watch it: “Ernestine (Lily Tomlin) explains why ‘that’s not covered...’”

Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine is back, now obfuscating for “Controlled Healthcare Insurance Corp.” Actually, she’s been back for a while: this video and the another similar one were produced last year to support a switch to universal single-payer health care in the U.S., which of course the lousy excuse for health-care reform that is starting to go into effect in 2011 does not come anywhere near providing. It mostly does ensure that the “kind of waste [that] does not come cheap” that for-profit health insurance companies indulge in will continue to be paid for by Americans... now under penalty of law.

In the 1970s, when Ernestine was linebacking for The Phone Company, it wasn’t a matter of life and death if she prevented a call from going through... Now the likes of she have the power to kill you. American progress at its finest.