Cheeto's Favorite Morning Cartoon Show Polls It's Viewers about Medicare for All

[FORD]

Published on
Wednesday, August 01, 2018
by Common Dreams

Fox & Friends Poll Designed to Discredit Medicare for All Explodes in Their Face

"A majority say yes to healthcare for all! The benefits: Guaranteed medical care, dental, vision and hearing, for all Americans, free at the point-of-care. The savings: $2 trillion over 10 years."
by Jake Johnson, staff writer



When President Donald Trump's favorite right-wing television program "Fox & Friends" launched a Twitter poll on Tuesday asking whether the benefits of Medicare for All "outweigh the costs," they likely didn't expect 73 percent of the nearly 32,000 respondents to answer yes—but that's precisely what happened.

"Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for all' bill estimated to cost $32.6 trillion, new study says. Would the benefits outweigh the costs?" the survey asked, referencing a recent Koch Brothers-funded study that found Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) universal healthcare program would save $2 trillion over ten years—a fact that "Fox & Friends" conveniently neglected to mention in both its poll and its coverage of the new analysis.

Despite the misleading framing "Fox & Friends" deployed, the results of the unscientific survey were overwhelming.

Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for all' bill estimated to cost $32.6 trillion, new study says. Would the benefits outweigh the costs?
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) July 31, 2018

Bonnie Castillo, executive director of National Nurses United, responded to the poll results on Twitter, when just 13,000 people had voted:

13,000 people participated in Fox & Friends #MedicareForAll poll - a majority say YES to healthcare for all!

THE BENEFITS: Guaranteed medical care, dental, vision and hearing, for all Americans, free at the point-of-care.

THE SAVINGS: $2 trillion over 10 years. #TuesdayThoughts https://t.co/ZyrNho79UM
— Bonnie Castillo (@NNUBonnie) July 31, 2018

The failed attempt by "Fox & Friends" to falsely document Medicare for All as unpopular—despite recent surveys showing that progressive policies like single-payer are experiencing unprecedented support, including among Republicans—fits an emerging pattern of right-wing media outlets falling face-first in their attempts to discredit commonsense, straightforward, and bold ideas.

As Common Dreams reported, right-wing Daily Caller editor Virginia Kruta attended a rally last week featuring a speech by democratic socialist congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In an appearance on Fox News, Kruta recounted the "truly terrifying" experience of hearing Ocasio-Cortez advocate policies that "everybody wants, especially if you're a parent."

"They talk about education for your kids, healthcare for your kids, the things that you want," Kruta said of democratic socialists like Ocasio-Cortez.

Responding to Kruta's remarks, journalist Sarah Jaffe asked, "Does Fox know that they're unwittingly creating commercials for socialism?"

[jacksmar]

FORD, I'm not getting in the numbers on this one. But between you and me honestly it doesn't stand up. This one really is simple.

What is the cost to administrate this program and does Congress control the funding? Check what I'm asking. I'm not talking about the numbers you provided at all. I'm talking about the numbers that surround these numbers. Government programs always get bigger and go higher to facilitate the administration of the programs.

This is not a static number. It's always changing with regard to the people that you service.

Let me way oversimplify on purpose. This isn't a shot at anybody, it's just an example.

Wendy's provides a four dollar lunch. How many people actually order the four dollar lunch?

Wendy's generally has two registers at the front and customer line that wraps around the front. What's the cost open up the second register when three people in front of you don't order the four dollar lunch but they do order six doubles, three triples, 15 Junior cheeseburgers, 55 Junior bacon cheeseburgers, and 115 spicy chicken sandwiches all with fries?

Seems there may be a cost overrun there in some form or another and meanwhile at the Wendy's in Cheyenne Wyoming on Frontier Blvd., Sandy is calling back over her shoulder, Help me Jeannie I'm swamped!

[FORD]

The cost of administrating a single payer health care program is much less than the corporate insurance model.

Why? Because the corporate model, by design, has to exist to make a profit, to pay off the CEO and shareholders, while the government run insurance model merely has to pay the actual adminstative costs of paying the employees to push the paper (or electronic equivalents of the paper)

It's the reason why all of the other countries who have such a system in place have a dramatically lower cost for health care.

As far as the taxes go, yes your taxes will go up. But what you will be paying in taxes then is still much less than what you're paying to greedy insurance corporations NOW.

The Wendy's analogy really doesn't make much sense. Nobody has to eat fast food. Everybody eventually has to see a doctor. Probably sooner if you eat a lot of fast food.

[jacksmar]

This going to sound rotten, but I made my choice of doctors based on the ones that don't see Medicare patients and AHCA patients. It's concierge service for those of us that prefer a higher standard of physicians and specialists. We pay much higher costs and have 24/7 access. It's a choice.

