Health Insurance

O. M. F. G. This is really awesome.

I direct you to the latest press release coming from the government run and financed website for the Committee on Energy and Commerce Republicans. It seems that Congressman Joe Barton has a hyperactive funny bone and since the SCHIP debacle broke out, he's been using the website as a place to issue his one-man smackdowns to any and all supporters of SCHIP.

Joe Barton uses The Simpsons for SCHIP-bashing: Republicans using their goernment websites for snarky purposes. Cool!

Here's the link to the first one I noticed, The ‘C’ in SCHIP Is for Children, Except When It’s Not. Today Mr. Barton issued a new release, Bipartisanship on SCHIP!. This one will go down into the annals of the US Congress history as not only an excellent example of Fair Use (something a lot of Republicans stand against), and the First Amendment, but it stands are proof positive that those stodgy conservatives are hip to the popculty times.

Starring "Republican" businessman Montgomery Burns and "Democrat" Mayor Joe Quimby, the press release goes on to depict how the bill is not about the kids but all about the greed. A bipartisan greed that, by the way, is aided an abetted by MoveOn.org and the head of the Democratic Caucus, Rahm Emanuel.

I. Kid. You. Not.

WTF!

The full bipartisan greedy fun after the jump :

Republicans using their goernment websites for snarky purposes. Cool!

I complete agree with Ross Mayfield : Advertising is not Democratic.

This past weekend whilst the technology blogosphere was drooling over the iPhone, a post by one of Google's advertising account planner in the health category created the effect of rubbernecking in front of a car crash. And I mean it when I say it was ugly. Ugly in a "We Do Evil* As Long As There Is Cash Involved" kind of ugly.

In Does Negative Press Make You Sicko?, Lauren Turner wrote :

Michael Bouldin's piece about healthcare reminded me of a piece I wrote in December for my newsletter. I think it makes a good followup to Michael's piece, so I reprint it here.

Health insurance. Joy and I were discussing health insurance after hearing a NewYork 1 report that uninsured people were more likely to be turned away from an emergency room and sent to a clinic than insured people. Now, hospitals who DO turn away patients based on insurance rather than severity of the injury are liable to law suits, but we all know that the chances of a law suit changing things are small since those who don’t have insurance are unlikely to have much legal counsel.

What is wrong with our insurance system? Too many people are uninsured and because of that do not have adequate health care available to them. But, that is only one part of the problem. What about those who ARE insured? There are long waiting times to get an appointment. Often you don’t get to choose your physician. You often don’t have a primary care physician who follows you through the years and knows you. Care is determined based on a business model where profit (or at least minimal cost) takes precedence over what the physician and patient want or the injury requires.