Tag: Single Payer

U.S. Health Care: Mobilize Or Accept The Status Quo

Crossposted from Antemedius

Economist, Author, and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Richard D. Wolff, well-known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology and class analysis, Yale University Ph.D. in Economics, and Professor at The New School University in New York City, talks with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the current health care debate and the challenges or barriers standing in the way of a national U.S. single payer plan.

Wolff suggests keeping in mind some basic facts – the U.S. spends far more for far less health care “product” than any other advanced country in the world, and suggests a return to the the old American prideful mindset of “if we’re not producing the best quality at the lowest price we should go and find out who’s doing that and replicate their experience“, and points out that the number one thing standing in the way of doing this is the lack of will to challenge the status quo and to do what everyone already knows needs to be done: spend less to get more.

In other words, Wolff opines, Obama must “mobilize or accept the status quo” and “make his party vote for real health care reform“, instead of making the lame this is the best we can get excuses that may very well destroy his presidency along with screwing millions of Americans out of proper health care.

The Media gladly enables Canadian Strawmen, while silencing Real Doctors

The President gave a compelling prime time Press Conference last week mostly about Health Care Reform — the most pressing Issue of our time, and what was the lead story for the next several days?

The merits of Public Option competition?

The plight of 14,000 citizens losing their Health Insurance each day?

No, the lead story was the President’s take on the arrest of his friend — on the emotionally charged “wedge issue” of Racial Profiling. A worthy discussion, no doubt —

But what about the issues of Health Care Reform?  What about that Debate?

Of course the Media has been failing to have a Real Health Care Debate for some time now …

ABC Censors Obama’s Longtime Doctor, Dr. Scheiner

Health Care: “Has Canada Got The Cure?”

Has Canada Got the Cure?

Holly Dressel, Yes Magazine

Publicly funded health care has its problems, as any Canadian or Briton knows. But like democracy, it’s the best answer we’ve come up with so far.

Should the United States implement a more inclusive, publicly funded health care system? That’s a big debate throughout the country. But even as it rages, most Americans are unaware that the United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn’t already have a fundamentally public–that is, tax-supported–health care system.

That means that the United States has been the unwitting control subject in a 30-year, worldwide experiment comparing the merits of private versus public health care funding. For the people living in the United States, the results of this experiment with privately funded health care have been grim. The United States now has the most expensive health care system on earth and, despite remarkable technology, the general health of the U.S. population is lower than in most industrialized countries. Worse, Americans’ mortality rates–both general and infant–are shockingly high.

The United States spends far more per capita on health care than any comparable country. In fact, the gap is so enormous that a recent University of California, San Francisco, study estimates that the United States would save over $161 billion every year in paperwork alone if it switched to a singlepayer system like Canada’s.3 These billions of dollars are not abstract amounts deducted from government budgets; they come directly out of the pockets of people who are sick.

READ THE WHOLE THING…

It’s Just Ridiculous

This one caught my eye in the NYT front page :

Although she may well benefit from Mr. Obama’s plan to subsidize health insurance for the working poor, Rowena Ventura, the uninsured worker from Cleveland, wondered whether she could afford it. “I’m worried because they’re talking about forcing people to buy insurance,” said Ms. Ventura, a registered Democrat and part-time health care worker. “You just can’t ask any more of me. You just can’t.”

Ms. Ventura, 44, who also attends community college, has moved her ailing mother into the living room of the house she shares with her disabled husband. She said she recently discovered a lump on her left foot but cannot afford to see a doctor about it. Yet she is cynical about Mr. Obama’s prescription.

“You see,” she said, gesturing at Mr. Obama on the television, “he’s saying he wants to continue private insurance, but then he says they’re part of the problem. Well, which is it? It’s just ridiculous.”

*

It is indeed ridiculous.

It’s beyond comprehension.

You say you want to hand over 35-40% of Americans health care dollar to an institution that has been screwing them for decades and has no purpose and call it reform?  And have the additional money paid for by the:

Working Poor?

