In capitalism there are only commodities, not communities. Health care will never become a "right" until most people can't afford it. And maybe not even then.

You know what I've been trippin on? So, say we pressure the political establishment to check off on "universal healthcare." My mom always told me to ask: Who pays and who benefits? While there is "universal" benefit to us all, I'd put forward that it's still the corporations that will benefit the most, because they will no longer have to pay for health insurance for their employees. This on top of not paying their fair share of taxes. That's just how far down the capitalist hole we've gone...

If our taxes can go to fund an illegal war in which over a million people have lost their lives, a part of those taxes can fund a health care programme for every citizen.

Instead of taxes being used to kill let them be used to save lives.

All the comments above are correct, yet the only current presidential candidate to support universal healthcare is Ralph Nader. I'd be really surprised if Nader even garners 5% of the vote. This tells me that either the populace is quite ignorant of the issues of most concern to Americans today such as defence spending (MIC), growing income inequality, job security, corporate corruption/lobbying and healthcare or else the MainStreamMedia (MSM) is deliberately ignoring the issues. It's a combination of both in my opinion.

"It's kind of logical. In a pathological way.

A country that devotes a vast array of resources to killing capabilities will steadily undermine its potential for healing. For social justice. For health care as a human right."

--This is so true, and shows that many of us in America have lost our way and allowed themselves to be controlled by the capitalistic propaganda machine for decades.

"While there is "universal" benefit to us all, I'd put forward that it's still the corporations that will benefit the most, because they will no longer have to pay for health insurance for their employees."

--Not if the corps are made to pay part of the bill through fair taxation (which is fair BECAUSE they benefit as well). Additionally, there is a great benefit to the employee who, in the present system, feels a slave to his job because he will lose his health care if he leaves. It also means employers don't have the excuse of the cost of health care for keeping wages low. One must always look deeper.

In a sense, then, it benefits society much more than the present system.

Private healthcare, prominently including health insurance, has been such a
dismal failure that it closely parallels the dismal failure of crony capitalism in warfare, which has been visibly egregious in the Iraq war.

With this in mind, why is it that "socialism" continues to be an effective
bogeyman whenever change is proposed? I admit I am perplexed. Socialism is,
afterall, the self-organized working class pursuing an essentially cooperative ethos(as opposed to the competitive ethos of capitalism). The
forms "socialism" has taken have admittedly not been admirable to this point, but let's learn from it and move forward.

Two personal key issues of mine in the upcoming election are ending the Iraq
debacle tout-suite, and implementing single-payer health insurance. I am
realistic enough to know that whoever is elected will have to have feet held to the fire...on both counts.

I appreciate Solomon's recognition that this war is directly involved in pissing away funds that might have been used for healthcare(and education,and housing, and food, and about any human need you could name).

At election time, let's remember that it ain't over until we have what we need...and let's carry direct-democracy into the workplace, the neighborhood, and the streets.

The bravest word in any language is revolution.

I have never understood the "American" Liberal. You want universal healthcare for all? Really? Not! You want "free" gov't sponsored healthcare for the benighted "black" community living in poverty in the large urban areas. You want it for young single moms and their children. You want it for the millions of non-Anglo illegal aliens who live on the underground cash economy or who work in the chicken plants for minimum wage. And maybe you want it for the "middle class", i.e. those making under $50,000.00 a year. I'm good with all of this, I'm just tired of hearing about it discussed obliquely. Here's the real deal. If you get honest with yourselves and the voting public you can get what you want and get the people you hate to pay for it at the same time! If we look at the list above of who you want it for, then you can see who you don't want it for. For one, old people. A godless, gay-friendly, secular society doesn't need or want old people. Worse, they cost the most to keep alive while contributing nothing. Cancel care for old people; only those who are rich would be able to stay alive. Increase estate taxes to 100% taking and use the money to pay for health care for your chosen people. Next, you don't need to include the rich, i.e. anyone making more than $75,000.00 a year; you need to kick them out of the free gov't health care and force them to buy private insurance at a premium charged to pay for others. That deal gets easy. You tell the rich people they have to be part of the gov't health care or face fines and that because they are rich, they will receive service last in the gov't health care system or they have the option of buying private insurance through through the gov't at a premium. This way, they don't clog up the system and you get their money! Finally, kids? Uh, yeah, you want to cover the kids, all good, but women of child bearing years are a tremendous burden on the system. Give them free health care for themselves and one and only one kid. If they have two, to continue coverage they have to agree to the mandatory hysterectomy.

