THE NATION: Something rather remarkable happened on Tuesday’s Morning Joe. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New 
York pointed out that the health insurance industry has no clothes, and Joe Scarborough, after first trying to spin it some gossamer threads, broke down and said, By God, you’re right, this emperor is a naked money-making machine! Well, he didn’t use those exact words, but Joe did seem to finally get that America has granted insurance companies the right to create bottlenecks in the financing of healthcare in order to extract profits out of the suffering of ordinary people–without providing any actual healthcare whatsoever.
“Why are we paying profits for insurance companies?” Weiner asked Scarborough. “Why are we paying overhead for insurance companies? Why,” he asked, bringing it all home, “are we paying for their TV commercials?”
Weiner, who recently warned that President Obama could lose as many as 100 votes on a health bill if a public option is not included, really wants single payer–Medicare for all Americans is his goal. What a crazy, way-out, reckless notion, Joe went into their encounter believing. But Weiner asked some simple, direct questions that no politician, much less Obama or HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, has managed to pose:
What is an insurance company? They don’t do a single check-up. They don’t do a single exam, they don’t perform an operation. Medicare has a 4 percent overhead rate. The real question is why do we have a private plan?
“It sounds like you’re saying you think there is no need for us to have private insurance in healthcare,” Joe asked at one point. Weiner replied: “I’ve asked you three times. What is their value? What are they bringing to the deal?” MORE