Celebrities Need Health Care Help Too! (Just Not In the Way You Think)

For those who watch MSNBC regularly and aren’t related to any of the hosts–and I mean both of you–you are familiar with the Will Ferrell Funny or Die video that came out a few weeks ago on health care. I don’t want to embed it, but it was essentially multi-millionaires sarcastically talking about other multi-millionaires because they didn’t like how they made their money. Seems it’s OK to make hundreds of millions of dollars speaking the words other people wrote on camera, but running a company that pays for other people’s health care should be something that only earns one just enough to get by.

That’s not to say that health insurance is perfect; some do some shady things and some people get hurt, but just because liberals find the worst case scenario and present them as the norm doesn’t make it so. The vast majority of Americans are satisfied with their health coverage. They aren’t masochists who like being screwed over when the chips are down; they get what they need when they need it.

And that’s not to say Will Ferrell doesn’t deserve the money he makes either, though I’m fairly certain he didn’t return any of the millions he was paid for Bewitched when it became the Ishtar of 2005.

If, as the Funny or Die video seems to imply, someone is to be paid based upon their contributions to society, health insurance executives do deserve to make a lot of money. Certainly they deserve to make more than someone who gets paid $20 million for 1-3 months worth of work, especially when the result of that work is something like Land of the Lost.

But that’s neither here nor there.

I don’t resent the money anyone makes because I know it’s not a zero-sum game. Just because someone earns more than I do doesn’t mean I’m making less.

But Ferrell and others from the pampered class felt the need to weigh in on the health care debate, perhaps because, and I’m just speculating here, they thought they could get an NEA grant if they did. Whatever the reason, they brought as much knowledge and expertise to the table as, well, the table had, before they set anything down on it.

To illustrate this point (seriously, who is going to consult ANYONE in that video on matters of public policy?), I found this video pointing out the absurdity of the FoD piece.

[youtube AJ9Te1XP8RM]

While the MSNBC crowd won’t understand the irony or get the humor of taking policy advice from people who list “Monologs for Student Actors” as one of their favorite books, I hope the rest of you do.

PS – I finally got around to watching the Ed Show on MSNBC the other day and it took me three full segments before I realized Wilbur wasn’t coming because it wasn’t a remake of Mr. Ed.