Fox's Shepard Smith Schools GOP Senator on the Public Option

Wait, I don't hear much about Shepard Smith. Perhaps its because he doesn't toe the line with Fox News' conservative commentary. That doesn't make news. Maybe it should.

Earlier this afternoon, Fox News's Shepard Smith schooled Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) on why we need a public option. What just happened here?

SMITH: Why would we not want a public option?

BARRASSO: Well let’s take a look at what we do know. My concern is a public or what I consider a government take over of health care.

SMITH: Well I know, right.

BARRASSO: Is going to make it very challenging.

SMITH: It’s not a government take over Senator. That’s not fair and we both know it.

It’s not a government takeover because what it would be is a government option if you have insurance now and you like it you can keep it. If you want the government option, a government run, paid for by those who buy it, government-run option to try to keep costs down. That’s not a government take over if we’re being fair, is it Senator? [...]

SMITH: Over the last ten years, health care costs in America have skyrocketed. Regular folks cannot afford it. So they tax the system by not getting preventative medicine. They go to the emergency room and are at a last case and we all end up paying for it. As the costs have gone up, the insurance industry’s profits on average have gone up more than 350% and it’s the insurance companies which have paid and have contributed to Senators and congressman on both sides of the aisle to the point where now, we can’t get what all concerned on Capitol Hill seem to believe and what more than 60% of Americans say they support, is a public option. This has been an enormous win for the health care industry. That is an unquestioned fact.

But I wonder, What happens for the American people when we come out with legislation now which requires everyone to have health care insurance, or many more people, but does not give a public option, therefore millions more people will have to buy insurance from the very corporations that are over charging us and whose profits have gone up 350% in the last ten years. It seems like ‘we the people’ are the ones getting the shaft here.

BARRASSO: And we’re not even allowing the people of America to read the bill or know what it costs. You’re absolutely right. I’m not going to defend the insurance companies. I’ve been fighting them for the last twenty-five years of practicing medicine.

SMITH: But with every vote against the public option, is a vote for the insurance companies, sir.

BARRASSO: No, it’s not, no I disagree with you.

SMITH: It is. How can you disagree with that? It is the public option that would keep costs in check, which would keep prices in check, which would stop the big corporations, which have made 350% improvements in their profits over the last ten years. A public option would stop it, what else would stop that?

BARRASSO: I don’t believe that — you know — I don’t believe that at all, and that’s why they can’t even get the sixty votes that Senator Baucus had for it. [...]

All of the studies in Washington show that Washington is incapable — incapable — of dealing with the waste and the fraud and the abuse in the system, and you’re going to see more of that. The more government take over you have of that the more that Washington runs the system, the worse it’s going to be for the American people.

SMITH: I want to make clear. This wouldn’t be Washington running the system Senator. It would be a government-run plan paid for by the people who sign up for the plan.

BARRASSO: Well, that’s a Washington-run plan.

SMITH: Yes. Paid for by the people that sign up for the plan. A not-for-profit to try to keep health care costs down. And that’s what in recent polls that more than sixty% of Americans say they favor

BARRASSO: 100% of Americans want to keep the cost down, and so do I, that’s what I’ve been working for by the medical director of something called the Wyoming health fairs, to give people positive incentives to get their costs down and stay healthy.

I'm thinking Smith needs to send his resume to MSNBC or CNN pretty quickly. During the health insurance reform debate, many continue to call the public option a government takeover. It's nice, though surprising to see a Fox News analyst say it like it is: not a takeover.

Even if it was, who cares? Americans pay so much more than other countries and yet our lifespans and health care outcomes trail other countries. We are the only industrialized country not to have some form of universal health care.