• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

PNHP

  • Home
  • Contact PNHP
  • Join PNHP
  • Donate
  • PNHP Store
  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board and Staff
    • Employment opportunities at PNHP
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en EspaƱol
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2023
  • Take Action
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2023 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or Renew Your Membership

Articles of Interest

Jon Stewart Grills Kathleen Sebelius On Obamacare Issues, Makes Strong Case For Single-Payer

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Paige Lavender & Nick Wing
Huffington Post, October 8, 2013

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was grilled by Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” on Monday, where she appeared to addressĀ glitches that have plagued the Obamacare websiteĀ in its first week since going online.

Stewart challenged Sebelius on why individuals aren’t able to delay Obamacare, even though businesses have been given option.

“If I’m if an individual I’m wondering — well, an individual who doesn’t want this because there are individuals clearly that want this — but if I’m an individual that doesn’t want it, it would be hard for me to look at big business getting a waiver and not having to do it and me having to because I would think, ‘geez, it looks like because I don’t have a lobbying group,'” Stewart said. “I would feel like you are favoring big business because they lobbied you to delay it because they didn’t want to do this year but you are not allowing individuals that same courtesy.”

“Why is it that individuals, though, couldn’t say they didn’t want to do it just for a year?” Stewart continued.

“Well they can. They pay a fine,” Sebelius said. “They pay a fine at the end of the year, but they don’t have to — they can say, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ The theory is they can’t pick and choose if they are hit by a bus or diagnosed with an illness.”

In the second interview segment, Stewart admitted that he had broader concerns about what many saw as “incompetence” in Obamacare’s implementation over the last week.

See part 1 of the segment above, and watch part 2 below (story continues below video):

When Sebelius again defended the importance of making sure more people have health insurance and aren’t relying on treatment at the emergency room, Stewart said he believed this goal would have been best achieved through a single-payer system.

“I don’t understand the idea of staying with a market-based solution for a problem where people can’t be smart consumers. There are too many externalities in health care that I honestly don’t understand, why businesses would jump at the chance to decouple health insurance from their responsibility, and why the government wouldn’t jump at the chance to create a single-payer that simplifies this whole gobbledegook and creates the program that I think America deserves,” Stewart said.

Sebelius said she understood Stewart’s point, but thought “the president did not want to dismantle the health care that 85 percent of the country have and start all over again.” She also noted that the Republican response to Obamacare suggested that they wouldn’t have been too excited about the idea of a single-payer system run by the federal government.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/kathleen-sebelius-jon-stewart_n_4063267.html]]>

Primary Sidebar

Recent Articles of Interest

  • Medicare Advantage Is Under Fire. What It Means for Your Health—and Wallet.
  • Company Behind Joe Namath Medicare Advantage Ads Has Long Rap Sheet of Misconduct
  • Not One of the Nineteen Doctors in Congress Support Single Payer
  • Republicans Are Planning to Totally Privatize Medicare — And Fast
  • Majority of debtors to US hospitals now people with health insurance
  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board and Staff
    • Employment opportunities at PNHP
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en EspaƱol
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2023
  • Take Action
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2023 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or Renew Your Membership

Footer

  • About PNHP
    • Mission Statement
    • Board and Staff
    • Employment opportunities at PNHP
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Local Chapters
    • Students for a National Health Program
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Single Payer
    • What is Single Payer?
      • Policy Details
      • FAQs
      • History of Health Reform
      • Información en EspaƱol
    • How do we pay for it?
    • Physicians’ Proposal
      • Full Proposal
      • Supplemental Materials
      • Media Coverage
    • The Medicare for All Act of 2023
  • Take Action
    • Medical Society Resolutions
    • Recruit Colleagues
    • Schedule a Grand Rounds
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Lobby Visits
    • Organizing in Red Districts
  • Heal Medicare
    • HealMedicare.org
    • Sign our Petition
    • Take our Survey
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Stop REACH
  • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • Medicare Disadvantage
    • Maternal Mortality
    • Mental Health Care
    • Health Care Voters Guide
    • COVID-19 Endangers Health Workers
    • COVID-19 Exacerbates Racial Inequities
    • Public Health Emergencies
    • Rural Health Care
    • Racial Health Inequities
    • Surprise Billing
  • Latest News
    • Sign up for e-alerts
    • Members in the news
    • Health Justice Monitor
    • Articles of Interest
    • Latest Research
    • For the Press
  • Member Resources
    • 2023 Annual Meeting Materials
    • Newsletter
    • Slideshows
    • Materials & Handouts
    • Kitchen Table Campaign
    • COVID-19 Response
      • Why we Need Medicare for All
      • PNHP’s 8-point plan
      • New Study: Perils and Possibilities
      • Emergency COVID-19 Legislation
      • Kitchen Table Toolkit
      • Take Action on COVID-19
      • Telling your COVID-19 story
      • PNHP members in the news
    • Events Calendar
    • Webinars
    • Film Room
    • Join or Renew Your Membership
©2024 Physicians for a National Health Program,