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TechnoratiHealth Care Activists Lament Single-Payer Snub
Frustrated by the exclusion of government-financed medical care from the debate to revamp the nation's troubled health system, advocates of a "single-payer" plan are increasingly turning to demonstrations and civil disobedience as a way to get their message across.
![[Jim Cowan takes part in a protest in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco. (David Paul Morris / The Chronicle) ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/healthcare-2_0.jpg "healthcare-2.jpg")
During Senate Finance Committee hearings May 5 and 12 on health reform, 13 doctors, nurses, lawyers and activists stood up to complain that no single-payer proponent had been invited to take part and were arrested for disrupting the proceedings.
On Friday in San Francisco, about 200 single-payer proponents held a rally in front of the Federal Building and headed in small groups to Rep. Nancy Pelosi's office to urge the speaker of the House, who was in China, to back single-payer legislation and give its supporters a seat at the table of the health reform debate. The public appeals were part of a series of demonstrations being held in more than 50 U.S. cities over the next few days to encourage lawmakers to enact a single-payer plan.
Some advocates of a nationalized health plan are calling for activists to become even more militant.
"It's the only way - direct confrontation with the people who are blocking what the majority of the American people want," said Russell Mokhiber, the founder of the newly formed Single Payer Action.
"It's about getting in people's faces and being serious about the fact that 60 Americans are dying every day because of lack of health insurance," said Mokhiber, who was arrested at the May 5 hearing and arraigned earlier this week in Washington.
Single payer unlikely
Reforming health care has become a focus of the Obama administration, with the president urging Congress to get legislation to his desk by the end of the year that would cover most of the nation's 47 million uninsured. Whether that will happen remains to be seen, but whatever Congress passes is not likely to come in the form of a single-payer plan.
In a single-payer system, as envisioned by most advocates, the federal government would pay for basic medical care delivered by public and private health professionals. The money would come from taxes, and medical bills would go directly to a government insurance plan, similar to Medicare.
President Obama and lawmakers have proposed a form of "single-payer lite" - a government-administered plan people could buy into as an alternative to purchasing an individual policy offered by insurers. But single-payer supporters say this option doesn't go far enough. They want private insurers completely out of the business of covering basic care, which they say could save nearly 30 percent in administrative costs.
That's clearly not something the health insurance industry supports. Many of the nation's largest insurers prefer a form of "universal" health care that would cover all Americans, while keeping them in business. They tend to avoid discussing the single-payer option largely because it hasn't been included in the national debate.
Some statistics show the single-payer concept has grown in popularity as problems in the nation's health care system have worsened. A CBS News/New York Times poll conducted in January found 59 percent of the 1,112 people surveyed said they supported government-provided national health insurance.
Physician support
Several groups, including the California Nurses Association and Physicians for a National Health Program, call for a single-payer option. While not supported by the American Medical Association, a nationalized health system got the backing of 59 percent of physicians in a poll published last year in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The California Legislature has twice passed a state-level single-payer bill - in 2006 and 2008 - making it the first state to do so, but both times the effort was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The legislation, authored by former state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, has been reintroduced as by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. Leno's version is expected to meet the same fate as its predecessors.
Still, single payer has been largely dismissed from serious discussion on the national level as politically infeasible.
"It's off the table in Washington because of the politics," said Laurence Baker, associate professor of health research and policy at Stanford University.
Health insurers and drugmakers have contributed millions of dollars to members of Congress. One of the top recipients of that money, said Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group based in Santa Monica, was Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who was running the hearings when the arrests took place this month. He accepted $413,000 in drug and health insurance campaign contributions during that time.
Many single-payer supporters interpret the resistance to the single-payer idea to be simply the result of a formidable lobbying effort by the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, but Stanford's Baker said the hurdles are more nuanced.
Distrust for government
Americans are clearly frustrated by the health care system. While some polls indicate that a majority of Americans favor single payer, some polls show a distrust of government's ability to take over health care, he said. In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released in April, just 35 percent of those surveyed expressed support for a government-run health system like Medicare.
As the debate continues, single-payer supporters have clearly ramped up their activity and tactics. The 50 demonstrations have been organized by a variety of groups including Healthcare-NOW!, Progressive Democrats of America and the Green Party.
