Fox News, I Love You. I Do. I Really, Really Do.
With Jon Stewart gone for the summer, Fox News has stepped up to fill the humor void.
This week, they had on an “expert” doctor who explained that gender bias in health care costs is not only legitimate, it is fair. He said that women should have high health care costs because we have ta-tas, ovaries, and all manner of mysterious stuff going on inside us.
Men don’t have that messy stuff. Men “only have the prostate,” he said. Well, that does kinda explain why they are so freekin’ stupid. You know, lacking a brain and all. They are just one giant prostate walking around wearing socks with sandals.
This expert medical physician also contended that women see doctors more than men so it’s just natural that we pay more. All that preventative maintenance is expensive. And if that doesn’t click your logic button to the up position, there’s this one …
“…women live longer,” Samadi asserted. “Women live until age 81 and men live only until 76. So, men are using the health care system much less.”
Dude, somebody has to hang around to dance on your grave.
Fox thinks it’s fair that women should pay more in health care costs, huh? Well, I am damn anxious to hear their reasoning why we are paid less for the same job. It must have something to do with hair spray and Girl Scout cookies.
Thanks to John for the graphic and David for the heads up.
I don’t know. My husband may outlive me. Then what would they do about his pacemaker and all that stuff?
1Interesting that the “expert” doesn’t think men have respiratory, circulatory, digestive, muscular/skeletal, urological or neurological sytems. and of course the only part of the woman’s body worth mentioning is the reproductive system.
2And preventive care is the whole point in saving costly treatments of disease in the long term. Love the visual, it says it all.
I disagree with your first sentence. John Oliver did a brilliant job of filling in for Jon Stewart this summer.
3Fox is pathetic and I agree with the rest of what you wrote.
I too love the visual! But the scary thing is that FOX is suppose to be the most popular of the cable news networks. Viewers made the brainless Glenn Beck a multi-millionaire…what does that say about us as a nation?
4GAAAA I needed that today.thanks. And it’s opened my eyes about something. All this time I have hated everything Fox. Or Foxx as in Ginny, since that ole gal moved from the Bronx to NC to help destroy what I love so much. Just the idea of their methods made my sense of humor get all in a hard wad. Now I see…I have been so uptight I have been missing the whole point. It’s a COMEDY channel.. What Colbert does so much better.
5You’re looking at it wrong, Fox. Women pay into health care 5 years longer.
6@Dianne. I agree. I was upset Jon would be gone the whole summer – but Oliver was superb.
@Al. What does that say about us as a nation? 37% of Americans cannot find the United States on a world map. 37% cannot locate their own country – you just can’t fix stupid. What that says to me is that explains the number of people that vote Republican.
7This guy is kinda missing the whole point of insurance, which is that it spreads risks over the widest possible range of folks in order to keep prices reasonable for everybody.
Sometimes I would just like to pick up a heavy economics textbook and smite the lot of them.
8So I guess Fox would be loudly in favor of males, especially young males, paying way higher car insurance rates than females. And how about higher use of hospital ERs?
Birth control and abortions should be free because they save insurance companies a heck of a lot in childbirth and child health care costs.
Sounds like someone “only has a prostate,” and where his head is, he’s getting a good look at it.
9This is one of those rare times when I just have to disagree with you. As long as insurance is still a for-profit venture, then it does make dollars and sense to charge more to those people who run up more costs. If statistics show that women incur greater costs then men, their premiums should be higher. For the same reason, I think it’s OK for automobile insurance companies to charge more to those persons statistically more likely to have more accidents. And for property insurers to charge more to those who live on the coast in hurricane country, or those who live in areas prone to wild fires.
One could also argue that the increased premiums are made up for by the increased level of services obtained. Which would be an interesting study, don’t you think?
10Did his own momma not have pre-natal check-ups, give up the hard likker and the tobakky, just to save money before she birthed that “doctor”? I’m betting it was a real easy birth, too, with an undersized cranium.
