The self-aggrandizing denizens of Hollywood constantly scold Americans over a lack of national healthcare. It is the biggest failure of American society ever that there is no cradle to the grave program for free health care, they constantly tell us. And now, in keeping with these nearly universal Hollywood "principles," to prove how Hollywood is far more moral than we lowly citizens of flyover country, and to show that they are better than the great unwashed in the backwaters of America... Hollywood is closing its nearly 90-year-old Motion Picture Fund hospital and accompanying long-term living facilities for aging actors.
Yep, dumping it. Walking away from the facilities for free healthcare for actors. Fuggedaboutit.
Sean Penn has advocated for national healthcare in the U.S. basing his interests upon his close personal friendship with the dictatorial, socialist president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The twin activists of Susan Sarandon and hubby Tim Robbins have claimed that healthcare is one of the most important issues facing the country today. Many of Hollywood's biggest stars have been heard to lament about how healthcare is something that only the caring, you know, care about, and stuff.
And now, after 87 years, Hollywood is shutting down the facilities that have given succor and care to some of the most famous actors in filmdom’s history.
Yes, with the millions upon millions of dollars in which Hollywood is awash, they are dumping their own healthcare facilities. So, with the many millions with which they could easily fund it laying untapped, why exactly should everyone else feel that the idea is as important as these actors so commonly claim it is if they even refuse pay the bills for their own kind?
Is George Clooney so hurting for cash that he can’t pay a little to the healthcare fund? Is Marlo Thomas in the poor house? Is Ed Asner or Mike Farrell standing in a bread line somewhere?
Interestingly enough, the reason they are closing the facilities is because the trust funds arranged to fund them is running out of money. Sadly, they fail to see that this troublesome situation is just like the federal government's!
"MPTF is initiating these changes because it's the right thing to do, but the fact is that we have no choice," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, chair of the MPTF Foundation Board. "Although we are in good shape today, the acute-care hospital and long-term care facility are generating operating deficits that could bankrupt MPTF in a very few years. . . . If MPTF doesn't do something now, pretty soon it won't be able to do anything."
Katzenberg could just as easily have been speaking of Medicare or Social Security, couldn't he? The simple fact of the matter is that these sorts of "free" health care programs neither work in the long run, nor are "free" in any meaningful way.
Again, these self-important Hollywood types have nearly unlimited amounts of cash, yet they can't adequately fund a "free" healthcare system for their own fellows? Then they insist that the rest of us invest in a similar system with the federal government taking the same role that failed for them?
Hypocrites.
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Health care is not free
February 23, 2009 - 04:57 ET by Hipnosis"It is the biggest failure of American society ever that there is no
cradle to the grave program for free health care, they constantly tell
us."
The biggest mistake people make about this issue? Health care is not free. Come live here in Canada with me and I'll show you. My local, small hospital will run a $9 million deficit this year. Municipalities have been forced to do fundraising for these hospitals as well (more taxation in my mind). Our local campaign sucked $17 million out of our pockets. This was previously the job of federal and provincial governments. The original funding plan was a 50/50 division of funding from federal and provincial governments, but now the feds only pitch in about 12 cents on every doller.They've only raised my taxes as the they've cut back on health care funding. Wait until your little middle class tax contribution reaches closer to 50% of everything you make and then see how you like free health care. More private care is creeping into our system to cut down the length of the line-ups, but people can still wait months for basic procedures (blood work, MRI's).
I stick my neck out for nobody.
If MPTF doesn't do
February 23, 2009 - 06:54 ET by motherbeltIf MPTF doesn't do something now, pretty soon it won't be able to do anything."
I have to admit, I nearly spewed my coffee at that. Closing it down is doing something now???? Pretty soon it won't be able to do anything? What will it be able to do "pretty soon," if it's closing now????
That logic is simply jaw-dropping!!
Typical Hollywood liberals. Why take care of their own if they can foist the cost off on the whole country?
And these idiots probably think that when the government provides "free" health insurance, that business owners and employers will still provide health insurance as a benefit!
Walter Williams had the best and most easily understood explanation of this that I have ever read.
Bogus Rights
I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows. -Bart Simpson
So Funny It's Just Sad
February 23, 2009 - 06:46 ET by CBrauI've often wondered why more of the Hollywood blowhards simply don't pony up more of their OWN money for their causes. Sure, you'll see a donation here and there, and of course, their faces on a TV screen for a commercial asking for YOUR money, but largely they hang on to their enormous wealth like anyone else would. A lack of financial support for their own actors' hospital is hypocrisy at it's worst.
Solved
February 23, 2009 - 07:47 ET by nadadhimmiThe "Health Care Crisis" can be solved if those evil Doctors just work for free. Who cares that they workrd their asses off for years in school, graduated with probably 250K in debts to pay their costs. The "ONE" should just pass a law that Drs. must donate their services for the good of socialist Amerika. If they don't want to, incarcerate them, and subject them to a proper socialist re-education. Problem solved. I'm sure the number of Drs. will swell, aren't you?
