Category: Health Care

The DKos recommended list features a proposal for a general strike in the USA to force passage of progressive national health care legislation. I think progressives are waking up to the fact that free and courageous people don’t wait for a corrupt government to give them crumbs from a crooked table.

The people of Iran reached their breaking point when they saw their votes ignored. Poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans want universal coverage and affordable health care. Every advanced nation has universal coverage and affordable health care. We have effectively VOTED for universal coverage and affordable health care. Now we are being told by the DEMOCRATS, who were elected to honor this promise, that THEY DON’T HAVE THE VOTES to pass this reform of our dysfunctional health care system.

The American people are facing the deliberate betrayal of their interests by politicians bribed by the predatory managers of the existing health care (denial) system. Our corporate overlords think that the people will sit down and shut up once they have accepted the politicians’ excuses. I don’t think so.

If we, as a people, had a tenth of the courage of the people of Iran, who march in the face of brutal suppression, we would rise up as one and DEMAND decent health care and the shutting down of the predatory claim denial mills run by insurance companies for private profit.

Strike for affordable health care as a right for every citizen in America. Show the courage that our corrupt Congress thinks has vanished from America. Defend your freedom and dignity and show that we are as brave as the people of Iran.

There was a time when most Americans had no medical insurance. It was as recently as in the 1950s. You got sick: you dealt with it. You treated yourself. You lived with it.

My mother was born in 1918. She got polio in the same year as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Her Medical provider was Shriner’s Hospital in Chicago. They tried the latest techniques to help her walk and stand. My grandmother even begged them to take the muscles from her own legs and give them to my mother so she could walk.. Modern medicine still cannot do that.

This is not to denigrate Shriner’s or any hospital, but the theory was that since one of her legs was weaker than the other, it would be a good thing to strengthen the weak one. They did this by breaking it and setting it so that the bones would thicken and strengthen. They broke both long bones in her leg. Unfortunately, the next day it was discovered that the wrong leg had been broken, So they broke the bones in her other leg and set them. The scars on her thighs resembled huge railroad tracks from all the surgeries done to get her to be able to stand.

This morning I recieved an email from the President. I have gotten these from time to time ever since I made 4 donations during his campaign.

Here is the text of the most recent:

ProgressiveTokyo —

Last year, millions of Americans came together for a great purpose.

Folks like you assembled a grassroots movement that shocked the political establishment and changed the course of our nation. When Washington insiders counted us out, we put it all on the line and changed our democracy from the bottom up. But that’s not why we did it.

The pundits told us it was impossible — that the donations working people could afford and the hours volunteers could give would never loosen the vise grip of big money and powerful special interests. We proved them wrong. But as important as that was, that’s not why we did it.

Today, spiraling health care costs are pushing our families and businesses to the brink of ruin, while millions of Americans go without the care they desperately need. Fixing this broken system will be enormously difficult. But we can succeed. The chance to make fundamental change like this in people’s daily lives — that is why we did it.

The campaign to pass real health care reform in 2009 is the biggest test of our movement since the election. Once again, victory is far from certain. Our opposition will be fierce, and they have been down this road before. To prevail, we must once more build a coast-to-coast operation ready to knock on doors, deploy volunteers, get out the facts, and show the world how real change happens in America.

And just like before, I cannot do it without your support.

So I’m asking you to remember all that you gave over the last two years to get us here — all the time, resources, and faith you invested as a down payment to earn us our place at this crossroads in history. All that you’ve done has led up to this — and whether or not our country takes the next crucial step depends on what you do right now.

Will you donate whatever you can afford to support the campaign for real health care reform in 2009?

It doesn’t matter how much you can give, as long as you give what you can. Millions of families on the brink are counting on us to do just that. I know we can deliver.

Thank you, so much, for getting us this far. And thank you for standing up once again to take us the rest of the way.

Sincerely,

President Barack Obama

Well if Talking Points were Rubles … Some people would be king!

How to Stop Socialized Health Care

Five arguments Republicans must make.

By KARL ROVE – Wall Street Journal – JUNE 11, 2009

If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five arguments Republicans must make.

The first is it’s unnecessary. …

But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That’s competition enough.

Second, a public option will undercut private insurers and pass the tab to taxpayers and health providers just as it does in existing government-run programs. …

Third, government-run health insurance would crater the private insurance market, forcing most Americans onto the government plan. …

Fourth, the public option is far too expensive. …

Fifth, the public option puts government firmly in the middle of the relationship between patients and their doctors. …

Link to this WSJ screed.

Oh pity the poor little Private Insurers — they’ll just wilt in the face of any Competition from the big bad Public Option!

Poor Babies —  WAAAAAAHHH!

Welcome to the 12th installment of “Considered Forthwith.”

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week, Considered Forthwith looks at the Senate Finance Committee. This committee is the other half of the health care reform debate equation. I detailed the other half, the Senate HELP Committee, last week.

In general, the Finance Committee handles tax measures and government-funded health insurance programs. As a result, this is a very powerful committee. Moreover, if health care reform dies, it will likely find its grave in this committee.

Private vs. Public Schools: What’s the Difference?

Your goal is to find a school that will meet your child’s needs. But how do you choose between a public school and a private school?