Get real with yourselves and the public and you can get what you want.

The fact of the matter is, every person can be covered because every adult pays taxes, even your despised old people. Children don't, but health care for children should be a given anyways. The bottom line is that we have to reprioritize where the money goes. Does it go to killing a brown person in a country whose name I can't pronounce, or does it go to healing people in this country? We've got probably two or three times the amount of money we need to make it happen. It's just a question of priorities.

First, about two-thirds of the American people want single-payer/universal/govt-run healthcare. It does not cost us MORE. It SAVES us about $275 billion, administratively-alone, each and every year. And everyone is covered. And there is no deductible and no co-pay. And this includes optical, dental, and behavioral. In some countries it includes nursing home care.

Secondly, there is much military spending in budgets other than the Pentagon: Veterans, State, NASA, Energy, retirement, and interest on debt. All things considered, we spent close to $1 TRILLION every year, far more than the rest of the world combined. And we do not have the money---we are just piling on the debt (over $9 Trillion).

elmestizogordo says:
"The forms "socialism" has taken have admittedly not been admirable to this point, but let's learn from it and move forward."
Many of the first world countries in Europe have a democratic socialist system. I think you mean communism is not admirable (and I agree), but I believe socialism is the way to go. And for the most part it has shown it really works.
By the way, Spain has a big illegal immigration problem (subsaharian africans, south americans, etc) and they do not deny them health care just because they are undocumented.

Perhaps our politicians should worry less about running for office and more about running for their lives.

"The Iraqis have a budget surplus," said U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "We have a huge budget deficit."

ONE DAY OF THE IRAQ WAR = 720 MILLION DOLLARS

This equals=

163,525 People with Healthcare

1,274,336 Homes with Renewable Energy

423,529 Children with Healthcare

84 New Elementary Schools

1,153,846 Childrren with Free School Lunches

6,482 Families with Homes

12,478 Elementary School Teachers

93,364 Head Start Places for Children

American Friends Service Committee calculation
afsc.org

glide625

You raise interesting points. I am in full support of single-payer, universal health care. I've no problem with undocumented workers being covered, after all, it is often the result of US policies - i.e. NAFTA, CAFTA, and all other 'free trade' agreements - that is the cause for many of them to be here. They should be compensated for the loss of their farms, their land, leaving their homes, their culture, etc. by at least getting health care.

My most difficult group to cover would be soldiers (after all, they VOLUNTEERED to kill people!) and mercenaries (they got PAID big bucks to kill people!). I would support these folks only because everyone makes bad decisions (I've sure made plenty) and they shouldn't be penalized for a bad decision. But I would still have some difficulty with it.

I do like the idea of families with more than one child having to pay extra. Overpopulation must be controlled somehow! Rather than the woman's hysterectomy, though, why not require a male vasectomy? After all, if overpopulation is not really a problem, this can be reversed!!!

Our current system is failing bigtime, already. In this very rural area, with many poor and elderly, we are looking at losing are only home health service. Shrinking Medicare and medicaid payments cause this non profit agency to lose money on every visit. Add to that our antiquated overflowing hospital that is already busting at the seams and barely floating.

Of course there aren't the big healthcare conglomerates lining up to build new facilities, or buy the failing Home Health agency. No, there is no money to be made here. In the meantime the hospital is already unable to provide for the needs of the community. The beds are often full or no staff can be found to work. So then what? Transfer people to other facilities? If a bed can be found close the nearest place is 90 miles away. Otherwise it can be as far as 250 miles. Add an ambulance ride or flight to that.

It is difficult to attract Doctors and other healthcare workers despite this otherwise being a great area to live. The few that do end up here often leave overworked underpaid etc.

Speaking from the inside, the crisis is here now. There are no doubt many other rural communities facing the same circumstances. Unfortunately there is no easy way out. Universal health care with a single payor would put things on a more level playing field. That would be a start...

Sadly, alexnosal is correct when he worries that "the populace is quite ignorant of the issues of most concern to Americans today...." We are ignorant. As a people we have no understanding of history and the context it offers for reasoned opinion. Sadder still, we deserve what we get.

The current high technology medical system is becoming more costly as the price of oil rises. It is a high energy, high cost process that daily consumes disposables, plastics, from syringes and tubing, to sterile dressing packs. It uses high tech monitoring equipment and replacement mechanical skeletal parts. It requires highly specialized, high energy use buildings. Scanners and Nuclear isotopes. The training and support requirements for the people, those in direct patient contact, those in manufacture and supply, are huge. There is even a specialized disposal industry for contaminated medical waste. All of this is less affordable as the cost of oil and high tech economy is climbing relentlessly.