I never got this
February 23, 2009 - 08:12 ET by SickofLibsI never got this "aging-actor-home" thing anyway. A retired firefighters home?... yes.
Most of these actors work, what, a few hundred hours a year if they are really busy? And when they do, they earn 10 or 100 times what an average Joe does.
surprised? no...
February 23, 2009 - 08:51 ET by AJBThe liberal left is nothing if not hypocritical. This is just another case in point. I laughed when I read a quote over the weekend about (and I'm paraphrasing as I don't remember the exact quote) but about marxism thriving until the people they plunder run out of money.
I'm surprised no media attention was given to the fiasco of socialized healthcare in Hawaii. After seven months of FREE FREE FREE healthcare for every child (now, I know that just sounds WONDERFUL for the sake of the children -- nobody wants babies or young children suffering or sick), but rational, right thinking people who were paying $200-300 per month for private insurance for their children (i.e., responsible parents) figured out they were wasting their money. So many people signed up for that program that the state had to shut it down after only seven months.
Socialism has never, can never, and will never work as an economic system. Period. I have yet had even ONE person reply to my question about naming a socialist country that improved the lot of their citizens as a whole. It just doesn't exist. I suppose there will be a rude awakening when the 51% of idiots who voted for Comrade Glorious Supreme Leader Obama thinking they were finally going to 'get theirs' figure out that, like the mortgage revolt, the people who pay the bills are getting tired of those who don't. But then those who rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul, don't cha know...
"Liberals - funding and encouraging the extermination of inner city babies since 1973"
you hit on a great point
February 23, 2009 - 09:05 ET by kdizzydazeWith regards to the Hawaii free healthcare for children fiasco.
That same scenario will be played out over the mortgage crisis we are mired in.
God made man, but he used a monkey to do it -- DEVO
in SPADES
February 23, 2009 - 09:45 ET by AJBI'm already looking for my handout... I want someone to drop my interest rates to 2.5%. Hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?
Plotline
February 23, 2009 - 09:57 ET by Pilgrim1949Let's see....
All those Hollywood doctors and nurses can fill in and provide Hollywood (e.g., make believe) treatment -- heck, they know all the right jargon and can certainly act convincing and compasionate.
Then, all the patients can ACT like they've been cured of their ailments, which for some would no doubt require considerable skill for some of them to surmount real, potentially life-threatening diseases.
At the conclusion, the Motion Picture Fund could pretend to pay the hospital "pretend" professionals, thereby not having to actually spend any real money and enabling the place to stay open.
To make this all possible, Hollywood fat-cat producers could raise the necessary investment capital to fund all the above activities.
It's a socialist workers' paradise -- "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."
Only, I'm not so sure if there's a happy ending....
I completely agree
February 23, 2009 - 12:30 ET by jarrett.edwardsIf Hollywood wants health care then
they should lead on the issue. But it is just another example of
hypocritical Hollywood. They want higher taxes yet many of them form
production companies as tax shelters, now they want health care but
they shut theirs down. My only problem, is that you included Marlo
Thomas, I know she is a lib, but she has an even more important
health care facility to support, St. Jude's Children's Hospital.
Would have been better to use her crazy husband's name but he might
not have the money to support anything , since he is out of work, and
is so crazy that he couldn't even last on MSNBC. My only point is
that I tend to give Ms. Thomas a break for continuing her father's
work with St. Jude's.
NHC Disaster
February 23, 2009 - 13:15 ET by slickwillie2001Americans need to wake up to what we stand to lose if our government nationalizes all health care. The lowliest employee health care plan available today is better than what we would get from a national system like that of Canada or the UK. Look forward to long lines and rationing and lack of choice.
Jeffrey Katzenberg is a billionaire
February 23, 2009 - 14:23 ET by david999Jeffrey Katzenberg is a billionaire.
He and Steven Spielberg could write a 100 million dollar check and not even miss the money. Just interest on their billions.
They won't because they don't spend their money, they want to spend yours.
Talk about pot calling
February 23, 2009 - 14:30 ET by bigtimerTalk about pot calling kettle!
Hypocrites indeed...I hope this situation is brought up a heck of a lot by the right side of the aisle, using the msm to do so when they can.
Of course we all know there will be talking-point spin from the left about this by this time, but this is a perfect example of their La-La-Land hypocrisy.
That whole system out there
February 23, 2009 - 19:30 ET by RR GOPThat whole system out there has always treated their own like dogs. No wonder their stage hands, cameramen, etc. unionized early on. Extras were/are treated like the scum of the earth. Shoot, even the Three Stooges got locked out of the studio without notice when the big shots were done with them.
Then there's the infamous "casting couches" and constant manipulation of other human beings. Plagiarism of ideas, stories and scripts and on and on.
Socialist paradise, it is not.
One of the 24% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 89% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory.