Response from my congressman regarding single payer universal health care, he is republican:

Thank you for taking the time to contact my office regarding H.R. 676, the United States National Health Care Act or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.

While I agree that health care reform needs to come about, I do not think it is the federal government's job to regulate it. I think with any health care reform it needs to be patient and doctor oriented. The federal government already has proven it can not handle something as critical as health care. One needs to only look at FEMA and how the government runs the Veteran's Affairs health care system to know that this will not work.

Hocus Pocus - just watch Baccus Backstabus

The people who voted for Obama specifically said that single payer heath care wasn't important; ending the war wasn't important; bringing justice to corporate corruption wasn't important. What was important was 'winning.'

I hope that you are happy with what you won America.

But don't worry, next election you'll be able to vote again for another corporate democrat.

Hope is the opiate of the masses.

We will not have single-payer until the people realize that we are at war against big pharma, big insurance and big media. Here's a bit of inspiration:

"To write the Declaration of Independance, we need the skin of a White man for parchment, his cranium to hold the ink, his blood as ink and a bayonet as pen".
--From the Haitian Declaration of Independance

"My love, if you do not die in battle, someone is saving you as a symbol of shame"
--Afghan woman to her man, as he leaves for battle against invaders

Off to war we go.

Stop Media Control!

Jack Layton to talk health care at the White House

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090530/layton_washington_090530/20090530?hub=QPe...

From Layton's speech at the Partnership for Health Care, the Environment & the Economy (Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C):

"And while many take it for granted today, Tommy and his supporters fought a decades-long battle to usher-in Canadian Medicare. There were opponents every step of the way. ...

So take it from me – Public health care was worth the fight, and for Canadians, it’s worth fighting to keep it strong. Americans should know that when the battle begins here in earnest once again. It’ll be dirty, it’ll get nasty and victory isn’t certain.

The battle lines have already been drawn. President Obama has thrown down the gauntlet and put a viable plan on the table ...

But progressive leaders and the American people will need to be united in their resolve, because the forces of the vested interests are gathering against change that’s in the public interest. And they’re sowing the seeds of fear with myths and lies about Canadian health care."

http://www.ndp.ca/press/partnership-for-health-care-environment-economy

What Jack Layton is trying to say is that the vested interests tried to stop Medicare in Canada and we had to be strong and united to win. Even now, these same vested interests are trying to undermine the Canadian system - and using money made off of American patients to do so. Thus, it is in Canada's best interest that these vested interests be stopped, it is in the economy's best interest that these vested interests be stopped - but they won't go down without a fight.

Tommy Douglas is the father of medicare as well as Keifer Sutherland's grandfather. He first brought it to Saskatchewan and then to all of Canada.

The Romanow Report (written by Roy Romanow) is about improving Canadian health care and focuses on ways of getting the price of drugs down because they are too expensive in Canada (ok maybe not compared to the US). He also dispelled the myth that private healthcare coverage is cheaper as far as federal expenditure.

At times like this, one must admire a good old revolutionary song like La Marseillaise - OK, an interpretation:

Ye sons of France, awake to glory,
Hark, hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives and white-haired grandsires.
Behold their tears and hear their cries! (repeat)
Shall hateful tyrants, mischiefs breeding,
With hireling hosts, a ruffian band,
Affright and desolate the land,
While peace and liberty lie bleeding?

Sons of France = us
Children,wives, grandsires = our family members and us, denied medical care by the wealthy elites who control our country.
Hateful tyrants = Congress & the Obama administration
Mischiefs breeding = cooking up a scheme to screw the public and enrich the insurance companies and pharma.
Hireling hosts = lobbyists
Ruffian band = the same
Affright and desolate the land = monitor our phones, claim the right to lock up anybody without due process

With luxury and pride surrounded
The vile insatiate despots dare,
Their thirst of power and gold unbounded,
To mete and vend the light and air! (repeat)
Like beasts of burden would they load us,
Like gods would bid their slaves adore,
But man is man, and who is more?
Then shall they longer lash and goad us?

Luxury and pride surrounded = the .01% of the population that controls 20% of the wealth in the US, while the bottom 90% controls 4% of the wealth. The top 200 wealthiest people in the world control more wealth than the bottom 4 billion.
Vile insatiate despots = those who want to control us, and our nation, are obviously never satisfied. More, more, more. Make obscene profits while wrecking the world economy by crony capitalism, then ask for a bailout!
Their thirst of power and gold unbounded - need I say more?
They dare - to mete (measure) and vend (sell) the light and air - and they measure and vend our health to maximize profits, even going as far as to market harmful and doubtful medicines to the public! (for example the stuff that fixes yellow toenails but wrecks your liver).
Like beasts of burden - obvious.
Like gods would bid their slaves adore = shall we adore our culture, with the advertising industry brainwashing the weak-minded into a consumption-driven existence, or are we going to have the strength to reject the conditioning?
Man is man = our opposition sits on the "throne" like everybody else. Pressure them, insult them, badger them, perform citizens arrest, accuse them, stand up in meetings. They can be brought down. Of course, when the establishment cranks up the pressure, that's when senators who don't play ball "coincidentally" go down in plane crashes, etc, wiretaps net governors private deals with prostitutes, etc., key people, suddenly, out of the blue, commit "suicide". They play hardball, we play wiffleball. Perhaps we have the wrong equipment for the game we're in.

To arms, to arms, ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheath,
March on, march on!
All hearts resolv'd
On victory or death!

Now this part I can't interpret - take whatever action seems appropriate. Keep in mind the plan of the tyrants is to treat patients as profit centers and milk them for all they're worth. That kills us, slowly. That is truly killing and maiming our children, our wives, our grandsires.

To arms, ye brave! :)

First - Af/Pak and endless war, then EFCA was roasted on the spit, now Single Payer is abandoned like an unwanted girl baby on the midden pile outside the city walls for the wolves and the rats to clean up...since when did peasant/serfs with a life expectancy of 46 need any kind of health care? If they die in their millions they will breed like rabbits when young to fill the deficit...populations under stress do that - then they reach a stochiometric point and stop breeding altogether. It operates the same as planetary warming. The process continues to a particular trip-wire point, and then the system "Flips" and shuts down. On the Planetary level that makes an ice age, in human terms, massive die back. Gravity, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

This is what white america demanded for itself - this was the alternative to becoming conscious and creating a society based on Inclusion...still is.

American's do not care.

American's are lazy.

Honestly when was the last time you saw American's taking to the streets to protest something?

seattle 1999 ?

1968 ?

until people take to the streets marching with their children like the latino's did in 2006, we will never see single payer universal healthcare.

Single payer has been removed from the table.

The Senatre Finance Committee might consider a public option.

In a "brilliant" move, Olympia Snow proposes a public option that is contingent upon "good" performance by big pharma and big health companies.

If they don't get their act together, we may have a public option in several years.

Brilliant ...Snow has taken public opeiton from yes or not to maybe later.

Senators do not have to support sigle payer. They can support the public option, which has been put on hold.

All the fence sitting worms can tell their constituents that the time will come (in several years)

And now Congress can tell BIG Health and Pharma that their worries are over - and by the way - could you help out in the 2010 elections ...

Snow has destroyed any possibility of the public option and has moved the discussion way beyond single payer.

Great Job Olympia - You are not only a traitor to the people of Maine ... you have fucked the people of America

Rot in hell you despicable whore

Take profit out of health insurance. It doesn't belong. It's the wrong model for paying for health care.

Have one insurance provider, the government, working non-profit. This will free up money to pay the true providers of health care, doctors, nurses, hospitals and yes drug companies.

Yes, I'm a broken record on this subject. I challenge these doctors to spend time learning about what is being accomplished with nutritional medicine and applying it in their practices. We'd all be a lot better off.

Single payer is certainly an improvement over the present nightmare but it, too, will go broke unless we first break the medical monopoly--AMA, Big Pharma, device mfg, hospitals, insurance companies. They are allied to bleed us dry and will continue to do so no matter what system we have (except for insurance cos.).