How does this not make the health insurance industry more powerful and entrenched than it already is ??

Single Payer addresses the real issue.

Public Option: window dressing.

Essential Keywords

A really simple diary.  Search or not search.  Do what you will and I do know and am aware that some of my sources might be considered as “righttard” oriented.  In a proactive answer to that did you get the “change” promised after Barry Soetoro was selected?  I know it’s nasty and highly un-Orange like but just look around and take in what is going on.  It is indeed going to “change”.  Before it does though the plan is to spend yet another spiritual cleansing session deep in the woods of Maine.

Dennis has a call to action up on Orange…

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

You might want to slip over and show your support (should you support his idea).

WSJ reports: White House Open to Deal on Public Health Plan

crossposted on Daily Kos

White House Open to Deal on Public Health Plan

By LAURA MECKLER and JANET ADAMY – JULY 7, 2009 – WSJ


WASHINGTON — It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.

[…]

One of the most contentious issues is whether to create a public health-insurance plan to compete with private companies.

Mr. Emanuel said one of several ways to meet President Barack Obama’s goals is a mechanism under which a public plan is introduced only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own. He noted that congressional Republicans crafted a similar trigger mechanism when they created a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare in 2003. In that case, private competition has been judged sufficient and the public option has never gone into effect.

Mr. Obama has pushed hard for a vigorous public option. But he has also said he won’t draw a “line in the sand” over this point.

http://online.wsj.com/article/…

OH NO! Not that stupid Trigger Option again!

Enough Already!  

Who will the Senate Finance Committee Listen to?

Have you met your Senate Finance Committee?

Give em a call because your Future Health Care, or lack thereof, is in their hands.

Senate Committee on Finance

Members

REPUBLICANS

CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA

ORRIN G. HATCH, UT

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME

JON KYL, AZ

JIM BUNNING, KY

MIKE CRAPO, ID

PAT ROBERTS, KS

JOHN ENSIGN, NV

MIKE ENZI, WY

JOHN CORNYN, TX

DEMOCRATS

MAX BAUCUS, MT

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV

KENT CONRAD, ND

JEFF BINGAMAN, NM

JOHN F. KERRY, MA

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR

RON WYDEN, OR

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY

DEBBIE STABENOW, MI

MARIA CANTWELL, WA

BILL NELSON, FL

ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ

THOMAS CARPER, DE

http://finance.senate.gov/site…

Chances are, these good Senators, while they hear us, have some other Constituents, always on their minds.

Second Grandson:Casualty of Health Care

Taught my first daughter well as she did the absolute right thing in spite of pressure from her doctor’s office.  We are after all suburbanites so the cesspool of “normal” urban living is at times most offensive.  My new quote.  I am an American and I’m pissed.

“Your America means nothing to me”

What I Want

I read my little “Care to Causes” articles this morning, as I usually do to sign lots of petitions, and came across this:

http://www.care2.com/causes/po…

While worded to “support” the idea of public option, it served only to greatly piss me off.

I’ve read the conflicting opinions and analysis about Health Care, including Chris Dodd’s emails insisting single-payer still be an option.

I agree in theory with Gottlieb’s supposition that “public option” is akin to a last straw of broken promises. (I disagree that Obama is a ‘good’ man, though, at this point I think he is a brilliant man, a genius at manipulation. I doubt his will is good now.) Yes a foot in, but who would risk his employment, his child’s roof to protest for cheaper shit he couldn’t afford anyway?

You see, I get it, I will be wildly pissed if 72% (the newest #) of the people’s will gets summarily ignored in losing even Public Option. Worth a day trip to Lansing to protest on my day off. Yes. But:

But what REALLY cheeses me off is that we were promised single-payer, and it was never even OFFERED as a viable option for us.

Guess what? A private/public insurance that will supposedly lower the prices by “competition” is just another Capitalist venture by any other name. Dig it.

We cannot afford our fucking houses, Mr. Obama. How the FUCK do you think we can afford even a discounted policy for a family of three?

