Tucker Carlson interviewed Jeb Bush in Esquire Magazine. When the topic turned to health care, Jeb noted:
Have you ever gone to HHS, the Department of Health and Human Services? Have you gone to CMS, the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid? It's scary. That's going to be the marketplace for health care if Democrats have their way. Senator McCain had a fantastic health-care proposal that he had a hard time explaining, that said that basically you should empower people, individuals, to make choices, and they should be rewarded when they make choices that improve health-care outcomes.
Under Obama, we're going to create a system that's not focused on quality; it's focused on access to care.
You end up insuring fewer people the more government expands its insurance. People drop out of the private market. For every person the government takes on the rolls, there's an equal number of people leaving the private sector. We're like gerbils running in place. We're not expanding health-care access per se.
There are all sorts of technologies now that exist that allow us to improve health-care outcomes if we organize our system differently.
Here's what Jeb didn't say, but could've:
As a Board member for Tenet Health, I control nearly 70,000 shares of the for-profit hospital chain. While Governor of Florida, I settled with Tenet for improper billing under Medicare and Medicaid. They're part of CMS. Of course, Tenet admitted no guilt and paid the state millions to make the investigation disappear. Did I mention Uncle Bucky sits on the board of WellPoint, the huge health insurer?
We Bush's love boards, and I'm not talking water boarding. As a board member for Lehman Brothers Inc., a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings, I watched the parent company implode last fall. While my brother, the President of the United States, said he had no power to bail out Lehman. George W. put AIG in conservatorship outside of bankruptcy. He let Lehman crater.
Did I mention Lehman got $138 billion in loans from the Feds after declaring bankruptcy? Get this, Paulson told the public his hands were tied!
With crisis comes opportunity. Cousin George Herbert Walker made out like a bandit, buying Neuberger Investment Management for half price in a fire bankruptcy sale of Lehman assets. A buddy purchased the Lehman Private Equity unit, where I work part time. Remember, Bush's stand ready to pounce in a crisis.
I'm also on the board of other companies, Rayonier and CNL Bankshares. We're looking to cut our health insurance benefits for employees. Who can afford insurance these days? Plus, CEO incentive pay needs a boost. Shifting health insurance costs to the employee or government should save 10% of payroll costs. A 10% bonus might buy a CEO that new yatch!
That's my prediction of Jeb's backs stage statement. John Ellis Bush is a free market, compassionate conservative. Just like his brother, Jeb relies on private health care to correct the ills of health care. The record shows the ininsured grew massively, as much as 10 million people, under George W. Bush. Tucker Carlson and Esquire missed it.
