Tag: Medical Bankruptcy

Cross posted at The Stars Hollow Gazette

In the United States, 62% of all bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical bills. It is not among who you would think but most often effects middle aged, middle class, college educated homeowners. 80% of those people had health insurance, so why are they filing for bankruptcy? No other industrial country has this problem.

Our fellow blogger, lambert, writing for naked capitalism, featured this video from Real News Network:

Paul Jay of the Real News Network interviews Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Baltimore who advocates for a national single payer health system, Medicare for all, and Kevin Zeese, co-director of It’s Our Economy, an organization that advocates for democratizing the economy.

At his blog, Corrente, lambert continues to document the atrocities of the Obamacare ClusterFuck.

As Lieberman deliberated, the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), told HuffPost that the party would consider supporting Lieberman if he returned to the fold.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Joe & George the President

The feeling of ill will is mutual: Lieberman said during the health care debate that one reason he opposed a Medicare buy-in compromise was that progressives were embracing it.

Joe & John the Presidential Candidate

March 20, 2003

” What we are doing here is not only in the interest of the safety of the American people. Believe me, Saddam Hussein would have used these weapons against us eventually or given them to terrorists who would have. But what we are doing here, in overthrowing Saddam and removing those weapons of mass destruction and taking them into our control, is good for the security of people all over the world, including the Iraqi people themselves.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

Joe and John in Iraq

September 29, 2011.    10 years and 18 days after 9-11 attacks on NYC



” It is time for us to take steps that make clear that if diplomatic and economic strategies continue to fail to change Iran’s nuclear policies, a military strike is not just a remote possibility in the abstract, but a real and credible alternative policy that we and our allies are ready to exercise.

It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table. It is time for our message to our friends and enemies in the region to become clearer: namely, that we will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability — by peaceful means if we possibly can, but with military force if we absolutely must. A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities entails risks and costs, but I am convinced that the risks and costs of allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capability are much greater.

Some have suggested that we should simply learn to live with a nuclear Iran and pledge to contain it. In my judgment, that would be a grave mistake. As one Arab leader I recently spoke with pointed out, how could anyone count on the United States to go to war to defend them against a nuclear-armed Iran, if we were unwilling to go to war to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran? Having tried and failed to stop Iran’s nuclear breakout, our country would be a poor position to contain its consequences.

I also believe it would be a failure of U.S. leadership if this situation reaches the point where the Israelis decide to attempt a unilateral strike on Iran. If military action must come, the United States is in the strongest position to confront Iran and manage the regional consequences. This is not a responsibility we should outsource. We can and should coordinate with our many allies who share our interest in stopping a nuclear Iran, but we cannot delegate our global responsibilities to them.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

http://lieberman.senate.gov/in…

from the ConsumerWatchdog.org

(Click for Larger Image)

What the loss of the Public Option really Means …

Good bye competitive choice …

HELLOOOO … More of the Same!

Real people … who we knew and loved … who died unnecessarily in the U.S.

Real Life Stories of Americans

THE SILENT … NOW DECEASED

“My daughter got sick with cancer after her husband lost his job. She never told anyone she was sick because she knew the financial hardship it would cause and eventually the hospital would take their house for unpaid medical bills. We lost her in the following spring … We read her diary and learned all she was feeling and thinking. Now I wonder how many others are just like her in this America? And how many before her?”

Deaths due to Preventable Diseases: Dead Last

Rankings 1st to 19th. France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Portugal, United States

http://www.medicareforall.org/…

Doctor Linda Peeno, a renown expert in the field of “Managed Care”, explains to Congress the dirty little secrets behind the Business of Health Care Denial:

Doctor Linda Peeno, a renown expert in the field of “Managed Care”, explains to Congress the dirty little secrets behind the Business of Health Care Denial:

THE REAL DEATH PANELS: Insurance Companies That Deny Care



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Linda Peeno, M.D.

In the spring of 1987, as a Physician, I denied a man a necessary operation, that would have saved his life. And thus caused his death. And I’m haunted by the thousands of pieces of paper, on which I have written that deadly word: Denied.

Barack Obama , Feb 19, 2008

Well, The System’s Broken […] Certainly I don’t accept, in the richest county on Earth, that we should have 47 Million people without Health Insurance, and Millions of more people being bankrupted because of a Medical Bill.

[…]

As President of the United States, what I’ve proposed to do, is to make sure that we got a plan that covers ALL Americans.

[…]

The key to making this happen, is to overcome the resistance we’re going to see from Drug Companies, Insurance Companies, HMO’s. Over the last 10 years alone, Drug and Insurance Companies spent over $1 Billion, in preventing Health Care Reform from happening. That’s going to require then, a mobilization of energy among the American People, to insist on a Congress and a White House, that are actually going to deliver this time.

[…]

Real people … who we knew and loved … who died unnecessarily in the U.S.

Real Life Stories of Americans

THE SILENT … NOW DECEASED

“My daughter got sick with cancer after her husband lost his job. She never told anyone she was sick because she knew the financial hardship it would cause and eventually the hospital would take their house for unpaid medical bills. We lost her in the following spring … We read her diary and learned all she was feeling and thinking. Now I wonder how many others are just like her in this America? And how many before her?”

Deaths due to Preventable Diseases: Dead Last

Rankings 1st to 19th. France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Portugal, United States

http://www.medicareforall.org/…

What would Jesus Do about Health Care?

Good Question.

Well it sounds, like he understood how Sick People need Doctors:

Mark 2:17 GWT

When Jesus heard that, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor; those who are sick do. I’ve come to call sinners, not people who think they have God’s approval.”

(emphasis added)

GOP Health Care Obstructionists, are you Listening???

The Pharisees, thought they were doing God’s work too.

Imagine their surprise when this upstart Carpenter, from the old neighborhood, dared to stand up to their blatant self-righteousness … and dish back to them some cold, hard truth …

Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies

By Theresa Tamkins — CNN, June 5, 2009

This year, an estimated 1.5 million Americans will declare bankruptcy. Many people may chalk up that misfortune to overspending or a lavish lifestyle, but a new study suggests that more than 60 percent of people who go bankrupt are actually capsized by medical bills.

Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

1.5 million Americans x 60% = 900,000 Americans

that’s about 2500 more people per day

… going bankrupt from medical bills, which were NOT covered by our broken Health Insurance system