We can play out all scenarios but this works for my family's coverage. But let me say that this isn't for everyone. For my family it works under a simple premise: whomever pays the piper, calls the tune.

I have always believed that when we no longer pay the doctor for our treatment that we are no longer in control of the process.

Wendy's was not a great example but there's the example of Charlie Gard.


On a lighter note, you're right, nobody has to eat fast food. But everybody still goes to Jack-In-The-Box after the midnight show.

[Seshmeister]

This going to sound rotten, but I made my choice of doctors based on the ones that don't see Medicare patients and AHCA patients. It's concierge service for those of us that prefer a higher standard of physicians and specialists. We pay much higher costs and have 24/7 access. It's a choice.

We can play out all scenarios but this works for my family's coverage. But let me say that this isn't for everyone. For my family it works under a simple premise: whomever pays the piper, calls the tune.

This is the absolute key misunderstanding about 'socialised medicine' in Europe.

In the UK and to my knowledge every other country with a 'free at the point of use' healthcare system, you can totally still do your own thing. Plenty of people in the UK have private healthcare insurance because they don't want the lowest common denominator healthcare for all - nicer food in hospital, super good access to a physio or whatever. The crazy thing in the US is that at the moment is the US government is paying just as much if not more than many European countries do for Healthcare but you get so little for it. In the US insurance companies take about 1/3. This means it's pretty easy for a government run healthcare system to be more efficient.

[jacksmar]

sesh, I understand from where I see it. Let me put it how you see it. You're fine with clueless politicians ( insert politicians you can't stand to hear or see) with the power of life and death over their constituents. And then the way I see it in these European countries, it makes postal workers out of doctors and nurses.

Charlie Gard's life wasn't deemed useless by his parents. Charlie Gard's life was terminated by EPA types, politicians, the Obama's of the world that believe a decision like that is beyond his pay grade.

On a positive note there would be more room in Florida due to the aged populace. The aged would be the first to go. The very old would be denied life extending treatment. The aged would be denied treatment in favor of less expensive hospice care by a sociologist bean counter.

So property and real estate would become available for sale. I could double my property line easily.

A quick edit: Having provided and paid for employee health insurance and retirement plans, I think I have a pretty fair understanding of how single payer works.

[FORD]

On a lighter note, you're right, nobody has to eat fast food. But everybody still goes to Jack-In-The-Box after the midnight show.

Supposedly, Taco Hell is the most popular choice. I did prefer Jack in the Box in my younger days, but that's probably because it was the only place between the bars and where I was living at that time which was open that late. I would have much rather stopped by Jo Mama's pizza (located next door to Kurt Cobain's house) but they closed too early.

Healthy organic pizza on a whole grain crust. Way ahead of their time, but sadly they left this world right around the same time their former neighbor did (just a coincidence... Cuntney Love didn't kill them too)

[Seshmeister]

sesh, I understand from where I see it. Let me put it how you see it. You're fine with clueless politicians ( insert politicians you can't stand to hear or see) with the power of life and death over their constituents. And then the way I see it in these European countries, it makes postal workers out of doctors and nurses.

Charlie Gard's life wasn't deemed useless by his parents. Charlie Gard's life was terminated by EPA types, politicians, the Obama's of the world that believe a decision like that is beyond his pay grade.

On a positive note there would be more room in Florida due to the aged populace. The aged would be the first to go. The very old would be denied life extending treatment. The aged would be denied treatment in favor of less expensive hospice care by a sociologist bean counter.

So property and real estate would become available for sale. I could double my property line easily.

A quick edit: Having provided and paid for employee health insurance and retirement plans, I think I have a pretty fair understanding of how single payer works.

Firstly that argument is going away to the margins, 1 in a million case.

Secondly I would prefer to have a set of rules, court appeals on whether someone should be switched off where the argument is with the government rather than with an insurer whose first responsibility is to make profits. Tell me how long does the average insurance policy pay for a baby in intensive care? It costs around $3000 a day not including any procedures. Go look up how many people in the US are bankrupted by healthcare costs and compare that to the number in the UK or Canada.

Thirdly it was cruel to keep Charlie Gard alive artificially. The case was upheld in court, in appeal court, then supreme court and then in the European Court of Human Rights. This was nothing to do with how healthcare is funded in the UK - the death panel fear propaganda the US medical industry funded is just that. 'If you have free healthcare the government will kill you when you get old', yeah it's like Logans Run in Europe. Utter garbage but people fell for it.

If the US system is the correct way to do it and every other western country is wrong then it's surprising how expensive it is and how poor the outcomes are.

Go and look at some league tables comparing US healthcare to other places.

[jacksmar]

sesh, Charlie Gard is a story that's more the anecdote. I recognize that from the many leftists points like abortion, poverty, crime. For example, when The Bell Curve is used as an accurate point of reference the socialist left points up the anecdotes.

