Top 10 Health Care Online Videos

by Tim Foley

Published December 31, 2008 @ 09:18AM PT

Health care is more than just a collection of numbers, statistics and price points. It’s a collection of stories: how we do or do not help each other in our hour of need; how in the richest country on earth, we’ve made basic health, wellness and care a commodity to be bought and sold rather than an essential right; and how the free market that can promote such efficiencies for companies can promote such an inefficient and harmful system.

The good news – health care is also made up of success stories from other countries, as well as the stories of those of us who are willing to fight for change.

1. NBC News: “For many, paying for meds is a bitter pill”

The next time people tell you that we can’t fix health care because of the economy, show them this video. These featured patients are “making the hard choice between food, the mortgage and medicine.” The chances of this situation not becoming tragically common as we suffer through the recession are between Slim and None (and let’s just say Slim is looking up cheap flights to get out of here.)

2. “What Is Single-Payer?”

View the video on grahamazon.com

What do vomiting stick figures, the song “Funkytown,” cranberries and a flashback to your prom have in common? They’re all in this short animation explaining the theory behind a single-payer health care system. It’s short, it’s funny, and the analogy used to describe what single-payer does or does not do makes it instantly understandable to everyone.

(One thing it doesn’t have is its own non-Flash player, so I can’t embed it for y’all. You win this round, Grahamazon…)

3. “Diagnosis: NOW!”

If “What Is Single-Payer?” gave you a chuckle, this will give you a punch to the heart. In this short film by Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films, three families tell their story of battles with cancer. It’s bad enough to suddenly learn that you have to fight a life-threatening illness, but why should they have to spend all of their treatment fighting insurance companies as well?

4. Clip from the second presidential debate between Obama and McCain

Presidential candidate Obama raised expectations with this unflinching answer to a question on health care reform. It’s also a “greatest hits” of the talking points from the Obama plan. As we watch in 2009, let's keep coming back to this video – how’s he doing on keeping his promise?

(Or, you can just watch it to chuckle over McCain wandering over the stage and repeatedly saying, “That’s remarkable” and “Why not?” Whatever works for you, man.)

5. “Sick Around the World”

View the program on PBS.org

PBS is justifiably proud of this episode of Frontline which explored how universal health care has been enacted in Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland, with an eye towards what the United States can learn as we develop our own system of universal health care. They’ve made it available for purchase on iTunes and have the full episode streamed on their Web site for free. What they haven’t done is make an encodable player so I can post it here. (You’re lucky Bob Vila, Julia Child and Cookie Monster have created such goodwill for you in my heart, PBS… very lucky…)

6. “Insurance Company Rules”

This hysterical fake commercial for a success method called “Insurance Company Rules” was created by the coalition Health Care for America NOW! tries to look on the lighter side of the underwriting practices that are all too common in the private health insurance industry. Please be advised that this is parody – it is not recommended that you bring nunchuks to a poker game.

7.)CBS News: “France: ‘Best’ Health Care”

We in the English-speaking world have a crystal-clear conception of what live is like for the French. It involves a lot of smoking, more than a little wine, rich foods drenched in butter and cream, and arguably the best health care system in the world… wait, WHAT was that last part?

C’est vrai! Watch the video to find out how.

8. “Jonathan Cohn - Origins of America's Healthcare Crisis”

Senior Editor for The New Republic and author of Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis--and the People Who Pay the Price, Jonathan Cohen gives a lecture on the history of health care in the United States… wait, wait, wait, don’t go away just yet. It’s only 6 minutes long and provides a very understandable overview of development from the 1930s until today. Six minutes later, you’ll realize how messily our system developed – small wonder it’s so inefficient and so hard to solve.

9. “The Making of Harry and Louise Return”

The most vivid memory for many people of the health care reform fight of 1994 are the Harry and Louise ads. They were sponsored by  Health Insurance Association of America, and effectively used what looked like an average couple to voice “scary” concerns about the Clinton plan to sink it with ordinary voters.

Well now in 2008, Harry and Louise are back. They’ve ditched the flannel, and they’ve also ditched the skepticism on health care reform. Families USA presented this video of the Harry and Louise actors talking about what it’s like to still be talking about a health care crisis 14 years later.

10. “Inside the Transition: Health Care”

Rounding out our list with a second “making of” video (just think of this as the DVD extras portion of the site), the President-Elect's Transition Team put out this video to show how the transition team is beginning to lay plans for health care reform in 2009. Don’t expect a lot of policy detail or too many hidden secrets. Instead, the main messages they want you to take away are 1.) Health care IS on the agenda and 2.) We plan to listen to you.

It may not seem like much, but they’re hopeful signs that this push for real reform will be different.