But not all single-payer groups promote civil disobedience as a way to draw attention to the cause. Don Bechler, chairman and founder of Single Payer Now, a statewide advocacy group in San Francisco that helped organize the demonstrations, said he is more interested in drawing in more supporters than seeing people get arrested.
California nurse DeAnn McEwen didn't set out to become one of the "Baucus 13," the 13 arrested at the Senate Finance Committee hearings. She happened to be in Washington for a nurses' union organizing committee meeting when she learned about the hearings.
McEwen, of Long Beach, a nurse for 35 years, said she felt compelled to speak out about the lack of a single-payer voice at the table.
"At that point, I felt I couldn't be silent anymore because it was like I was seeing a gag, a hand covering the mouth of a victim," McEwen said. "There's therapy for the broken health care system, and any other reform that includes the insurance companies is not going to get us where we need to go in terms of providing equitable and fair coverage."
Health care proposals
A number of health policy proposals are under consideration as lawmakers work to overhaul the nation's health care system, but a proposal to have the government pay exclusively for basic health care has largely been left out of the discussions. Here are some of the ideas on the table:
Public plan: Create a government-financed purchasing pool or "exchange" - one that people could buy as an alternative to individual health policies offered by private insurers.
Individual mandate: Require individuals to get health insurance through an employer, the government or on their own. In exchange, insurers would have to stop discriminating against people with medical problems.
New taxes: Tax job-based health insurance benefits, a controversial option that proponents say could help pay for the overhaul estimated to cost some $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Other taxes would come from hikes on alcohol, tobacco and soda.
Reduce health costs: Improve efficiency in the delivery system by upgrading technologies, increasing the availability of generic medications, realigning provider payments to reward quality of care rather than just quantity, and funding efforts to figure out which medical treatments work best.
47 Comments so far
Show AllI can't believe what I'm hearing. Ted Kennedy is going to propose a plan to require everyone to buy insurance? He, of all people, should know the Massachusetts plan is not reducing costs for people.
While there is a half-assed program run by Commonwealth Care - there is no private option in Massachusetts - muchless a single payer plan.
Massachusett's idea of a public option is a non-profit insurance company run by some of the geniuses that put together the connector.
Blame Harvard - Blame Tufts - elite institutions that have totally fucked up public health in Massachusetts - and blame Romney
I have saved the email responses from the representatives that would bother to answer. Of course, their responses were generic, without even a reference to the issue. I expect nothing else after 62 years.
Personally, the country is not worth it anymore. I think I would be better off just about any place than here. I have no rights anymore. The police can just walk into my house, hell, they don't even need probable cause anymore. Privacy? That's gone. The government knows my bank account number, probably, and how much I make or don't make, how much I use my ATM card every day, etc. The government can watch me have a B-B-Que in my backyard from space and ID every person here at the time. I can be falsely, or justifiably, accused by a neighbor and be renditioned and kept until I die if the government says so without a lawyer or telling my wife where I went.
Great country.
Now besides insurance forced on me for an automobile, now I am going to be forced to buy health insurance, too. (Now I don't need to, I have it. But that is not the point.) Plus I can look forward to martial law at the drop of a hat and be subjected to a corporate goon squad of mercenaries who get off on being 'tough' guys.
Wow. Yeah, I really want to continue to live in this sewer.
May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of a Senate panel drafting a health-care overhaul, is circulating a plan that would require everyone to have insurance and would create a government program to compete with private insurers, said people familiar with the plan.
Medicare WORKS! Medicare for all will also work.
Please write Uncle Ted and beg him not to sell us down the river to Big Insurance.
Civil disobedience and protest are the only hope for change I see.
I am organizing a protest/rally in SF in August to demand an end to the Wars, the Murder in my name. No more. 50 organized people marching and protesting for peace would raise awareness, would be ACTION, with more following as we met, liased and planned.
email protest4peace@hushmail.com if you could spare a day in August in SF to try and save just one life. If we try and try and try, could we save just one Life? Maybe it will be a little girl who grows up and saves the world. My silence makes me an accomplice to homicide. I refuse as of now.
"That's clearly not something the health insurance industry supports."
Well, duh. That's like saying, with a straight face,
"Prison is clearly not something these robbers support... now back to you, Jay... more at 11."
Americans have accepted the fact that our government is for the corporations, by the corporations and of the corporations. It's the American way! Health care is for the elite--those who have "earned" it by virtue of working for the right company. Ironically, fewer companies are even offering health insurance, so eventually we're all screwed.