11For rwnj abortions should be free,retro-active and mandatory. As a member of the opposite sex,I swear on the pain of never watching Lone Ranger re-runs ever again,I have never worn sandals,with or without socks. Put me on the record as being in favor of women.
12Susan Dress,it might make an interesting study,right enough,until it starts to sound scientific and then nutters will refudiate the whole thing.
13Susan Dress, this man was speaking from his own experience. He had no statistics. Yes, I think a study would be interesting and I’ll betcha it’ll show that people who get preventative care fare better with fewer medical expenses. I betya it’ll also show that men have more heart attacks, testicular cancer, and require more viagra than women do.
I would buy your auto insurance argument except that is decided on a case by case basis. If a study were shown that more wrecks are caused by redheads than blondes, would it be fair to up the premiums on all redheads regardless of their driving record.
14Faux is the #1 rated cable network because the raters only call “land line” phones, and those connect to predominately Viagra/Cialis addicts and geezers. Faux would drop completely off the ratings chart if the raters called strictly cell phone users. Young folks never watch Faux (neither do I, and I’m not as young as I used to be anymore)
15@ Susan Dress, or maybe charge so much that the person can’t get on your ins rolls and mess up your numbers by cutting into your profits with all that care you need.
Single payer would fix all that bullcrap. Insurance is a betting racket and the deck is stacked against consumers as badly as if it were a Vegas casino. Healthcare should not be a “for profit” enterprise anyway, I knew that when the first for profit Humana hospital opened when I was about 17. I was appalled then! The only way to make healthcare profitable is to ignore the sick people.
That, my friends, is what insurance companies do.
Single payer!!
16@Juanita Jean: google a bit, and you’ll find that base auto insurance premiums are calculated based on age/gender/type of car driven. Individual premiums are adjusted based on driving history, but the base premium is ‘biased’ in favor of certain classes of drivers. Is that discriminatory, or just financial common sense?
17@ Aggieland Liz: yes single payer would be a step in the right direction: that’s why I said “as long as insurance is still a for profit venture”. But if we ever do get universal coverage for all, then we really do need to start a conversation about responsibilities of the individual that should come along with the ‘right’ to free health care.
LynnN, you can borrow my copy of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Its downright thick and heavy and just right for such an enterprise.
18According to him, men use cemeteries more.
19maggie, if I borrowed your copy of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations to smite these guys you wouldn’t want it back. It would be covered with cooties.
And slime. Lots of slime.
20Susan Dress: “the ‘right’ to free health care.”
Universal health care is not ‘free’. I’ve been acquainted with folks who live in Europe in countries with universal and it’s not ‘free’. Everyone pays into it through their taxes at a rate a helluva lot cheaper than any insurance you could get here in the US.
A woman profiled in the WSJ, American retiree half-pat, half-year in France and half-year in US, buys into the French health-care system for ONE TENTH ($1200 vs $12,000) what she pays in the US and compared the plans with the French being slightly more comprehensive than the US offerings.
There’s only ONE reason why it will be a huge fight to get single-payer (universal) health care in this country: the medical/industrial complex that is making some tidy profits off of your health.
Take away the people in a country and all you have left is real estate. The value of any nation is its people; their creativity, inventiveness and productivity… and their health so they can produce. Health care is not a ‘right’. It is a common-sense necessity for any nation to progress.
21“Dude, somebody has to hang around to dance on your grave.”
And with that one line I almost choked to death with laughter, I have got to stop snacking when I read your “not a blog”.
22Auto insurance rates are also predicated on credit scores and I have known lots of women who don’t have a credit history of their own.
23Re: pay parity — they’re looking at “lifetime payout”. Since men live shorter lives, they need to get more money up front…
24😛
OK, insurance aside, can some one tell me why I have to pay more for my dry cleaning than a guy does? Seriously!! This goes on all the time in my area and I cannot figure it out! None of my dry cleanable stuff is special as in strange buttons, trims or fabrics.
25http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/why-do-women-pay-more
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