Nader on Health Care and Howard Dean

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Just the other day, I declared my liberation from politics and talk radio and blogs that promote the party line.   With this liberation came a renewed interest in the only man outside the system, Ralph Nader.

Today, I got this email from him on health care.  It contained the usual stuff that we all know.  The bill is corporate welfare and was written by the health care corporations.  Many people recognize the Obama spin for the lie it is, and it contains many money quotes from Chris Hedges and others who know that when it smells like a skunk, looks like a skunk, well you know the rest of that.

I have copied and posted the entire email below in case someone wants to donate to the single payer cause; but there is one short paragraph on Howard Dean in the email that caught my attention.  I bolded it because I think it is important.  Apparently Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders got their pound of flesh for their support shutting up.  Bernie got clinics for the people, and Dean got – well read it for yourself.  

If you listen to the Democrats, you would think that they were fighting on the side of the American people.

And against the health insurance companies.

Or as Howard Dean put it last week:

“This is a vote about one thing: Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?”

President Obama said that he and the Democrats had pushed back against the “special interests.”

In fact, the bill that was passed by the House Sunday night was a result of a deal President Obama and the Democrats cut last year with the pharmaceutical industry.

And it was written with the help of former insurance industry lobbyists.

Or as the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne put it – the Democrats are fighting for a Republican health plan.

Last year, former CIGNA executive turned whistleblower Wendell Potter called the bill “a joke” and “an absolute gift to the insurance industry.”

Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program called the bill “a step backwards.”

“This bill further enriches the industries that are the problem,” Dr. Flowers said.

Chris Hedges put it this way:

“This bill is not about fiscal responsibility or the common good.”

“The bill is about increasing corporate profit at taxpayer expense,” Hedges wrote.

“It lavishes hundreds of billions in government subsidies on insurance and drug companies.”

“The some 3,000 (corporate) lobbyists in Washington, whose dirty little hands are all over the bill, have once more betrayed the American people for money.”

“The bill is another example of why change will never come from within the Democratic Party. The party is owned and managed by corporations.”

“What is the point in supporting any of the Democrats?” Hedges asked. “How much more craven can they get?”

For the past year, all around the country, Single Payer Action has been confronting and exposing the craven corporate Democrats.

Just last week, Single Payer Action directly confronted Howard Dean on Capitol Hill about Dean’s lobbying for his biotech industry clients – lobbying that resulted in a multi-billion dollar patent windfall tucked neatly into the health care bill that Congress just passed.

And Single Payer Action will continue to expose, confront, agitate and organize for single payer Medicare for all.

Why?

Because as Dr. Marcia Angell – former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine – puts it – single payer is the only health care reform that covers everyone and controls costs.

Because most of the health insurance coverage mandated by the Democratic bill does not come into effect until 2014 –  by which time 180,000 Americans will have died because they were unable to afford health insurance to cover treatment and diagnosis, according to Harvard Medical School researchers.

Because the main saving grace of the Democratic bill is that it is so inadequate and so delayed in implementation that the position supported by the majority of people, physicians and nurses – single payer full Medicare for all – will have abundant opportunities to build around the country.

And because the ever spiraling price hikes by the insurance industry are sure to spur the single payer movement to new popularity.

So, please, help us keep building this movement.

Donate now whatever you can to Single Payer Action.

And if you donate $100 or more now, I’ll sign a copy of Venezuelan photographer Kike Arnal’s just published hard cover photo book – In the Shadow of Power – with an introduction by yours truly.

(In the Shadow of Power is a stunning, poignant and haunting photo book that documents the other Washington – with high rates of infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and AIDS infection – and where 16 percent of the children live in extreme poverty.)

I’ll also sign a copy of my own book of collected writings – In Pursuit of Justice.

And we’ll send both books to you.

For a donation of $100 or more to Single Payer Action.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Together and persistently – we will get it done.

Onward to the more efficient, humane full Medicare for all.

Ralph Nader

Remember, this is only Round 1.

We’re building for Round 2.

Keep your heads up. Step by step.

And full Medicare for all will become a reality.

If Nader doesn’t run in 2012, I’m writing him in.  

Until our votes “just say no” to the two party system, we are destined to lose.