Stay healthy folks!
The way I see it, the reason we do not have single-payer is that most of the contributors to this discussion are middle to upper-middle class people who are articulate, educated, and political. Where are the 48 million uninsured? I don't hear their voices, let alone their participation in demonstrations.
All the time I see these pathetic fundraisers to help somebody get a cancer operation and good-hearted folks line up to buy their beans and dogs meals to pay a tenth of the surgery, but I never see these people in the streets with pitchforks and torches in their hands to demand the kind of medical care they deserve. Americans are such patsies when it comes to political action. Maybe their anger has to get a little bit more heated before anything will happen.
I agree about the people not standing up for themselves.... but, don't forget that so many of these good-hearted folks are working two jobs (some 3, if you count raising kids as a job). Time is never plentiful when you are in a situation like this.
Another problem is that so many of these same people still have enough scraps (sports, tv shows, movies, beer, nascar) to keep some of them just barely happy... and, of course, many of them are downright depressed but don't know what to do about it. So they resign and resort to alcohol, drugs, TV, or whatever else that helps to numb the pain.
A bigger problem is the people who are making it just "good enough" with one job... these people don't even realize that they are being oppressed and exploited by the for-profit-system. These people are about to see a reduction in their monthly insurance premiums(my friend just got her new rate notice) and are so stoked about the reduction nothing else matters - it freed up some money and that is what matters. They forget, or just simply don't even know, that a better system is available and would cost them even less. These people have been beaten over the head for so long that get beaten over the head half as much is enough of an improvement.
To top off the last paragraph and make it an even bigger problem is the fact that 85% of these people mentioned above watch mainstream news and still think that they are getting accurate and informative news. They have never taken the time to read stuff like Chomsky about corporate news. They still don't know - like most on this forum already know - that the MSM is a propaganda speaker for the ruling elite.
So, when the truthfully informed folks try to approach the MSM informed folks about this single-payer option it is foreign to them because compared to the talking-heads on CNN or Fox, the informed comment differs so greatly that they simply don't know what to think and will write you off as a "nutty-lefty" or a "conspiracy theorist." It feels utterly hopeless trying to talk to these people - at least is has been for me...
At the healthcare demonstration here in Pittsburgh there were a few people who were uninsured and in need of medical care.
But you're correct. Unlike the civil rights days, the people most impacted are not the ones demonstrating. I think the US has pretty much perfected a system of keeping people exhausted on a treadmill while continuing to believe this is the best place on earth, while being wary of "big government", while being completely unaware of their class-interests.
The US is leading the world to a post-democracy, post-enlightenment, neo-feudal capitalist era. The peasants will be contented with their lot.
If our goal is quality health care for all, best we forget privatization, because after the 30% or more for overhead & profit is skimmed off, insufficient funds are left to take care of the health care needs of all those who supposedly are covered. This leads to multitiered coverage, cherry-picking the healthiest, finding ways to dump the chronically ill and whatever else the insurance corporations can think of that might increase profits. What it amounts to is that, when it comes to health care, privatization is the problem, not the solution. What's the solution? A single payer system, that's what, such as exists in every industrialized nation in the world except for S.Africa and the U.S.A. And it's not as if we can start out with privatization and, should that fail, then switch to a single-payer system, because if privatization goes down the right wing pundits will be all over MSM with their "Na, Na, Na, told you so, government's the problem*, not the solution, so enough already of health care for all", and then we'll have lost the one chance we may ever have, which means it's now or never.
*theyll be lying, of course, since it will have been privatization that failed
perhaps showing up at their homes would be a good opening act. then adjust the theme as needed. point out
to their neighbors what s---b--s they are and move on from there!
If Americans do not get single payer medicare similar to that in Europe and Canada, they will be no better off.
In Canada we have government run medicare that 85% of the population would simply vote a government out which changed the present program for the worse.
Our government is the sole buyer of health services on our behalf and has successfully negotiated lower drug prices with the US drug manufacturers. It also being the sole buyer of hospital supplies and technology can do much the same as Walmart does with suppliers ie. it tells them what it will pay. To get the resulting large orders, the supplying companies agree to lower prices that still make them a decent profit.
As for civil servants running the program, if not interfered with by elected officials they do and excellent job of it.
