Sen. Johnny Isakson thinks a public plan competing against private health care programs is a ‘good system.’
Sen. Johnny Isakson thinks a public plan competing against private health care programs is a ‘good system.’
On Monday, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) told the Georgia Public Broadcasting News that although he opposes a single-payer system, he would support a system where there is competition between public and private health care programs:
ISAKSON: Having private competition, facilities like Emory that are private, public like Grady competing with one another is a good system. What we have got to guard against is becoming a single-payer government system. You take competition out of health care and you’ll have less quality and a higher cost.
Listen here:
Indeed, President Obama outlined Monday that he too opposes single-payer and would prefer a system where “the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option” because “it will keep them honest and it will keep — help keep their prices down.” Is Isakson prepared to vote for Obama’s health care plan?
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
Why not give us what we want? Most of us want a single-payer/public plan.
I doubt if Isakson will vote for Obama’s plan. Republicans are notorious for saying one thing and doing another. He’ll lockstep with the rest of the thuglicans.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:39 pmNo offense. But every time I see a picture of a Republican, it’s always the same. Old White Bread. These guys need some diversity or the are the way of the Whigs.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:39 pmHow long did it take for him to figure this out, “You take competition out of health care and you’ll have less quality and a higher cost.”
June 17th, 2009 at 10:41 pmHey P.D. – It’s the truth anyhow!
June 17th, 2009 at 10:49 pmAmericasBack Says:
ISAKSON: Having private competition competing with one another is a good system. You take competition out of health care and you’ll have less quality and a higher cost.
True in most industries. But healthcare should not be a money maker – there is something inherently evil about making money off of someone’s ill health. Take the corporations out of healthcare and save TRILLIONS.
I agree. I have been saying for some time now that Health Care should be driven by altruism, not by capitalism. There is something immoral about making huge profits off the sick and dying. Single payer is the best way to go. We need to let the president know that. We need to “make him” support single payer. I really do not care one tiny but how much the insurance companies stand to lose from this. If they are running the rest of their insurance businesses correctly, they should still make money. If they can’t, they belong out of the business.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:49 pmSen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) says, “What we have got to guard against is becoming a single-payer government system. You take competition out of health care and you’ll have less quality and a higher cost.”
Dear Mr. Isakson,
There is no competition in the health care system we have now, you moron.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:51 pmWhy can’t we get decent friggin healthcare? You know, the kind this guy gets? You wonder why these old white dudes live so long? They get the best friggin healthcare money can buy because WE fit the bill! But if we, the common folk, get sick, we get screwed. WTF?
June 17th, 2009 at 10:52 pmIs Isakson prepared to vote for Obama’s health care plan?
The insurance juggernaut has accommodatingly deep pockets…why there’s enough room for Obama and Isakson. When you let the air out of conniving politicians, they are actually very small….
There’s just no room for oversight, cost controls or a fair consumer advocate-based system.
Obama pleasing his corporate masters and industry overlords is what’s important here.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:56 pmWhat we have got to guard against is becoming a single-payer government system. You take competition out of health care and you’ll have less quality and a higher cost.
WOW – How much more does this putz want us to pay for really crappy healthcare that if it gets any worse we will be below most 3rd world countries?!?!?
June 17th, 2009 at 10:56 pmWhat one tells his voting constituents and how one actually votes (for his contributors) can be 2 different things.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:57 pmHe must be thinking of the MIC
June 17th, 2009 at 11:00 pm@AmericasBack: Are we slaves to the machine?
I don’t think we are, I KNOW we are!
June 17th, 2009 at 11:04 pmThere is something immoral about making huge profits off the sick and dying.
The religious community’s bread and butter? Surely you jest.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:05 pmAmericansBack@10, As a woman from PA. I can assure you we have a lot of the same dangerous people(mostly the upper north, and west) you know, the gun nuts, racist individuals who blame everyone but themselves for societies troubles. That seems to be the Republicans motto. “Hey don’t blame us! It’s the gays, feminists, atheists, progressives fault!”
