My sister Brigid Marlin lives in the UK and a few days ago was watching a BBC program on health care in the United States. Brigid is not a public affairs junkie so I was interested when she sent me an email reporting that the program was a shocking portrayal of the high cost and low coverage of U.S. medical care. This itself is not news but there are two things about the show that are worth an alert: (1) The BBC's effectiveness in describing the problems with U.S. health care, and (2) The fact that Americans can't watch it. My sister says:
They were discussing the problems that Obama faces in meeting his promise to provide health care for poor Americans. The program showed an English medical team that set out to provide medical services to poor people overseas. They ended up spending 60 percent of their time helping poor Americans, as they are the most needy! We were shown people getting up at 4 am and driving for hundreds of miles to be early in a huge queue for a doctor's help.The program was produced by BBC's Panorama, the world's oldest television documentary program, begun in 1953.
The Panorama team managed to get inside a briefing that a large US insurance company was giving its staff, awarding them huge bonuses for finding loopholes in the clients' policies, so they didn't have to pay up! They boasted that one employee had saved the company $7 million by giving them the basis for refusing to pay out because of a tiny flaw in the way they had filled out the form. This story was contrasted with the company's television ads, where a kindly fatherly figure assures clients that they will be safe and looked after.The BBC itself describes the program as follows:
Barack Obama takes over as U.S. President with a promise to dramatically change America and make it a fairer place. He is inheriting the worst economic crisis in almost a century, and a country so unequal that 23,000 people die every year because they cannot afford basic healthcare. To close the gap between rich and poor Obama will have to take on the might of the corporate world, which wields enormous influence in Washington. Can he change the world's most powerful country, and should he?My sister's message to me goes on:
The drug companies are just as bad, Panorama shows. They have bumped up their prices so that Americans pay twice as much for their medicines as the same companies charge to other countries. It seems that the drug companies are uncontrollable because they wine and dine the senators so no votes are cast against their policies. The program showed the drug companies supporting senators with money for electioneering and their favourite charities. They are determined not to allow a comprehensive health care system in America!Well, I attempted to watch the program myself and give you a link to it. It was broadcast on BBC One, 8:30 pm, January 19. It's a half-hour show produced by Jeremy Vine. My sister is not the only fan of the show. It is posted as a "pick" by blogger "Up Your Ego: Love Your Inner Geek". The blogger is trying to emulate the "brilliant" Watchification, Telegraph iPlayer Pick of the Day and the Radio Times Downloads index, and says:
My pick is the Panorama special on the USA health care system. I really enjoyed Michael Moore's Sicko but it was a little (ok a lot) one sided. A great piece of entertainment and a good piece of journalism when preaching to the choir BUT lacking slightly in balance. The BBC tries to look at both sides of the story. Watch it HERE.Unfortunately, when I tried the link in several places, I got a message each time that the link won't work in the United States. So the best anyone can do, so far as I know, is to get a U.S.-formatted DVD sent over or persuade a PBS station to air the program in the United States. The program's e-mail address is: panorama@bbc.co.uk. I have written to them asking to be advised if the health care show has been or will be aired here. No answer to my question yet.
You should be able to watch it online for at least the next month here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7854000/7854496.stm
Or you can watch it in our blog here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/panorama/2009/01/what_now_mr_president_a_us_ver.html
If you have any problems, please email panorama@bbc.co.uk and put Obama in the subject heading.
To everyone reading this website:
**Please urge President Obama to watch the documentary and send him the video links above. You can leave your comments here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
**Please send the links and urge HHS Secretary Tom Daschle to watch the documentary: tom.daschle@alston.com
**Send the links and urge your Senators and Representatives to watch the documentary. You'll find easy contact information here: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
The solution? NON-PROFIT, UNIVERSAL, SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE. It works well in many, many countries around the world. Learn about The National Health Insurance Bill (HR 676) at: http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php
HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS IN 2007:
1. UnitedHealth Group -- $ 4.654 BILLION. UnitedHealth Group owns Oxford, PacifiCare, IBA, AmeriChoice, Evercare, Ovations, MAMSI and Ingenix, a healthcare data company
2. WellPoint -- $ 3.345 BILLION. Wellpoint owns BLUES across the US, including Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, Empire HealthChoice Assurance, Healthy Alliance, and many others
3. Aetna Inc. -- $ 1.831 BILLION
4. CIGNA Corp -- $ 1.115 BILLION
5. Humana Inc. -- $ 834 million
6. Coventry Health Care -- $626 million. Coventry owns Altius, Carelink, Group Health Plan, HealthAmerica, OmniCare, WellPath, others
7. Health Net -- $ 194 million
The huge insurance company profits—BILLIONS EACH YEAR—could provide quality healthcare for millions of people, and to pay physicians adequately for their work.