Of couse we have one advantage over Americans. We have more than two political parties, one of which the New Democrats pioneered medicare in Saskatchwan province in the early sixties. Generally Canadians have been more agressive in demanding better conditions for ordinary people because we have the leverage of the New Democrats.
We also have a better system of public financing for elections so the super rich can't buy our politicians.
If you don't get what we have, don't expect any improvement.
Greatwhite, thank you for your comments. Many people site unhappy Canadians coming down here for medical treatments when I bring up the single payer issue. I think it's a BS meme along the lines of "they hate us for our freedoms".
This issue is so flipping simple: Health care vs. health insurance. Period.
I got a warning from my brother in Toronto that the NDP's Jack Layton was coming to DC to as part of helping with "Obama's fight for Medicare", whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.
Does it mean he is coming down to support the distinctly non-medicare-like Obamacare plan? Is he even aware that Obama completely has excluded, backed with police violence anything resembling "Medicare" - especially the Canadian version???
Or, is he coming down to make cause with those people who have been arrested for asking that real Medicare be considered. If the latter, Layton is welcome, if the former, he better stay home.
All USAns on this forum please read this:
http://www.ndp.ca/fight-for-healthcare
And send the NDP a note or phone call here:
http://www.ndp.ca/contact
Your comments are so true.
Snark On: But your socialized medicine is so awful! What are we going to do about the streams of Canadian refugees crossing the border to freedom? Off
Here, in the land of the "free" we auction off our representatives. They then let the high bidders write legislation. The congress critter's job is to appear in public and make deceitful speeches. For example, last time we had medical reform for the stated purpose of "helping our seniors afford their prescriptions," it turned out to be a windfall for the Industry. The bill specifically wouldn't allow drug price negotiation. We even help subsidize Swedish healthcare because Swedish drug companies charge us extra to make up for what they can charge in their own country. Sick, isn't it?
Since the days of the Gipper, we have systematically destroyed civil service, despite the mountain of evidence that privatization is susceptible to more corruption and costly to the taxpayer.
So far, I don't expect any improvement.
It is NOT simply a matter of the Corporations having the same "rights as a Citizen". It is their having enhanced rights, over and above what the Citizen entitled to.
The Corporation has differing rules when it comes to bankruptcies and or violation of contracts where a Citizen does not.
The Corporation by DESIGN has limited Liability. Stakeholders in a Corporation can glean all the profits they wish but via the rules of Limited Liability, they can limit their losses to the amount invested.
So as example a Corporation mined a gold mine in Colorado and its shareholders made profits off the 100 million dollars worth of Gold mined.
This mine left behind several billions in enviromental damage behind and the cleanup will be paid for by the taxpayer. The original investors can keep the proceeds.
Had an individual been responsible for Bhopal, he would likley have been executed or imprisoned for life for mass murder. Because it was a Corporation, they got off with the crime of murder.
There's always enough money for their endless wars, murder, looting and their buddies in banking.
One thing should be remembered: Employees of the MSM get GREAT healthcare, so don't expect this to go far. They like it as it is.
Getting "in their faces" is right on the money. Although the protests will probably have to go further than that...
Can you imagine how pathetic we americans look to Europeans and Canadians with national healthcare when they look at this site and see our predicament. We are supposedly the most powerful nation on earth with troops all over the world, but we can't seem to get the basics down for our people. We do have the most people incarcerated and we use the death penalty. Really, we are a backwards ass nation with leaders who could seem to care less about the public as long as they've got theirs. Our system is corrupted by lobbyists and their fat mouths are so loud the public is never heard. And when the public is heard, they are arrested a la Max Baucus hearings.
This is a real mess and it seems that our so called leaders are missing in action for the people. What do we do?
It's time to divert all of our Campaign Support and Sunday Offerings to Medicare For All. Save our kids.
Here's a brand-new AP wire report; it's easier to paste it than post the long URL:
________________________________
Top Democrats pledge cooperation on health care
WASHINGTON (AP) — The two Senate Democrats leading the drive to overhaul health care say they will work together to come up with legislation.
Sens. Max Baucus and Edward Kennedy said in a joint statement Saturday they intend to cooperate so their committees pass similar bills that can be combined into a single piece of legislation before the Senate leaves for its August recess.
The statement appeared aimed at dispelling reports that Baucus and Kennedy were working at cross purposes in crafting legislation.