I get your point. And it's good that you're up on current events. Logan's Run.While were talking about current events it's good to know that an administration would never target people because of their political views in the United States. You never see an IRS official go after a group of people for their political views. Oh wait, bad example. What I meant to say was you never see a department of government go after a business because their political views. Oh wait, bad example. I guess I forgot about the evil Gibson guitar company example. What I meant to say was you never see the department of government go after a private citizen for letting their cattle wander off the range. No wait, bad example. What I meant to say was you never see a department of government go after a member of the press and his family. Oh hell, bad example. What I meant to say was in the United States we would never let a former member of the armed services die waiting for medical treatment in line because he came in the wrong door. Never mind. All of those scenarios only happened once.

sesh, Let me explain why you're in favor of that type of socialism. I don't really have a problem seeing through socialist bullshit. Notice no death threats.

Here's what it amounts to:
-Single payer healthcare allows for hundreds of thousands of poorly qualified democratic voters, hundreds of thousands government jobs.
-These newly hired voters get to award government contracts to democratic party companies that usually hire former reps and senators and lobbyists that earn exuberant salaries but really don't do any work at all.
-When these newly hired voters get sick they call up a friend who's got an inside to get them service.
-Then these voters come out of care with an attitude because there was not enough people to service their issues to their level of satisfaction. So they hire more government workers that vote democratic, and frame the issue that those of us that are fortunate enough to be able to provide for our own health care are the problem and that we need to have our taxes raised to meet the level of sophistication they believe they are accorded.

sesh, This isn't actually socialized medicine. KEY: This is collectivist care. This isn't about healthcare and getting sick and getting preventative care.

It's about control and subjugation.

You can call it the European model, you can call it universal healthcare, you can call it ACHA.

It's socialism...

[FORD]

[Kristy]

Here's what it amounts to:
-Single payer healthcare allows for hundreds of thousands of poorly qualified democratic voters, hundreds of thousands government jobs.
-These newly hired voters get to award government contracts to democratic party companies that usually hire former reps and senators and lobbyists that earn exuberant salaries but really don't do any work at all.
-When these newly hired voters get sick they call up a friend who's got an inside to get them service.
-Then these voters come out of care with an attitude because there was not enough people to service their issues to their level of satisfaction. So they hire more government workers that vote democratic, and frame the issue that those of us that are fortunate enough to be able to provide for our own health care are the problem and that we need to have our taxes raised to meet the level of sophistication they believe they are accorded.

sesh, This isn't actually socialized medicine. KEY: This is collectivist care. This isn't about healthcare and getting sick and getting preventative care.

It's about control and subjugation.

You can call it the European model, you can call it universal healthcare, you can call it ACHA.

It's socialism...

Fuck, that was a funny read. Total propaganda perpetrated by corporate fucktards

[Seshmeister]

These days everyone is in a political bubble online so it should be that this site where a bunch of people hang about not based on political opinions but music should hopefully in the best case scenario help understanding of different positions.

Unfortunately reading jacks post I don't really understand what he's saying. It doesn't seem to be based so much on facts as just a kind of tribal anti government thing. Dunno I'll try and read it again tomorrow.

[jacksmar]

Unfortunately reading jacks post I don't really understand what he's saying.

sesh, That's the best compliment I've received here. Thanks very much.

[jacksmar]

FORD, do you think BS will run in 2020 or will he be the guy that provides endorsements/approval?

[jacksmar]

Let me preface by saying that this was “point 2” of four points that led me to shutter my business over 10 years ago now. Employer provided health insurance. This won’t make sense to a couple of incompetent smart asses that linger here, so it will make sense to everyone else.

It wasn’t the insures that inflated my “healthcare” costs. It was politicians and lobbyists. The politicians and lobbyists were not subject to risk aversion so they were constantly passing mandates. The range of these benefits drive up the cost of insurance policies. It’s that simple. A healthy 25 year male employee was paying for in-vitro fertilization ( that one stood way out to me), hormone replacement therapy ( women have needs you know), and breast reduction, and more.

In 1979, there were 252 mandates. In 2009, 2,133 mandates. I’m no fan of insurance companies but that is ridiculous.
But here was the fucking nutcracker for me on this point: I couldn’t pay an employee what they were worth.
Each year I had to take my suddenly sullen self over to CBIZ and the accountants told me my wages for each position and how many I could hire with the rising premiums.

I am happy to answer any questions you have about this issue. It still keeps me up at night. I had an employee that took their 3 year old daughter to two ER’s before calling me. I grabbed a Tampa city police officer just outside of the airport terminal and he gave me a semi escort to the ER at Tampa General. He followed me in and listened to whole story about the little girls’ fever. It went much better with him and myself explaining what needed to get done quickly and the paperwork would follow.

Life is good.