Yet the many possible causes of ill health are the very part of the high tech civilization. Forget for a moment the higher cost maintenance of the elderly, with the increasing numbers of cancers, heart disease and failings of aging bodies. The saddest costs are the environmental related diseases affecting the next generation. There is a lowlevel chemical contamination of everything breathed, drunk or eaten. There is cost from violence, drugs and alchohol and social inequality. A cost of poor nutrition, and lack of parental skills in the first years of life.
Once someone is afflicted with permanent disabilities, mental and/or physical, their is an ongoing cost of supporting just the basics of life. And when the dysfunctional, unemployed or underpaid in need of support turn to crime, another greater cost is incurred in the injustice system and incarceration, a more expensive item than basic case. As the index of societal ill health seem to be rising as the sum of all synergistic factors, no one should expect that increasingly expensive private high tech medicine for the privileged few is somehow going to fix it. What is needed is some low tech caring based on a longer term outcome of total society costs, and not based on personal capacity to pay. We all have to endure and cooperate together, else life becomes strife.

REF: On Capitol Hill, lobbyists for the corporate profiteers are determined to block H.R. 676, the bill to create a universal single-payer system to implement healthcare as a human right. In the current presidential campaign, none of the major candidates can be heard raising the possibility of ejecting the gargantuan insurance industry from the nation's healthcare system.

Folks, remember John Edwards??? This was HIS healthcare platform! Regardless whether Clinton or Obama takes the White House, Edwards needs to be given a high ranking position - if not VP then AG. He has a proven record of going after lobbyists, Big Business, Pharmaceuticals, the AMA, et al and WINNING his cases for all of us, also known as John Q. Public. Since the BIG BOYS in Washington did not want him, then BIG MEDIA simply stepped in and made his campaign irrelevant. He IS the one who campaigned "to create a universal single-payer system to implement healthcare as a human right".

What an exciting article by Normon Solomon--I have hope that a sngle payer plan will yet come through We desperately need it.If only Obama and Clinton would speak up for it--joined by Oprah I think that we would get it.
What do you think, Norman?

I have been trying on my own but as you experienced, Normon, I have not been received too well.We must keep trying.

[ I thought it telling that CommonDreams didn't cover this issue...: ]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080311/ap_on_he_me/hospitals_medicaid_lawsuit;_ylt=Agl_LizOpI_hb_.NBgn6fYxa24cA

Hospitals file lawsuit over Medicaid

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 57 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Groups representing most of the nation's hospitals announced Tuesday they were suing federal health officials to block the enactment of regulations that some hospitals claim threaten their survival.

The regulations would restrict federal Medicaid payments so they don't exceed the cost of providing care. But hospital officials said the rules would make it harder to offset the expense of treating the uninsured.

Hospitals with a large percentage of patients with private insurance charge those patients more to offset health care for the indigent. Hospitals with a large percentage of poor patients don't have that ability. They're reliant on Medicaid to make ends meet, said Wright Lassiter III, chief executive officer of the Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland, Calif.

Lassiter said the regulations would trim $85 million to $100 million from his hospital's annual operating budget, or about 20 percent of revenue. Such a cut in Medicaid payments would require the hospital to review whether it could maintain trauma care, clinics to treat AIDS patients, and outpatient programs to treat patients with substance abuse or psychiatric problems, he said.

"The first question that I have to consider and discuss with our board and community is: Can we find a way for the system to still be viable?" Lassiter said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit.

The cost limits sought by the Bush administration affect health care providers supported financially by local governments. The administration has said the limits make it harder for states to use financing schemes designed to increase federal Medicaid payments without increasing the state's share similarly.

"The fact is, the purpose of the cost rule is to preserve the integrity of the Medicaid partnership, in which the federal government and the states share the financial obligations for serving people who rely on this important program," said Jeff Nelligan, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Nelligan cited reports from the Government Accountability Office recommending that Congress "prohibit Medicaid payments that exceed costs to any government-owned facility." The recommendation dates back to 1994.

The lawsuit, which will be filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, would bar federal health agencies from enacting the Medicaid regulations. The hospitals claim the Department of Health and Human Services would be in violation of federal law if it enacted payment limits that Congress previously rejected.