Baucus, D-Mont., heads the Finance Committee. Kennedy, D-Mass., is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Kennedy is expected to release a plan next week requiring all individuals to buy insurance and creating a a public insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.
________________________________
It's always well to keep in mind that one of our corporate media's responsibilities in manufacturing consent, or Received Wisdom, as I call it, is to offer a range of reporting and analysis from the appallingly simplistic to the superficially sophisticated. It's something like restaurants offering a Kids' Menu, or activity placemats to occupy children with the restlessness and inclination to boisterousness natural to their time of life.
Here, a bit of Serious, Straightforward entry-level reporting on the health care issue suitable for a wire-service bulletin and teevee news. It's mildly Good News: two powerful and respected Senators agreeing to set aside differences and together put their shoulders to the wheel to deliver the vital health-care legislation in service of party and President.
Only cold-blooded political and academic elitists could justify compounding the political elite's cold shoulder to addressing single-payer health care with a rabbit punch to the back of We the People's collective neck-- in the form of an ostensibly remedial program that mugs consumers to achieve the goal of preserving the malignant tumor of the insurance mega-corporations that has so compromised Amerikan health care in the first place!
With all due respect to the "half-full" realists-- the "public option" is at best a spray of saliva that coats half of the glass, but doesn't begin to fill it.
As I've noted ad nauseam, the health care issue reveals plainly that our elected officials in all branches of the federal government have abandoned their traditional roles in favor of becoming technocratic managers and executives running a para-corporate service-delivery system in a symbiotic partnership with corporate Amerika and the banksters.
And strictly legit, dontcha know?
Exhibit A was the normally articulate and forthright Russ Feingold reduced to foolish stammering when asked politely but pointedly by Amy Goodman WHY single-payer was DOA in Congress. He practically ducked his head and scratched the tip of his shoe back and forth while nervously responding that it was just "impossible" to get through Congress.
He couldn't very well say, "Look, Amy, you know and I know that we in Congress serve other and greater Masters than We the People-- and on this one, our true Masters made us an offer we couldn't refuse! And hell, I think we all know that the Amerikan people sort of understand this, and accept it.
But it's still not something we like to talk about in public, Amy. Thanks for understanding, and on second thought, please erase this portion of the recording."
Instead, he mumbled a preposterous silver lining promoting the bogus "public option" as a stepping-stone to single-payer. I respect him, though, for not overreaching and trying to sell Amy the deed to Natural Bridge State Park.
To sum up: the bought-and-paid-for soldiers in Congress got the word to simply STFU about single-payer, and straight-arm any citizen resistance with a bold my-way-or-the-highway rebuttal, with a few jimmies sprinkled on top. Have a Nice Day.
And for the duration, We are to be diddled with "progress reports" like the above to reassure Us that progress is being made. Mustn't make the Perfect the Enemy of the Good, y'know; baby steps!; We just gotta keep holdin' those cloven hooves to the fire-- and don't look at the man behind the curtain!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Baucus is an obvious whore. All we can hope for is that the citizens of Montana kick him out and get someone as senator who will represent the people, rather than the corporations.
I am very close to accepting the fact that real democracy is dead in this country and we have elections just to preserve the charade.
Baucus is an obvious whore. All we can hope for is that the citizens of Montana kick him out and get someone as senator who will represent the people, rather than the corporations.
I am very close to accepting the fact that real democracy us dead in this country and we have elections just to preserve the charade.
Recent lies told by progressives:
"Obama will listen to us"
"Obama is not Bush"
"Obama is not a corporate stooge"
"Obama is a million times better than McCain"
"This is a new era"
"As progressives, this is our moment"
"FDR was, of course, a consummate political leader. In one situation, a group came to him urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it. This is what we need to do with Obama."
"If Obama won't listen, we can pressure him by holding protests, writing letters, and making phonecalls."
As many commenters have noted, our problems go back to 1873, when the Supreme Court began granting corporations the rights of human beings. We were screwed from that point on.
The more I think about it, the more obvious this seems.
As an historical note--doesn't this mean the Judicial Branch has hurt America far more than the other two branches have? I think it does. The election of 2000 stands as further proof of where the weak link in our governmental chain is.
I’m a Person, Too, You Know: How Corporations Stole our Identities
by Sarah Stodola
http://www.thebrooklynrail.org/express/nov03/corporations.html
True health care reform offering a dual system option; free public or private pay private care, you choose, would leave no one behind without care and it would cost less than the $2 trillion dollars we spend annually for our current bloated system.