We need to get the insurance companies OUT of healthcare . The only solution is a NON-PROFIT SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE SYSTEM – and the single payer should not be an insurance company or a group of insurance companies.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org/learn_more/the_roster/ and http://www.pnhp.org/
Learn about The National Health Insurance Bill (HR 676) at: http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php
• Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
• H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
• David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
• Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
• Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
• Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
• Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
• Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
• William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
• Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
• James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
• Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
• Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
The only way that we will have affordable, quality care is to get the insurance companies OUT of healthcare! We need a NON-PROFIT, SINGLE-PAYER healthcare system now!
Given the interest in Panorama: What Now, Mr President? outside of the UK, on this occassion we have decided to create a special web page that will give non-UK residents the opportunity to watch it.
As soon as the page is live, I'll post the url:
Here
On the Panorama blog - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/panorama/
On Panorama's Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/BBCPanorama
The show is available as a torrent download. If you want to see it, just go to one of the torrent sites, like Piratebay or Torrentportal and enter the name of the show and the episode into the search engine. Then download using a torrent program like utorrent or the Opera web browser. Voila! Enjoy!
The economic mess is going to make health insurance reform even harder.
Also, the rest of the industrialized world is openly discussing a global transition from Free Market Capitalism to Social Democracy, - but that also is selectively ignored by ABC, Fox, CNN,...
"Those who make peaceful reovolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."
- Thomas Jefferson
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Nurses_Every_American_should_have_Cheneycare_0512.html
I wonder if my in-laws in the UK caught this show. But then again, after what we've been through, I think they already have a good idea. After watching the BBC Panorama report (on Youtube while one can) and watching Moyers video again... it really upsets me. I won't go into my families ordeal with the health care nightmares, but HEALTH CARE must be on the TOP of Obama's TO DO list. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
BTW, if people wish to keep the youtube vids in case they disappear, a handy online way would be to use http://www.keepvid.com
Of course, I would take the British health care over US since I don't have insurance and cannot get it. So ANY health care is better than NONE as it is here.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/BBC_documentary_takes_on_Obamas_plans_0125.html
Our complicity in allowing our congress to bend us over for the pleasure of big pharma and insurance companies is shameful. I humbly recommend everyone read the book "The Prophet" by Khalil Gibran, specifically the section titled "Freedom" ....
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5484/Gib14.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5484/Gibran.htm
...If you get the lesson you know that Americans will never be free from corporate tyranny until we totally remove the tyrant from our own hearts and minds. The gruond swell of this very organic grass roots movement highlighted by the election of Obama, must be used to remove the tyranny. Letter writing campaigns as well as political action against unbending local, state and national politicians is the only way to make changes.
If we wait for change to come from the top down then we are waiting for the tyrants to give up their tyranny - it'll never happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD65UKgB6hU&feature=related
We need to hear this stuff over and over again to remind outselves how out of touch our healthcare system is with most other advanced countries.
We pay twice as much and rank 36 or 37 in national health....
Capitalism --- every doctor out for himself -- clearly doesn't work when it comes to health care.
Its OK for the rich, but everyone else is screwed.
It's a national disgrace that kills tens of thousand of people each year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/default.stm
Being in the Netherlands at the moment, I cannot see this episode either, unfortunately, as the situation is as peterg76 notes, that it's only available in the UK, and that goes for all "BBC iplayer" programmes, not that it's being blocked by the US somehow.
Also, the particular programme discussed here was not solely about US healthcare, but about whether Obama will actually be able to change "things" in the US, including the chokehold that corporate America has on the healthcare system.
Here is the programme info. from the BBC site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00gvflg/Panorama_What_Now_Mr_President/
Panorama: What Now, Mr President?
Barack Obama takes over as US President with a promise to dramatically change America and make it a fairer place. He is inheriting the worst economic crisis in almost a century, and a country so unequal that 23,000 people die every year because they cannot afford basic healthcare.
To close the gap between rich and poor Obama will have to take on the might of the corporate world, which wields enormous influence in Washington. Can he change the world's most powerful country, and should he?
Broadcast on:
BBC One, 8:30pm Monday 19th January
Duration:
30 minutes
Available until:
8:59pm Tuesday 19th January
Categories:
Sign Zone, News, Factual
Credits:
Key talent
Jeremy Vine
While we're on the subject of health care, if you haven't seen Sick Around the World by PBS' Frontline yet, give it a shot:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/
T.R. Reid did that spot on worldwide implementations of universal health care. It doesn't purely focus on what America did wrong, though - rather, it focuses on what other nations (United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, Switzerland) did right and compares such to American policies in health care.