Yeah, but I don’t think you’ll find Burkhold’s businesses on the State appropriations budget, IN ADDITION TO billing fed and state programs for services rendered- which is the main issue with MUSC that Climer is pointing out. It would be like having a construction company that obtains and performs on federal and state DOT contracts, but also gets direct appropriations from the gov’t that its competitors don’t receive.
Great article Sen. Climer. MUSC needs to divest itself of all its metro-area media facilities outside of its core campus in Charleston and focus on the poor rural areas that don’t have sufficient care, instead of gobbling up facilities in the Midlands, Myrtle Beach metro, and the greater Charlotte metro areas in SC and competing unfairly with private enterprise.
I have been on Medicare for a year now, and it is the absolute best, least expensive, most comprehensive coverage I have had my entire life. The problem with Mr. Climer and all Republicans is that they are doing nothing to lower the cost of health care for average Americans. In fact, in the last year, we have seen health insurance premiums soar, and all Republicans seem to care about is how we can cut benefits for middle-class Americans so that we can cut more taxes for rich people. Our country is in a mess. We are running up massive deficits, and the only options the Republicans can come up with are hurting middle-class working people and cutting taxes on rich people and corporations. In the realm of health care, the average middle-class working American pays more for health care than the people of any other country in the world, and they have nothing to show for it. We have a shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, and our people are generally less healthy than those of most other first-world countries. Yes, people in Canada and Europe pay a little more in taxes than we do, but we are paying more for health care than they are in higher taxes, and experiencing substandard results.
Our current health care model is not working for most Americans. I spent most of the last thirty years afraid to go to the doctor because, as a small business owner, being diagnosed with a pre-existing condition was an insurance nightmare, as it was for any person who lost their job and insurance coverage. After the ACA, I no longer had to fear losing health insurance, but I was paying huge premiums for insurance with a high deductible. Only when I was able to go on Medicare did I see my cost of care drop significantly.
To Mr. Climer and other Republicans, you are totally missing the point. This whole article was a complaint about MUSC, but nothing you are bitching about and proposing would reduce the cost of health care for the average person in South Carolina. And please don’t give me that spurring competition BS. You guys have been selling that scam for decades, and not one time have Americans seen their cost of health care go down; and Americans don’t want to call around to doctors all over the country to see who will give them the cheapest brain surgery. Politicians are on the health insurance industry payroll. Insurance industry executives are making billions of dollars every year on the backs of Americans forced to buy their overpriced, inferior products. It’s time to open Medicare to everyone and let the private insurance industry compete with that.
Give me a break. Get off your communism bull shit. The ACA made the system far better for the average American, especially for small business owners, who lack the market power to negotiate with insurance companies. The ACA eliminated the real possibility of being left destitute and without insurance when you need it most by eliminating pre-existing condition consideration. The insurance industry does not care if you die. They want what they had before the ACA: to sell insurance to healthy people at a huge profit and let sick people fend for themselves. That is what the ACA prevented.
Because the insurance industry was no longer allowed to kick sick people to the curb, they had to increase prices to keep their massive profits. That is why we had ACA subsidies. But Republicans have now eliminated those subsidies, sending the cost of insurance soaring for the average American who needed a policy through the ACA, and once again leaving many people without insurance in a system that is willing to let them die.
Either Republicans don’t understand insurance, or they don’t care about people who are sick. The whole idea of insurance is to spread the risk and cost. Insurance companies don’t want to do that. They want to do their best to pay only if they can’t avoid it. They only want to sell insurance to the people least likely to need it. That is a FU system that would go wild with AI able to scour the internet, collecting data on everyone, and using algorithms to predict who will get sick and when, so they could be kicked off of their insurance when the insurer has sucked all the money out of them they can.
Medicare is excellent coverage, but access to it is restricted to the oldest and sickest Americans. If we could bring younger, healthier people into the system, it would bring more money into the system, and reduce the average payout per recipient, thus lowering the per recipient cost of operating the system. The people who join would see their cost of care go way down, and insurance companies would have to lower their premiums to compete. A win for everyone except the insurance Industry.
Why haven’t Republicans been able to come up with a better, lower-cost plan than the ACA in the past 16 years? Because the answer is making Medicare available to everyone who wants it, and that is the exact opposite of what the insurance companies want. Republicans keep looking for a way to convince us to go back to the dark days of lowering costs by letting sick people who are not millionaires die, get substandard care, and go bankrupt in the process.
Time to Talk Decommodification of Health Care April 21, 2026 at 12:14 pm
As long as no other country wants to copy or emulate our health care system, I think that’s a good indication that maybe America needs to copy or emulate other health care systems.
I don’t care. If someone gets healthcare because of the maybe… $150 a year that I pay in taxes that could (assuming if my math is correct) go directly to MUSC, good. I don’t care that they recruit specialists or build more facilities. In the long run it’s better for the state. And plenty of MUSC grads stay in the state and work outside of Charleston.
Even in rural areas.
10 comments
I’ve built my business in healthcare and Sen. Climer is 100% correct here.