June 17th, 2009 at 11:05 pmI live in VA, so I know the people AmericasBack and P.D. discribe. What amazes me is how many of these folk will oppose any effort towards public health care as an effort to “take away their freedom”, when it appears to me they are the very ones who are free to go broke or go without health care.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:26 pmOT… just found…
i was hoping they wouldn’t be so foolish…
PETA wishes Obama hadn’t swatted that fly
The Associated Press – ?1 hour ago?
WASHINGTON (AP) – The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants the flyswatter in chief to try taking a more humane attitude the next time he’s bedeviled by a fly in the White House.
… but somehow KNEW they’d have something to say…
…
as to sen. johnny, he’ll probably be clarifying his statement tomorrow…
June 17th, 2009 at 11:31 pm“… in other news the wife and child of the slain husband…”*
-colbert
L O L (*may be paraphrased)
June 17th, 2009 at 11:34 pmoh, forgot, that was shown with a photo of a fly family
June 17th, 2009 at 11:36 pm@20, They don’t know any better. They are the type of people who were born and bred on the notion “America is the best”. Don’t get me wrong, America is the best. But, long ago we have decided as a nation, never to question our leaders. Americans have fallen into a complacency to suggest that any questioning is un-American. That’s how we have gotten in the Iraq War. Americans don’t even know geography, Hell, they don’t know where Iraq is. SIGH.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:37 pmIm waiting to see what the wingnuts have in store for tomm.
IE June 19th
June 17th, 2009 at 11:44 pmI mean day after tomm…my bad
June 17th, 2009 at 11:45 pmThe HCA criminal continues to show his face on my TV. When it becomes clear to people like him that neither he nor his message is liked, they rub it in your face a little more. Not out of desperation to convince you, but to annoy you, to make you feel that no matter how competent you are on the issue, you’re powerless to change anything.
The republican campaign on health care: Our sick profiting and middle manning is bad, but it could be a lot worse if guv mint gets involved.
One question wipes all that away: Where were the free market solutions during the conservative majority?
June 17th, 2009 at 11:46 pmBut healthcare should not be a money maker – there is something inherently evil about making money off of someone’s ill health. Take the corporations out of healthcare and save TRILLIONS.
Amen and Amen and So say we all….
June 17th, 2009 at 11:46 pmNevertheless, good to see one GOP senator come out in tepid support even if it’s just words.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:48 pmkaty – colbert was tooooooo funny!
June 17th, 2009 at 11:49 pmI don’t see how “competition” is going to help health care, when competition to save money has resulted in insurers denying care and denying plans to people with preexisting conditions. If we want to compete with the world in health care, we’d better get with the program and provide health care, instead of worrying about providing profits for private companies that are only concerned with making money.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:30 amWhat we have got to guard against is becoming a single-payer government system.
Screw your guarding, single payer is the way to go! Competition works against efficiency in a system that’s geared around pooling more people together to minimize costs. The more competing pools you have, the fewer the people in each pool and therefore the less efficient it is.
Insurance doesn’t really provide a service. It groups people together, processes some forms, collects premiums and pays out benefits. There’s no value added to that. There’s no way of doing it “better than the other guy.” In short, there’s no basis to compete on.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:08 amThere are about 1,300 health insurance ompanies in the US. Plans are divided into single person, person plus spouse, and family. These are broken down into gold, silver, and bronze—depending on how much deductible and co-pay you would like to pay, This makes about 12,000 plans that doctors and hospitals have to sift through to find out who can have what and who pays what percentage of what. This is a bureaucratic nightmare that no other developed country has to deal with.
In Britain, it is pure simplicity. I had appendicitis one year and a root canal another year and paid zero each time. The state actually paid me a few hundred for being out of work—not my employee—the government.
100 million Americans have no dental coverage. You can die of an abcess tooth.