A 60 yr old with high blood pressure & cholesterol (oops, that raises the price) a 46 yr old with cancer history, and heart history (that raises the price) who smoke (that raises the price) and a ten year old????

Can.

NOT.

AFFORD.

It.

Can anyone hear us now?

I worked all my life, and this is what I get? Poverty and illness? They are making us a 3rd World Nation: With Intent.  It is CRIMINAL.

There are reams written by insiders and players, who claim that the “boomers” will break us all, which is utter bullshit considering population has grown since then. Give every immigrant Citizenry and problem solved. (Of course they will never do that, the White Power Boyz Club, for the same reason the Zionazis won’t allow a one-state… fear of reprisal in being outnumbered… fear of attaining the “second class” status they imposed)

The propaganda is so fierce protecting the profiteers, that they even want to block making records electronic, because it would become public just how many DENIALS of service the profiteers impose on their “clients.”

What they are offering is Walmart insurance to a sweepingly destitute population. “Hey there’s a half-off sale on bypass! Woot, quick honey sell a kidney, I want one!

Fuck that. I will expound later, but DO NOT FOR A SECOND BELIEVE THIS COULD NOT BE DONE.

How about closing Halliburton & Blackwater’s contracts, getting completely out of the ME? There is always money for the War Machine and bailing out the rich. Trickle down looks like sewer run-off from where I sit.

Death is profit. Our lives are only profitable if we PAY not to die.

Put me out there to sell it. I could make every single person in America demand single-payer. One slogan.

“DEAD UNTIL LIFE IS PURCHASED FROM US. ITS THE LAW.”

With so many things bearing down on me, the former middle class (covered Monday) its hard NOT to go into Shock and fold, settling for crumbs.

My last straw broke long ago, now I’m just trying to stay alive, keep my baby (and yes, he is still a baby) alive.

So forgive me, readers, for my rage against all of them. I’m not safe by far, and still have everything to lose, and nothing left to lose.

Its about to get much worse here. Much, much worse.

Off to do work that usually only illegals will take, landscaping in 90 degree heat with my middle aged, bad heart, bad back self… and praying nothing happens today. Just one day at time, god, let me survive it, because if ANYTHING happens, I die.

Fuck this Country. Fuck President Obama. Fuck Congress and the Senate and their Corporate Overlords.

They won’t bring my job or benefits back. So.

I want SINGLE PAYER.

Bernie Sanders on Single Payer — Take Action

Bernie Sanders is circulating a petition advocating Single Payer.  Here’s what the good Senator has to say about it in his e-mail.  

Please read it and go to his web site and show your support for Single Payer.  We may have to settle for the fall-back position of a Public Option, but we should show them our true desires anyway.  

A PETITION TO CONGRESS

Supporting Single-Payer Health Care

Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance. Even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. Close to 20,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have regular access to a doctor.  

The time is now for our nation to address the most profound moral and economic issue we face.  

The time is now for our country to join the rest of the industrialized world and provide cost-effective, comprehensive quality health care to every man, woman and child in our country.  

The time is now to take on the powerful special interests in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and pass a single-payer national health care program.

Sign the petition

Tell Bernie your experience with health care and insurance.

For more background information, see my diary from a few days ago Healthcare: The Big Issue, The Big Test for Obama

We’ve got to keep pushing, keep yelling, keep demanding.  YYEELLLL!!!

Payola and the Demise of Health Care Reform

Crossposted at BlueRage and CobaltVA.

The best solution to health care and one that has a large amount of support among the U.S. public is the simplest, the single-payer option.  Single-payer puts the insurance companies out of business, period.  No longer would health care be rationed by cost, services and treatments denied, permission to see doctors of choice denied. No longer would families be forced into bankruptcy, and no longer would the considerable cost of the 50 million uninsured be forced upon a health care system that is already stressed to the breaking point.

Read on, then contact your congress critters, state reps, relatives, friends and neighbors and tell them to raise hell for single-payer.  Grass roots is all we’ve got…

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