[… interesting list of Pros and Cons …]

The Bottom Line

There are a few fundamental differences between public and private schools, but here’s the bottom line: There are great private schools and there are great public schools. The trick is finding the school that best fits your child’s needs. You may also want to consider public charter schools or homeschooling. It’s a good idea to research the schools that interest you and, to get a true picture of the school, visit in person.

(emphasis added)

http://www.greatschools.net/cg…

Has Competition from Public Education “killed” the thriving Industry of Private Education?

Hardly!

Neither will Competition from a Public Option in Health Care, “kill” the thriving Industry of Private Insurance — assuming they actually have a Product, that People are willing to pay for!

and if they don’t …?

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a Talking Point War, developing around the “validity” of the Public Option.

There is very much at stake in this inevitable War of Words — not least of which is YOUR Future Health, Wealth, and peace of mind.

Of course, the forces of the Status Quo, will do everything within their Financial Power, to convince you that a non-profit “Public Option” in Health Care — is against your best interests!  That it is anti-American! … That a Public Option is somehow an “inferior” product.  (says who, btw?)

Just don’t buy what their selling, because really it’s someone else’s “best interests” that those Talking Point warriors, really have in mind:

Beware of Big Business’ next “Bait and Switch”!  

(Whether it be some amorphous “co-op” idea, or some other shiny object, like promising to finally “play nicely now”.)

I don’t know if you’ve been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.

For reasons that we won’t go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities…and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the “menu” of services (the facility’s term) that can be purchased at this particular location.

If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future…or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself…this conversation will surely matter.

It’s your fault you sick bastard.

You got sick.

You weren’t strong enough.

At the very least, you might get sick.  

You sure as hell aren’t a Senator, and you don’t have a good enough job.  

You don’t own any banks at all, you worthless scum.  

Not even a little local bank.  

(My abject apologies if I’m wrong, and you do own a bank–I didn’t mean YOU at all–I meant all the rest of YOU–sorry, sorry… I’ll buy you a drink)

So, anyway, because of your abject failures to properly provide for yourself, we’ve had to put our lofty heads together and come up with a really, really neat solution:

MANDATED HEALTH CARE: IT’S WHAT”S ON THE TABLE

(nice title right…or should it be ‘it’s what’s for dinner…. ? Na…)

(fine print: If you don’t pay the insurance company, you go to jail.)

Got that?

Simple, right?

Even all you idiots here that didn’t get in to Morris College, Yale, oughta be able to figure this one out.

Let me say it again: if you don’t pay AIG.

Every Month.  

On time.

A diary was recently posted to a liberal blog attacking the baby boomers for their bad eating habits. The argument was made that they should not be allowed unlimited health care because they don’t deserve it – “they should have eaten better.”

This is typical Right wing savagery. But what surprised me were the responses.

Many arguments accepted the premise that health care is earned and responded by proposing that the baby boomers have indeed earned their health care because they are paying for it – with social security etc.

What I didn’t see was one argument that addressed the real issue – that access to health care is not something you earn, it is a right.

As decent people of good conscience we must reject the right wing frame of health care as a privilege or something you must earn. What kind of society turns away the sick because they don’t “deserve” health care? A sick society.

This is the disease of the free market ideology – the idea that everyone, working in their own selfish interests, creates an equilibrium which benefits society as a whole.

What this ideology creates is a sociopathic society.

sociopath

noun

a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

We must restore the health care debate to the realm of common decency. And we must reject the fallacy that Adam Smith’s invisible hand can replace our basic obligations to our fellow man.

Humans, on the most instinctual level, have always understood that we depend on each other to survive. Society itself is a product of this understanding.

The ideology of the free market, the view of society as the aggregation of individual self interests, is just an invention designed to allow the corporate model to operate without conscience or regard to society as a whole.

It has been embraced and propagated by capitalist forces who see democratic institutions and government regulation as enemies to profit. The health care system is only one manifestation of this sociopathy.  There are many others, from environmental abuse to economic injustice.

What the left has allowed, under the leadership of conservatives like Bill Clinton, is nothing less than the defeat of the idea that society is a social compact, the means by which we work together to solve common problems, and express the basic understanding that we are all in this together. We have allowed right wing forces to slowly redefine our most basic values and subvert our better nature.

Even entertaining the notion that people should be denied access to health care because, by some criteria, they don’t deserve it, is evidence of how far we have fallen.

The instrument of Social Democracy, the way  we as a society make collective decisions on how to benefit society whole, is democratic government. But the left, and Democrats specifically, have largely conceded to the right’s fallacy that government is inherently bad. And as a result, we have allowed the subversion of the most powerful agent of social justice in the history of the human race – the federal government under the United States constitution.

This could not have happened at a worse time. Never before in history have we needed to come together as much as we do now. Modern civilization is in a crisis state on multiple fronts. It is essential that we, as Americans, and as citizens of the world, unite in common purpose to solve these problems – the climate crisis, the energy crisis, overpopulation, under-education and, of course, the health care crisis. Transparent, effective, democratic government is the only tool we have. It is our only shot.

The first Americans fought and died for the same government that Ronald Reagan, a candidate for the presidency, called “the problem.” We must fight for our government again. We must fight for the idea that a free, thinking people can come together and work for not only the interests of the individual, but the interests of society.

If we don’t succeed, we will see all that we know and love perish.