We can cover everyone and save $350 billion every year at the same time.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:14 amThey talk one way then vote another. Either way, I think we’ll soon see Sen. Isakson apologize to Lush Rimjob. He’s bucking the party line.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:31 amI reside in VA, so I apperceive the humans AmericasBack and P.D. discribe. What amazes me is how abounding of these folk will argue any accomplishment appear accessible bloom affliction as an accomplishment to “take abroad their freedom”, if it appears to me they are the actual ones who are chargeless to go bankrupt or go after bloom care. Araba Saç Ekimi
June 18th, 2009 at 4:18 amWhy change things at all? Since competition has kept the insurance industry SO very cheap, and medical costs SO low, I can’t understand why anyone would want to change things. Lying bastrds.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:49 amThis explains why the other industrialized countries are clamoring to have their single-payer systems replaced by America’s Rube Goldberg monstrosity. The envy is palpable.
Rupert Murdoch in Pain
June 18th, 2009 at 6:26 amI love watching the capitalists in our nation screaming, “We don’t want competition! Competition bad!!!!”. Idiots. They look like a bunch of socialists at the moment.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:48 amThe media and the republicans are lying about the plan
They are making people believe that what is being proposed is “Government Run Health Care”. That is not the case.
Single Payer is NOT “Government Run Health Care”. It simply removes the insurance company middleman from the equation, which reduces costs and spreads the risk.
Think of it as a 300-million strong group insurance plan.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:18 amOh boy…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a62_boqkurbI
Two Japanese men caught on the border of Italy with $134 billion in U.S. Treasury Bonds in their suitcases!
June 18th, 2009 at 7:31 amIsakson is not really talking about ‘public’ like it is meant in Obama’s proposal. Emory is a privately owned for profit hospital. Grady is publicly owned and gets tons of subsidies from the City of Atlanta. Grady is the only hospital which ‘welcomes’ indigents as a part of its charter. But if you are not indigent and you go to Grady then you pay like every other hospital. There is no such thing as an “Emory Health Plan” or a “Grady Health Plan”.
As usual Isakson is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He is funded by the health insurance industry. When it comes down to a vote, he will never ever vote for a real public option.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:54 amccrider, I’ve been to Grady after an automobile accident. It’s very overcrowded, but the staff is amazingly dedicated.
Atlanta keeps Grady going because the alternative is lots of sick, indigent people dying in the streets.
People that reflexively oppose all public support for people in need don’t understand the practical need to keep these people from dying in the street, as it affects our quality of life to have sick people unable to get help.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:59 amPerhaps Sen Isakson would like to explain how Canada’s public health care system costs 1/3 as much as the US, everyone is insured, noone be denied coverage, and reliably consistent, good quality health care is a basic right of every citizen, though many insurance industry shills would have the public believe otherwise.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:16 amP.D. Says:
——————————————————————————–
@20, They don’t know any better. They are the type of people who were born and bred on the notion “America is the best”. Don’t get me wrong, America is the best.
P.D. ….I respectfully have to disagree with your statement. America is NOT the best, far from it. Go look at stats and you’ll see America has major work to do.
This stat sums it all up….America (the richest nation in the world)is 24th in the world for infant mortality rate. Third world countries have a better stat then us.
Propaganda is the reason this nation is falling apart. The lies the MSM is putting out….have you ever wondered why the MSM won’t go to Canada and speak to its citizens and ask them how do they like their single payer health system??????The answer….the truth would kill your system of health care….sorry wealth care….you have no health care…i forget….sorry!!!
I admire the Iranian people, look what they are doing….when am I going to see this in America again
June 18th, 2009 at 10:58 amNOLIESPLEASE Says:
I admire the Iranian people, look what they are doing….when am I going to see this in America again
Massive instability? Hopefully never. But the election night celebrations surrounding the White House weren’t entirely dissimilar.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:11 amElbruce…massive instability? Hopefully never. Well I hate to tell you….but…..The banks were crashing (instability), housing crashed(instability), no industries that build (instability), millions without health insurance (instability)and claiming bankruptcy, no regulations in the stock market (instability), no equal rights for gays (instability), propaganda in the MSM (instability)….the country borrows every day from china(instability) ……So when were you going to take it to the streets??????
June 18th, 2009 at 11:37 am