A government owned and operated, civilian VA style system funded by a national sales tax, distributing Medicare, Medicaid, and all government funded programs, including anyone, rich or poor, choosing to use the new public system for care, could distribute care at a fraction of the current costs, with better outcomes. All prescribed care and medications would be free, no insurance, no co pays, no precondition exceptions, free period for every individual in America that selects public care. Businesses selecting public care for their employees would not have to pay for or be involved in health care in any way. Private insurance and care providers would no longer be required to subsidize indigent and pre condition patients. Individuals happy with their private systems could continue paying for, either by self pay, company pay, or private insurance etc, and using the systems that they like. The Veterans Administration has been controlling the problems with access, cost, quality, and malpractice successfully for years.
(The Best Care Anywhere by Phillip Longman)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.longman.html
The Office of Management and Budget opinion on this plans economic impacts, compared with other suggested reforms, would be fascinating.
"SNUB" ? This is not a question of whether the will of the people has been 'snubbed' by our corrupt elected officials....it is the clear evidence that these 'servants of the people' are really paid mercenaries of the very wealthy. How much did Baucus sell his vote (and his soul) for? Not much, compared to what benefit single payer would be for all the people of this nation.
And the question of what kind of a 'democracy' we have is brought up every time the people clearly state they want something---like the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, the end of the wars, the prosecution of those involved in torture, no bail-out of the banksters and Single Payer.
Our government is not bad mannered by 'snubbing' us, they are corrupt and evil for not listening to what the people demand. Throw the bums out!! All of them, and let's start over with a Constitutional Convention. Look up the Declaration of Independence and see that we have the right to throw the bums out and start over.
The author states that "the nation's largest insurers... tend to avoid discussing the single-payer option largely because it hasn't been included in the national debate." That's not why they avoid discussing it. They are doing everything they can to prevent it being discussed because it will put them out of business. And it should. Health care must be non-profit and nationally administered and guaranteed for everyone. Any compromise will only waste huge amounts of money and time, and many more people will die.
Your point is well taken, but owing to this article's corporate media origin, that is the only thing the journalist is allowed to write.
If the journalist is a rookie, they probably do try to rite something similar to what you wrote, but this leads to a cubicle visit by his editor marked up copy in hand, and a stern lecture about remembering who the newspaper's customers are (corporate advertisers, of course).
More experienced journalists, like Orwell's well-trained circus dog, know exactly what to write - don't offend the corporations even if one must write absurd non-sequiters like the the line you quoted.
JH nailed it. It's the money. As long as Congress takes insurance industry money, they will vote for insurance industry interests.
Not unless a majority of voters make it plain their Congress people will lose their votes if they don't support single payer. But while doctors and nurses are coming out in droves to advocate for single payer, where are the citizens they are fighting for? Home watching American Idol.
Single Payer
Public Pay
Private Choice
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
The US Constitution appears to guarantee the right to lobby, but does it guarantee the "right" of the lobbyists to provide money to those lobbied?
End the providing of funds and the power of the lobbies disappears.
Powerful and wealthy insurance lobby vs cowards in Congress on the take -- no contest.
For the past 15 years I have compared the commercial health insurance programs offered by my various employers with the Medicare plan used by my in-laws and the VA services provided to my Dad and others.
The claims and accusations made by the insurance & pharmaceutical industry against the government programs are ridiculously obvious lies.
Remember the "Harry & Louise" ads? "I don't want the government in my medicine cabinet!" Right:
>Harry and Louise would much rather have an insurance company clerk deciding what medicine and treatment they can have and not have.
>Harry would much rather depend on his employer for health insurance that he will pay more for every year to obtain less coverage - if he keeps his job.
>Harry and Louise would much rather pay an insurance company 30% for a mismanaged, unreliable program than pay the government 6% for coverage that is guaranteed regardless of their employment status.
Harry & Louise have really thought this through and made these decisions based on their belief that the anonymous people in the insurance industry are so much more trustworthy and efficient than their government.
As for the pharmaceutical industry, well gee, how would Louise know she was sick if it weren't for those wonderful TV ads that told her what was wrong and what pills she should demand her doctor prescribe? Not to mention the critical information they provide for managing old Harry's erectile dysfunction.
