Dr. DeBakey' Starts to talk about Healthcare..AND...

[rsmith6621]

.........MSNBC cuts to a commercial.........Go figure..


.............Dr. DeBakey receives the Congressional Medal of Honor................


I guess Dr. DeBakey was going to say something to counter the Medical insurance lobby

[annabanana]

1. He came out for the adoption of the VA model for Universal

Health care. Both CNN & MSNBC cut away, but CSpan2 carried the whole thing.

[SpiralHawk]

5. The corporate media covers up again - they hate insight and truth

Jeez - so low...so anti-democracy. Worse than Pravda in its heyday.

[Gold Metal Flake]

2. There's that liberal media bias again.

[Bread and Circus]

3. Good for DeBakey. He had a fairly godly reputation when I was in Med School.

However, the VA system leaves a lot to be desired.

I firmly believe in true federal single payer health care, however the VA system is flawed. I haven't studied it closely but it might be underfunded. However I have a lot of patients that go to the VA in my state and they don't get as good of attention as they need. Part of the problem is physician turnover, so they often get doctors they don't know.

However, we NEED prominent doctors like DeBakey promoting federal single payer care for all.

[Horse with no Name]

9. I don't think the VA MODEL is flawed

I think the way it is implemented is flawed.
What say you?

[Ian David]

4. I went to school with Dr. DeBakey's daughter (or granddaughter?) and she was the nicest person. n/t

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. He's amazing ....

I was just reading about him this morning - http://tinyurl.com/6qacag. I think he's getting the Presidential Medal Of Freedom (Congressional Medal of Honor is for military), and - get this - he's 100 years old. A few years ago, he himself needed the very same surgery that he'd invented. It saved his life, and he was operated on by someone he'd trained.

He was doing surgery until he was 90 years old. Man's a veritable monument.

But, he's not a blond teenager lost in the Caribbean, so who cares?

[YvonneCa]

8. I was surprised to learn...

...that he also 'invented' the idea of a MASH unit for the military during times of war. What an interesting man.

[YvonneCa]

7. He was great...

...and, thank goodness, C-Span2 carried the whole thing.


He talked about his own education (and reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica) as a child. He talked about his parents coming to the United States and how they taught him the value of citizenship. (And at the end he referred to his value for citizenship as the reason this award was so meaningful to him.) He also talked about an event in his life (about a hat) and how the message was that he could afford a new hat and another child could not, that taught him about compassion for others. A simple story with a powerful message.

He did offer advice to Congress...first on finding a health care plan...and said they should look carefully at the VA model. He also suggested they understand how important the US is as a place of research, and that we should always value research. (I thought he might mention stem-cell research, but he was too classy to do that.)

I was impressed. I wished he had gone further...but with Bush there...he did not. His generation is nothing if not respectful of the office of President (whatever the opinion of the person). But he clearly had thought about the message he wanted to send. He spoke simply, but clearly...to say he values education, citizenship, caring for those less fortunate, and valuing and improving health care and medical research. And he spoke in a way all could understand.

Congratulations, Dr. DeBakey.:patriot:

[Supersedeas]

10. the big Pharma advertisers don't suffer universal price negotiating much