in the Congressional cafeteria 
“freedom  fries.”   
Of course, the Republican response was stupid and parochial – and not  many 
years after, most Americans had come to agree with the French that the War  
in Iraq was a huge mistake.   
I think of myself as an internationalist, but my latent sense of  
nationalist competitiveness is indeed aroused by the fact that, per capita,  France 
spends less than half of what  we do on health care and yet the World Health 
Organization ranks their health  care outcomes as number one in the world, 
and we are only  37th. 
We spend $7,290 per person and end up in 37th place.  They spend only 
$3,601 and they are  number one.  That’s just not  right. 
On the average, Frenchmen live almost three years longer than the  average 
American.  That’s  infuriating. 
What’s more, every legal resident of France is  covered by health 
insurance, and in the U.S. 46 million people are  uninsured.  When someone in  France 
goes to the hospital,  everything except a small co-payment is covered – it’
s that simple.  
The government doesn’t deliver health care in France.  Private doctors and 
hospitals do most of  that.  It just provides health  insurance for 
everyone. 
If you walk into one store and a suit you like costs $600 – and next door  
the very same suit is $300, most people would call you a chump for spending  
$600. In this case the French are paying $300 and getting a better  suit.  
What are we, idiots?  
I, for one, refuse to believe that we are not as smart as the French. I  can
’t believe that we will willingly allow ourselves to continue being fleeced 
 by the private insurance executives who make millions off our current 
broken  health care system. 
In their private moments, those executives must not believe their  luck.  
They are laughing all the way  to the bank – laughing at us that we could be 
such suckers – and doing  everything they can to keep things just the way 
they are.   
Just today, they and their Republican defenders in Congress will try to  
prevent the Senate Finance Committee from ending the current practice (put in  
place by Bush and the Republicans) of subsidizing private insurance firms 
14% to  provide Medicare Advantage members the same benefits as Medicare. Do 
they  think we are complete fools? 
President Obama’s health insurance reform plan finally offers us a chance  
to end the national embarrassment of being the world’s biggest health care  
chumps.  We can finally begin the  process of ending the stranglehold of 
private insurance companies over our  health care system with strong 
regulation, and by offering Americans a choice of  keeping their private insurance or 
joining a strong public health insurance  plan. 
Of course the private health insurance companies hate the thought of a  
public health insurance option because it would force them to compete, cut  
profit margins, cut executive salaries, and control costs – just what  America 
needs.  And most Americans understand that.  In a poll conducted just a week 
ago, 62%  said they would be more likely to support President Obama’s 
health insurance  reform proposal if they had a choice of a public option.  Only 
28% said they would be less  likely.   
The only reason we wouldn’t get a public option is if the insurance  
companies and their allies are allowed to hold our health care hostage by  
threatening to stop any form of health insurance reform if Congress limits their  
unfettered ability to fleece us through the current system.   It is up to us 
to make sure that  doesn’t happen. 
Call your Senators today.  Tell them that – as Americans-- we’re done with 
being the world’s biggest  health care chumps.  
Robert Creamer is  a long-time political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent book:  “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” 
available on _amazon.com_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206567141&sr=8-1
) . 

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