Last year, Congress imposed a moratorium that prohibited the regulations from going into effect, but that moratorium expires May 25.

HHS officials estimated that the regulations would save the federal government about $3.8 billion over five years, which is just a fraction of the $1.2 trillion that it will spend on Medicaid during that time.

Participants in the lawsuit include the American Medical Association, the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, and the Association of American Medical Colleges.

[ Hospitals sue to prevent legislating by bureaucratic regulation. Funny thing is they're so very wrong, undeclaredly by any public statement prior and as this article will be swept under the rug soon, this doesn't much count, undeclaredly billing the federal tax payer for indigent care, passing the cost of indigent care to tax payers by billing medicare covered care excessively, never declaring this tax payer bilking loop hole until it's about to be shut. Indigent care may have been otherwise solved, considering this issue dates to no later than 1994, if the hospital administration wasn't so anxious to steal from tax payers. Reducing the obscene human splatter budget is one way I conceive this might have been accomplished. ]
____

On the Net:

American Hospital Association: http://www.aha.org/aha/issues/Medicaid/080311-alameda-v-leavitt.html

Hey 'Glide' see if you can help Orange find a distinction between:

1. Volunteer to serve in the defense of our Country.
2. Volunteer to kill.

Solrag: A single payer universal care system relies on employers to pay. That is the case, for example, in Canada. So corporations would not get a free ride. Also, they wouldn't be able to give their employees inadequate coverage, they would have nothing to say, they would just have to pay.

Prison inmates get free health care. Commit a crime, do the time.

I am the mother of an Army Capt....3 tours so far in Middle East...they want her for another one in Jan.

I am also a nurse and ex-wife of a physician. Let me tell you about the HMOs and CPOs, and some of the insurance companies...they paid doctors bonuses for NOT ordering too much in the way of medical care/tests. Yes...a doctor got a bonus at the end of the year for avoiding tests, etc. They signed up the doctors, which the patients could choose from...

The hospitals tacked a sheet on the front of the chart...with a price for care... each day, someone went through and marked if you were up to the limit on that diagnosis...if you ran in the red...you were urged to get the patient out of the hospital.

People...we are squandering money on an illegal war to support oil companies, KBR, Blackwater, etc.

One of the oil company CEO's got a 13.1 million dollar bonus for the year in 2007...take a look at the oil company profits...and we are getting gouched at the gas pumps....

Stop all those ridiculous tax breaks and put it into healthcare. How much does KBR/Haliburton owe in taxes...and what did they rip the tax payer off for in one year with overcharges?

If we can afford this stupid war...we can afford healthcare for all. Who was it that said...every American deserves the same healthcare as those in Washington...in the Senate...in Congress?

Stop the war....get healthcare available to all American citizens.

I say...stop the war... pay for healthcare.

I think that at first children needs to have healthcare coverage automatically. This of course include pre-natal and birth. This way economic condition of the parents doesn't exclude the kids from Wellbaby care and shots and healthcare.

Its not possible to talk of healthcare being a right if the right to life doesnt' exist in this country. The NAZI idealogy of abortion continues and I fear the whole push for socialized welfare is simply to bankroll this death business.

Look beyond your belief, bronto. Abortion is arguably optional health care. Most of the rest of it isn't. Also, consider that women might feel more comfortable bringing a baby into this world knowing its medical needs are taken care of. I think maybe you got caught up in the NAZI, Rush Limbaugh, anti-socialism kind of fear-mongering. Be against abortion if you wish, but do not lump it together with the rest of medical care. It might help to broaden your horizons in this regard and get the facts. All health care is optional until you need it. And many only become pro-socialized medicine when they're denied coverage for some procedure they desperately need. Sorry, but it's often too late then, and the insurance industry smiles at our gullibility as they rake in the profits.

