Dr. Oz Is Out Here Lying About 'Lazy' Medicaid Recipients Again
Dr. Oz, of the daytime television Ozes, thinks lazy takers watch too much daytime TV.
For a decade now, politicians and pundits from the Right to the center-Left have desperately, fiercely, like their lives depended on it (the exact opposite of most of us) tried to dissuade Americans from wanting Medicare for All. Republicans have insisted that it would lead to higher taxes, communism, and people never being able to see a doctor, while centrist Democrats have pleaded for some kind of plan that would provide health insurance to those that need it without, godforbid, eliminating the precious, precious, private health insurance companies that we all know and love so dearly, even though one of the big ways such a program would save money would be by eliminating the administration costs involved in negotiating coverage and billing different providers.
And yet … according to a poll from this past July, 60 percent of Americans still want it. Only 27 percent are opposed. That’s kind of wild when you think about it, especially considering that the poll wasn’t even an outlier. A recent Gallup poll found that 62 percent of Americans think the federal government should ensure that everyone has healthcare. It’s almost as if, no matter how much fear mongering is done, people can still just look at every other wealthy nation on earth and see that we’ve got a raw deal.
One person who really did not get the memo on this? The very person in charge of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, television’s Dr. Mehmet Oz. In an interview with CNBC yesterday, Dr. Oz once again laid into Medicaid recipients, accusing them of being a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing jerks who just want to watch TV all day.
“An able-bodied person on Medicaid today watches about 6.1 hours of television or just hangs out, leisure time,” he said in an interview on CNBC Thursday. “That’s a lot of time.” Is it, though?
That 6.1 hours figure comes from an American Enterprise Institute study, which found that this was the amount of time that Medicaid recipients who did not work spent “on all socializing, relaxing and leisure activities (including television and video games)” — so no, not just television. There are 24 hours in a day — math! — so 6.1 hours spent not working, for a person who is currently out of work, seems entirely reasonable. The average American spends around 5.3 hours a day on leisure time, according to one study. What is it, precisely, that he wants these people to do?
If there were enough available jobs out there for all 7.2 million unemployed people in the United States to spend 12 hours a day (allowing 8 for sleep), every day, applying to those jobs they were qualified for, that would probably be a bad sign.
Of course, there may be more jobs available soon, of the lettuce- and tomato-picking variety. Sure, they might not even be in the same state, but at least people wouldn’t be watching daytime television, like … “Dr. Oz.”
“It is reprehensible to criticize the president on this, I think, very earnest effort to save Medicaid,” Oz told CNBC host Joe Kernen, “to provide care to our most vulnerable.”
Aw! He’s earnest! He’s trying his best! His bill will only cause 16 million people to lose their healthcare, while also leading to around 300 rural hospitals across the United States shutting down due to lack of funds! Is that bad?
Via Daily Beast:
Oz told CNBC host Joe Kernen that people should not use Medicaid in ways “it was not designed.”
When Medicaid was created, he added Thursday, it was reserved for those in the “dawn” and “twilight” of their lives—childhood and old age—and for people “living in the shadows.” In other words, people with disabilities.
“Those are the folks it was designed for,” he said. “So every Democratic president, and every Republican president, has said that the backbone of a social support fabric has to be work. You want people to actually get out of their homes and go do things.”
For what it’s worth, I can tell you that I never watched more TV in my life than when I was on unemployment. Was it because I was malicious and lazy and wanted to get away with not working? No, it was because I couldn’t afford to do anything else and was also stuck waiting to hear back from places where I’d applied.
But let’s take a minute and talk about those able-bodied adults, shall we? So-called “able-bodied adults” (many of whom have other disabilities) account for eight percent of all of those on Medicare — and most of them are not, as Oz has previously suggested, perfectly healthy 30-year-old men who live in their mothers’ basements and play video games all day (though if it were, how the hell much does Oz think someone like that would even cost us to cover?).
Rather, one analysis found that:
Within this small slice of nonworking adults who can be considered able-bodied, four in five (79.2%) are women, with an average age of 41. One in four (26%) is over age 50. Their median income is zero. They live in families with annual incomes averaging under $45,000 and an average household size of 4.4. In other words, they are exceptionally poor women on the older end of the working-age spectrum, who have no income of their own and live in poor families.
This group includes many former workers. Over half (56.2%) worked within the past five years, but eight in ten (81.9%) are no longer in the labor force.
Most have less than a high school education and have left the workforce to take care of family members, such as elderly parents or adult children or spouses with disabilities or a combination of the three.
A little bit different, no?
The thing is, though — even if Oz’s slanders on Medicaid recipients were true, which they are not, this whole thing of “Oh! Bad lazy people with no actual health problems are getting Medicaid and it’s just wrong!” is not going to fly when most people have come around to the idea that everyone should have health care.
There is no actual reason why Medicaid (or Medicare) would only be “designed” for those Oz says it’s designed for. Part of the reason Medicaid and Medicare cost so much is that those who are on them are also those with the most health problems. If we were to expand those programs to “everybody,” it would cost us all a hell of a lot less than the combination public and private health care system is costing us now.
Of course, we are talking about a person who became rich and famous for dispensing dubious health advice on television, a practice that would probably be a little less profitable if people were able to get actual health care and advice from someone who isn’t a total scumbag.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Thanks, Oprah.
Oz spends 83% of his time trolling and his grift.
Give or take...