Mike, remind us how much of your business is built on billing the federal or state givernment.
Yeah, but I don’t think you’ll find Burkhold’s businesses on the State appropriations budget, IN ADDITION TO billing fed and state programs for services rendered- which is the main issue with MUSC that Climer is pointing out. It would be like having a construction company that obtains and performs on federal and state DOT contracts, but also gets direct appropriations from the gov’t that its competitors don’t receive.
Great article Sen. Climer. MUSC needs to divest itself of all its metro-area media facilities outside of its core campus in Charleston and focus on the poor rural areas that don’t have sufficient care, instead of gobbling up facilities in the Midlands, Myrtle Beach metro, and the greater Charlotte metro areas in SC and competing unfairly with private enterprise.
I can’t wait for him to get to US Congress!
I have been on Medicare for a year now, and it is the absolute best, least expensive, most comprehensive coverage I have had my entire life. The problem with Mr. Climer and all Republicans is that they are doing nothing to lower the cost of health care for average Americans. In fact, in the last year, we have seen health insurance premiums soar, and all Republicans seem to care about is how we can cut benefits for middle-class Americans so that we can cut more taxes for rich people. Our country is in a mess. We are running up massive deficits, and the only options the Republicans can come up with are hurting middle-class working people and cutting taxes on rich people and corporations. In the realm of health care, the average middle-class working American pays more for health care than the people of any other country in the world, and they have nothing to show for it. We have a shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, and our people are generally less healthy than those of most other first-world countries. Yes, people in Canada and Europe pay a little more in taxes than we do, but we are paying more for health care than they are in higher taxes, and experiencing substandard results.
Our current health care model is not working for most Americans. I spent most of the last thirty years afraid to go to the doctor because, as a small business owner, being diagnosed with a pre-existing condition was an insurance nightmare, as it was for any person who lost their job and insurance coverage. After the ACA, I no longer had to fear losing health insurance, but I was paying huge premiums for insurance with a high deductible. Only when I was able to go on Medicare did I see my cost of care drop significantly.
To Mr. Climer and other Republicans, you are totally missing the point. This whole article was a complaint about MUSC, but nothing you are bitching about and proposing would reduce the cost of health care for the average person in South Carolina. And please don’t give me that spurring competition BS. You guys have been selling that scam for decades, and not one time have Americans seen their cost of health care go down; and Americans don’t want to call around to doctors all over the country to see who will give them the cheapest brain surgery. Politicians are on the health insurance industry payroll. Insurance industry executives are making billions of dollars every year on the backs of Americans forced to buy their overpriced, inferior products. It’s time to open Medicare to everyone and let the private insurance industry compete with that.
Obama and Butthead sure made a mess
Typical communist supporting communisism
Give me a break. Get off your communism bull shit. The ACA made the system far better for the average American, especially for small business owners, who lack the market power to negotiate with insurance companies. The ACA eliminated the real possibility of being left destitute and without insurance when you need it most by eliminating pre-existing condition consideration. The insurance industry does not care if you die. They want what they had before the ACA: to sell insurance to healthy people at a huge profit and let sick people fend for themselves. That is what the ACA prevented.
Because the insurance industry was no longer allowed to kick sick people to the curb, they had to increase prices to keep their massive profits. That is why we had ACA subsidies. But Republicans have now eliminated those subsidies, sending the cost of insurance soaring for the average American who needed a policy through the ACA, and once again leaving many people without insurance in a system that is willing to let them die.
Either Republicans don’t understand insurance, or they don’t care about people who are sick. The whole idea of insurance is to spread the risk and cost. Insurance companies don’t want to do that. They want to do their best to pay only if they can’t avoid it. They only want to sell insurance to the people least likely to need it. That is a FU system that would go wild with AI able to scour the internet, collecting data on everyone, and using algorithms to predict who will get sick and when, so they could be kicked off of their insurance when the insurer has sucked all the money out of them they can.
Medicare is excellent coverage, but access to it is restricted to the oldest and sickest Americans. If we could bring younger, healthier people into the system, it would bring more money into the system, and reduce the average payout per recipient, thus lowering the per recipient cost of operating the system. The people who join would see their cost of care go way down, and insurance companies would have to lower their premiums to compete. A win for everyone except the insurance Industry.
Why haven’t Republicans been able to come up with a better, lower-cost plan than the ACA in the past 16 years? Because the answer is making Medicare available to everyone who wants it, and that is the exact opposite of what the insurance companies want. Republicans keep looking for a way to convince us to go back to the dark days of lowering costs by letting sick people who are not millionaires die, get substandard care, and go bankrupt in the process.
As long as no other country wants to copy or emulate our health care system, I think that’s a good indication that maybe America needs to copy or emulate other health care systems.
I don’t care. If someone gets healthcare because of the maybe… $150 a year that I pay in taxes that could (assuming if my math is correct) go directly to MUSC, good. I don’t care that they recruit specialists or build more facilities. In the long run it’s better for the state. And plenty of MUSC grads stay in the state and work outside of Charleston.
Even in rural areas.