The costs of skyrocketing medical care are complicated and multifactorial. I agree with some of the comments here that there has been a general poisoning of our population with environmental contaminants causing significant ill health. Also the fact that we are living longer and with the huge baby boomer surge upon us, healthcare costs will go through the roof. One alternative not mentioned is the rationing of care, which is usually unacceptable for the American psyche who want the best and want everything, no matter what.
The issue of Medicare payments has been a problem for many years, this is not a new news event. What most people do not understand is that the Medicare payment system is tied to the Federal Budget Reconciliation. Every year when the federal budget is in deficit or needs extra money, the Medicare payments to doctors, hospitals are at risks. It is a yearly battle to stop these massive cuts to the healthcare system. Medicare payors have trimmed the system with little fat to spare. And the Medicaid-state welfare system is largely dependent upon matching monies from the feds. When our priorities are to pay for the huge military/industrial complex, then more monies must be taken from other areas of the budget, not just Medicare/Medicaid, but also other healthcare/social programs, and lately programs that finance local police, education, rebuilding the our infrastructure, and so forth. Now everyone is battling each other for those federal monies.
Medicare payments to doctors/hospitals have been rock bottom for years. As the costs of overhead, employee salaries, equipment and so forth go up anywhere from 5 to 30% a year, Medicare payments have either been stagnant or go up 1 to 2% per year, and this is usually taken back in other ways, too numerous to mention here. This has resulted in Medicare's solution for doctors to see more patients in a shorter amount of time in order to make ends meet. Private insurers have tended to follow Medicare's payment guidelines. At one time it was possible for the mom and pop medical offices and small hospitals to survive by collecting higher pay from the private insurers and private payors. This is not that feasible anymore. Most small medical practices have disappeared and over 500 small community hospitals across the nation have closed up shop over the past ten years. Hospitals that have survived have to a large extent kept previously private rural medical offices from closing by managing, buying out the practices and employing the physicians. Now the government is trying to cut off negotiated higher payments to the hospitals, monies paid in order to subsidize this system and keep it solvent, because these practices have a large number of low paying Medicare/Medicaid and charity cases. This is where the fight is at present, trying to stop these payment cuts.
One may ask, where is the money? Remember that insurance premiums are collected from the 'patients' and go into the pockets of the big insurance companies, and doctors/hospitals contract with the insurers for their fees. Insurers are notorious for finding ways not to pay bills.
We also have a situation where our administration has agreed not to bargain for fair pharmaceutical pricing.
A first step for solving these problems is to stop the corporate lobbyist influence in our government in order to level the playing field. It is obscene that the USA, one of the richest countries in the world ranks fairly low in comparison to other industrialized countries in meeting our citizens healthcare needs. Everyone seems to be afraid of the one payer 'socialized' idea, but remember we already have many such systems in place here in our country, including Medicare which has been functioning quite well and efficiently for the population served.

All of the things that the millions spent on war could be used for are staggering. However, using taxpayer dollars to benefit the taxpayers is not profitable. Spending taxpayer dollars on wars is very profitable for the elite. The insurance companies and those with big investments in those companies will Never Give UP their cash cow. Socialism versus Corportatocracy? Really!

The problem with universal healthcare is the government and the corporations who the government protects. Our government has been run by members of two corporate parties. The government is not capable of taking care of people. Taking care of people is not the government's job. Our government is a police state with the largest prison sytem in the world, to who it issues a "Universal Healthcare" that FREE and RICH people reject (and hospitals and clinics, in many places, are no less Walter Reed's in civys), with accidential deaths and injuries (and superbugs) that kill what totals over a hundred thousand people annually for seeking help.

Meanwhile from New Age Health to Medical marijuana, the Feds have one reason or another, despite states laws passed by voters, to continue marijuana prohibition in THE WAR ON DRUGS, and banning one herb, to another healing technique, for those who seek alternatives to Western healthcare methods. Do you think for one moment that Universal healthcare will make medical marijuana legal?

Those in favor of Universal Healthcare want to tell me that the government is going to take care of me? Yeah, I'm sure the government has a FEMA cell with my name on it, where I can be equal with everyone else, and finding my bliss inside my head, where even those thoughts will be programmed, from floridated water that the FDA approves to the superbugs the EPA creates in the vacuum society creates when it come to depend on "The government".

The Government is not my mother! The constitution was writen to protect my RIGHTS to protect myself, heal myself, care for myself, let me be a human and persue happiness.

earthbound: Everyone seems to be afraid of the one payer 'socialized' idea, but remember we already have many such systems in place here in our country, including Medicare which has been functioning quite well and efficiently for the population served.

People are not afraid of "socialized healthcare". Rather, people are afraid of the kamikaze kapitalist piloting his airkraft into their houses, cars, lives, if people lend their support to anything with the word "social" attached.

People are afraid of losing their jobs, favors, standing, and status in their communities in the "Good ol USA" if they lend their support to "socialized healthcare", which represents DOUBLE the value of kapitalist healthkare.

So let's pull the sparkplug wires on the kapitalist airkraft and drag the kamikaze kapitalist out into the open, and take a good hard look at him.