And on top of all that, the government has no business interfering with free enterprise because God loves anti-communist capitalism and they have a letter from an industry association that says so. The letter includes an autographed photo of Jesus.
Harry and Louise are dumbbells.
However, 60% of Americans are not that dumb. But congress and the president think they are.
Skeptimist, You are absolutely right. Great post.
I really wish otherwise, but I really believe that 60% of USAns - particularly those outside of urban spaces, ARE that dumb. And I have talked to enough canvassers to be convinced of it.
My state party delegate, himself a Democrat, sends a post card to us so often asking him what to do. Three times, I have written on the postcard asking him to push for single payer healthcare in the VA legislation. If we can't get the federal government to pass HR 676, we need to look to state and local governments to pass it first while keeping the pressure on the federal level.
And what the hell is Pelosi doing in China, asking them for more money to borrow to pay off Dubya's and Obama's tax cutting and war spending bs? San Francisco betrayed Cindy Sheehan and chose Pelosi. I'd like to see those who voted Pelosi over Sheehan tell me how it feels to be bitch-slapped now.
The proposals on the table can't get the job done, and if our congress weren't cowards they'd admit it now instead of after they've spent billions of dollars and thousands more of us have died from lack of healthcare.
Public plan: Create a government pool to compete with private insurers. Insurers don't like this because they say it would be unfair. I don't like it because it is the single-payer "lite" option being floated as a last ditch appeasement. It offers very little change to the current broken system.
Individual mandate: This is the main course on the table. This is what insurance companies want. They are annoyed that many young and healthy people don't buy insurance. This is a way to get them in the pool. This will be profitable enough to offset including those with medical conditions that they currently exclude. Look to see those people in the "public plan" above.
Taxes, taxes, taxes: Did Obama promise to not raise taxes on those earning less than $250K? Oops. Talk about all kinds of taxes including a national sales tax or value added tax. Everything can't be solved by taxing tobacco or a pack of cigarettes is going to cost a $1000. The irony is that many who figure they have their health insurance paid through work and don't want to change the system are going to see that benefit taxed.
Reduced costs: There seems to be an almost mystical belief that electronic medical records and a new national run database can reduce medical costs. But the Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org) say that medicine has already made that transition for the most part. I've yet to see doctors picketing for more federal mandates for technology to reduce costs. Yet, it is estimated that single-payer could reduce costs by 31%.
If you think it's time for real change, accept nothing less than single-payer. Everything else just winds up making the already too-big-to-fail insurance industry more entrenched at our expense.
Medical records have been processed electronically for at least two decades now (I've worked with the software) and health costs just keep going up.
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My wife and her friends presently do work with medical records that shows that medical records are not processed electronically. Perhaps your definition of "processed electornically" is different than mine.
Yes, costs keep going up-- and rightwingers like my own family members keep blaming it on illegals! Funny, I don't see immigrants- legal or otherwise- making loads of money and living in luxury by denying services to people they're supposed to be covering. (No one in my family criticizes the health care industry executives.) And my mother was talking about how in a few years she'll probably end up needing another bypass surgery, but by then America will have "universal health care" which means "they" won't "allow" her to have the surgery; she'll have to wait and wait and will just end up dying, anyway.
My right wing family isn't even that sophisticated. For them it is even more simple. Whatever the woe, "big government" is the cause.
And yet Obama's plan to spend $19B to make records electronic along with another $1b to create an office and czar for it goes completely unchallenged. The actual intent is to enable more outsourcing, more control and more opacity.
taxes on corporations and the super rich was 50% - 70% that was during the administrations of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson.
check it out, you'll find that I am right.
I'd like to see people protesting at the homes of the CEOs of insurance companies who are profiting from the suffering and death of the people they "serve."
"I'd like to see people protesting at the homes of the CEOs of insurance companies who are profiting from the suffering and death of the people they "serve.""
I would too. But are you willing to do something to make that happen? I am.
Maybe if we rent a bus then the underinsured and the protesters will come. We just need to get organized: www.m-u-s-h.org
Everyone is acting like this is so hard, such a puzzle, such a conundrum. It's not. With single payer there would still be plenty of money to be made by doctors and hospitals and drug companies. But the gamblers who set the odds on whether you are a good risk and make out like bandits when you pay off are going to be out of the picture.
Government of, by, and for the people is again,not!!!