SMITH: Over the last ten years health care costs in America have skyrocketed. Regular folks cannot afford it. So, they tax the system by not getting preventative medicine. They go to the emergency room in the last case and we all wind up paying for it. As the costs have gone up, the insurance industry's profits, on average, have gone up more than 350%. And it is the insurance companies which have paid, and who have contributed to Senators and Congressmen on both sides of the aisle to the point where now we cannot get what all concerned on Capitol Hill seem to believe and more 60% of Americans say they would support, which is a public option. This has been an enormous win for the health-care industry, that is an unquestioned fact. But I wonder, what happens to the American people when we come out with legislation now which requires everyone to have health care insurance -- or many more people -- but does not give a public option? Therefore millions more people will have to buy insurance from the very corporations that are overcharging us, and whose profits have gone up 350 percent in the last ten years. It seems like we the people are the ones getting the shaft here.
FOX NEWS?!?!?!? Yes, you read that right.
Barrasso's response to this was limp boilerplate, to which Smith replied:
"But every vote against the public option is a vote for the insurance companies, sir, it is."
Bravo, Shepard Smith !!! And -- though I never thought I would say it -- Bravo, Fox News!
Ralph
Well that's refreshing and almost hopeful! I'd like to believe he might start a brushfire of sense over there. I'm glad he's willing to stand up and speak his own mind.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of good news about Fox News, I went to Huffington Post to look at the original article you had mentioned and was happy to find another article that mentions that Glenn Beck's program has lost another 19 sponsors recently (62 total, I think) in response to a citizen response letter calling advertisers to task for sponsoring his brand of dangerous craziness ("racially divisive rhetoric, and falsehoods peddled as truth"). I signed on immediately. Here's the link for anyone else who might be interested in adding their voice:
http://colorofchange.org/beck/hold/
Barbara
We just changed our entire retirement plan as part of this "ethical protest." Our financial guy couldn't believe we wanted to do it, but later he said some other clients were changing too. Maybe there is yet hope for some sanity in this world...
ReplyDeleteThat's the beauty of pendulums -- they can only swing so far before they start coming back.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope Glenn Beck's excessive idiocy is the ultimate limit.