He isn't trying to "prevent more Americans from having better care",

he's trying to keep people sick and dying, trying to keep them as sick and dying as he can.

Because he's a sociopathic butcher.

Imagine a corporation willfully making life and death decisions on your life...

He's 200 pounds of assholes.

In the early '90s, we were fighting Harry and Louise. Now we're up against Rick Scott.

This time around, I like our chances.

What is it with Republicans and their love of con men? I still can't believe Chalabi actually got us to declare war based on his statements.

"Imagine waking up one day and all your medical decisions are made by a central, national board,"

That is EXACTLY what is going on with my wife right now. She has a bacterial infection in a difficult-to-treat place, the doctor wanted to prescribe a relatively new targeted antibiotic instead of the system-wide full spectrum Cipro. BUT the health insurance company wasn't inclined to approve it; so the drug manufacturer is negotiating with the insurer on her behalf. The doctor+patient are waiting on two behemoth organizations to decide what's the best treatment? WHAT. THE. EFF?

As Kevin Drum sez, "Keep telling yourself, 'Best health care in the world, baby. Best heath care in the world.' "

The classic Republican tactic for proving that governmental action, outside of war of course, never works, is to defraud the government. It's a win-win approach, for them.

I often wondered during the election if the GOP was trying to make it so easy for the Democratic party with all of their inanity and blunders.

How does a con artist who bilked the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars become the face of the fight against reasonable health care?

It's a high lob; let's just hop the Democrats hit it out of the park.

Imagine waking up one day and all your medical decisions are made by a central, national board ...

Imagine waking up one day and all your medical decisions are made by a central, national company more interested in profit margins than providing the service people actually paid for in advance.

Oh, wait ...

Why do Republicans hate sick Americans?

Want to know how rich people constantly subvert democracy and the will of the people ?

This is exhibit A.

She has a bacterial infection in a difficult-to-treat place... -anonymous

The back of a Volkswagen?

The thing I love about this debate is that health care policy can only get better for me. I don't have insurance, and I can't get it because of pre-existing conditions. So whatever they do, it just can't get any worse. Sadly, it's not likely to get better, either. In the end, I'm more concerned about health care in Thailand. I can't afford treatment here, so Thailand is where I go. The only way that health care could get worse for me is if Thailand gets more strict with its visa policies. But hey, there's always India. But it takes a few weeks to get an Indian visa. So I hope Thailand can keep the "visa at the airport" policy. Ultimately, it would be nice if everyone just gives up on American medicine and gets treated elsewhere. If medicine n America reached the point where nobody will use it, they might think about lowering their prices. But until then, a flight to Bangkok is a small price to pay for good medical care. The flight sucks for sure, but once you get there, the medical care is a real bargain.

Imagine waking up one day and all your medical decisions are made by a central, national company more interested in profit margins than providing the service people actually paid for in advance. - Mark D

And then you turn on the TV and everyone is saying, "It's too big to fail."

the nation's biggest health care fraud scandal.

And Rick Scott is not in prison because?

Come to think of it, it would be cool if the government could pay some of the cost of flying to Thailand. With enough subsidy, I could afford one of those cool Thai Airways flights. I'm okay with EVA, but Thai Air is so much nicer. That tiger prawn meal rocks, and the flight attendants are super hot. You don't get that on EVA.

What did anyone expect of this rich asshole?
Did you expect Jack the Ripper to come out for knife safety? Hell no!

This is the classic definiton of chutzpah! "I ripped of hundred's of millions in health care scams! So, you shouldn't get health care. You might try to finagle a free aspirin, or something, you thieves!"

Shame has not just left the building. It has left the planet!

Scott is not a "far right hack," he is a lawyer and a crook.

Am I being redundant ? No, I have two kids lawyers.

The Frist family finally got his claws off HCA but he did a lot of damage.

Scott is not a "far right hack," he is a lawyer and a crook.

To be fair, the categories are not mutually exclusive. I see no reason he can't be all three.

**********

Thanks for the link, Steve. I read that NYT article sitting in the pediatricians office with my granddaughter earlier today and couldn't wait to get home and refresh my memory about a few things so I could get the post up.

As soon as I saw the article here, I knew Blue Girl would have something to say on the subject. Thanks for the main page link to her blog.

There is an interesting grassroots effort among Americans living overseas (in countries with Universal Health Care) to explode the myths that Mr. Scott is now paying film crews to try to reinforce.

You can read actual stories and see videos from American users of Universal Health Care here:

http://healthcareforamerica.blogspot.com/

Imagine just how twisted you have to be to devote your life's work and $5 million of your own resources to making sure that the uninsured and the uninsurable continue to be denied coverage and health care. This guy is evil.

I don't know about you, but if I had a huge network of left-leaning political activists across the United States, this is just the moment I'd be hitting them up for some cash to run TV ads all about Mr. Scott, the conviction politician...with convictions!

Just proves my point that it's conservatives who are the real socialists -- converting public power and programs into personal gain. That's why conservatives can't stand liberals. Liberals want to take away their ability to loot the system.

CPR 'Conservatives For Patients Rights' is the 'not for profit' organization that Scott supposedly formed on his own to stop health care reform.

This 'not for profit' organization is a front for the health care industry. Naturally, they would have an organization that they can fund to keep their profits flowing & be able to deduct on taxes. It is only natural for the rich to have the taxpayers help fund their war on the working class.

Scott & CPR are reported to have $20 million as their starter fund for stopping health care reform. I seriously doubt that Scott is using any of his own money - rich crooks just don't normally work that way!

As we move forward in time, we can count on industry funded groups to work tirelessly to stop real health care reform, real energy legislation reform, and any real reform that would positively impact working americans & negatively impact corporate profitability.

We are already seeing major advertising against reforms of health care & energy. We can expect the efforts to increase as any legislation moves thru Congress. The main leverage that working americans have is massive & constant bombardment of their congress-critters & senators with the message that they are supposed to work for us.

Sadly, I am unconvinced that we can overcome the corporate money buying our politicians.

Regardless of what you think, Americans living abroad in countries with "universal healthcare" typically know nothing about the systems in the countries they live in. They only know about the patient interface. They don't know anything about how the decisions are made, who makes them and what figures into this. The only Americans who do are the handful of people in the United States who work for the pharmaceutical industry in international regulatory affairs and pricing: this is because they are paid to know about it. Most Europeans for example don't know anything about the way their system works from the inside out or the tradeoffs their governments pursue: like refusing to recognize the existence of certian diseases because they don't want to pay for the treatments - I can name countries on this one. They also don't understand the basic economices: just because something works for a firm or a relatively small group of individuals does not mean it will work when applied to the whole population. As the country ages, and the demand for health services increase, if there is no mechanism to reign in consumpution (not prices or costs) the system will collapse under its own weight. The free riding the Europeans now do on te backs of American consumers will come home to roost and destroy our ability to continue to produce medical innovations.

Americans living abroad in countries with "universal healthcare" typically know nothing about the systems in the countries they live in. They only know about the patient interface.

What a coincidence! Most Americans living in the U.S. know very little about how their insurance companies make decisions on which diseases to treat, abruptly drop coverage based solely on revenue models, look for inappropriate and unrelated reasons to lose patients who have expensive treatment, try to limit the pool to healthy patients, etc. Gosh, lack of transparency is a bugaboo, isn't it?

I didn't make it all the way through your abysmally written super-graf, so someone else can handle the rest of it.