Headline: Tom Arnold Defeats Sean Hannity In Debate
I know it does not take much to make Hannity look silly, but you have to give Tom Arnold credit for giving as good as he got.
Tom was making such good points that he forced Hannity and his Republican side kick, Brad Blakeman, to start lying in order to make it seem like they had won the argument.
You can obviously see from the clip that Arnold won the debate, so I want this post to focus on the distortions that Hannity and Blakeman created.
00:58 – Blakeman says:
We got Medicare and we got Medicaid, what did we get for it? We got abuse, fraud, and mismanagement.
01:11 Arnold replies:
You don’t think the private sector has fraud and abuse (like the government)?
01:15 Blakeman replies:
But not to the scale of government.
This whole exchange is laughable. The fact that Blakeman is even trying to claim that the private sector, which is strictly in business for profit, is not as corrupt as the government, is idiotic at best.
01:21 Blakeman asks:
What’s your recourse if government provides you with substandard health care? What are you going to do, sue the government?
I would like to know what Mr. Blakeman thinks his recourse would be if he received substandard care from a private insurance company?
As for recourse if you are receiving substandard care from a public health plan, yes of course you can sue the government. Why would an American not be able to sue the government? It happens all the time.
But even before that, an American has a litany of contacts at their disposal in the form of public, elected officials that would act as the patient’s advocate, and they do it for free, and they would do it well because their job depends on making their constituents happy, and keeping their voters alive.
Blakeman has no idea what he is talking about.
01:59 Hannity says:
You cannot deny someone care in this country because of their inability to pay…no it is not happening all of the time.
Hannity’s lack of knowledge on the issues is staggering. Hannity’s previous claim can be refuted in two ways.
- It is true that if a patient comes to the emergency room of a hospital without health insurance, the hospital is required to treat them. The hospital can and will turn around and bill that patient for services rendered. This ultimately leads many down the road of bankruptcy. Keep in mind, that a woman with breast cancer, to build off of Hannity’s analogy, cannot go into a hospital and say “I need treatment, but I can’t pay for it.” The hospital is not required to, and most likely won’t, treat that woman’s condition.
- Americans are denied care all of the time by insurance companies who refuse to cover certain procedures, or simply refuse to provide coverage to someone with a preexisting condition.
Tom arnold was correct when he said “It’s happening all the time.”
Lastly, the debate about our health care system v. Canada’s v. Great Britian’s will continue indefinitely, but for Hannity to reference Daniel Hannan as the rational and all knowing voice in the debate over health care is ludicrous. Hannity may as well be citing Rick Santorum.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
“It is true that if a patient comes to the emergency room of a hospital without health insurance, the hospital is required to treat them. The hospital can and will turn around and bill that patient for services rendered. This ultimately leads many down the road of bankruptcy.”
Actually, the ER is only required to assess and stabilize. They’re not going to begin rounds of chemo treatment or dialysis on someone with cancer or kidney failure.
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July 21st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Mason is absolutely correct. If you come into the ER with severe abdominal pain, they’ll run enough tests to make sure it’s not life threatening such as a ruptured AAA, give you some pain medicine then send you home telling you to follow up with a doctor who can actually treat the CAUSE of the abdominal pain. They don’t cure anything in the ER.
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July 21st, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I just don’t understand why people look at Hannity as a credible source for anything.
The constantly stretches the truth, and his intellectual capabilities are that of a freshman in high school.
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