Americans need to start screaming loudly for this. We have a small window of opportunity and we shouldn't let it close.

Let's let every newspaper, every magazine, every blog know that we will hold Max Baucus responsible if single payer is not seriously considered AND implemented in some manner (we know how good Congress-sneaks are at saying one thing and doing another). Max Baucus should be thrown to the curb if single payer is not implemented before his next election!

We need to single out one major and visible player in the health care scene, and Baucus is it. Can we do this one simple thing?

Where can a country who is coping with the biggest financial swindle in history hope to compete with the millions being thrown at our polititians to sweeten the pot in their favor. The general public is having enough troubles scraping together money for essentials like food shelter and the extra costs of health care that having the ability to effectively influence the lawmakers with money is out of the question. Appealing to their good judgement is a joke. Appealing to their patriotism is equally funny. Either we accept the fact that we have been sold out for a bag of gold coins or we accept the fact that collectively we can affectively influence our government with a non-violent revolution. Every able bodied person needs to start yelling foul play in mass marches until Congress finally gets the picture. If every senator and representative in Congress discovered there were great numbers of signs calling for their resigination they might take another look at their pocket books and decide they have already screwed the public enough.

Thank you Ms. Paris. As long as insurance and big pharma are a part of health care in the US there is no hope for change.

Unfortunately for us these very entities have used their obscene profits and our tax money to keep the system as is---i.e. Congress working for and answerable to them.

XGenman, I prefer single payer on the table. When people hear what you get and how it's paid form they want it by a large margin. That's democratic. Only option seems like it's being stuffed down their throats.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

dmnalven and ED both have it right. Our president says he will go where the people push, the media refuses to let the public know anything whatsoever about single payer so the people don't know what to push for. Works like a charm. For the insurance industry.

I admire those doctors and nurses so much for fighting our battles for us. I know this system sucks for them as well. They are trained to provide care and the insurance industry is blocking their efforts.

I can't agree with Dr Paris on who is following whose lead. I think the corporations lead and the Congress, President and the MSM trot along after. I mean, who do you think is running this country?

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

I said it before; I'll say it again:

As one who advocates non-violence, I deeply regret that I am unable to support or recommend a tactic that would both justly reward Senator Baucus' tireless efforts to serve his corporate masters, AND serve as the tipping-point to bring the Obama maladministration on board with single-payer.

But I have to admire its elegance: merely deliver a box to Obama containing the severed head of Baucus, with "single-payer" branded into its forehead.

Extreme? Perhaps. Radical? Arguably. But it beats the Hell out of holding these demons' cloven hooves to the campfires of dissent.

· Yr Obd't Servant

Horray Carol! We need more couragous patriots like the "Baucus 13" to stand up and fight for what the American people need.

P.S.- Carol, your shirt reads "Put single payer on the table." Should it not read "Single Payer, the only option"?

"The mainstream, national media have blacked us out as much as Congress has. ... I would say they're following the lead of the president and Congress and simply not giving us a voice."

They apparently have misinterpreted the beginning of the Constitution; "We the People" means "We the Congress" to those we voted into office. It's clear that the majority in Congress pay no attention to the voice of the people.

"In a morally healthy society, the darker elements are kept subordinate to the dictates of good order. They are held in check by those frameworks that a culture has developed at all levels –in the psyche, in the realms of cultural expression, in the domain of governance– to nurture and protect good order. But when these frameworks break down, as they have in America in our times, the dark forces –the old patterns of brokenness— that lurk in a society will arise opportunistically to tear things apart." - Andrew Bard Schmookler

So much for the "moral compass" of the United States! It's pretty obvious to the entire world that we are sinking fast.

"Yu Yongding, a former central bank adviser who acted as the interviewer for The China Daily newspaper, told Geithner: "I worry about details. We will be watching you very carefully."

No surprise there!

Unfortunately the corporate tools in Congress and the White House, beholden to their health insurance and Big Pharma donors, will control the debate and prevent what we the people want and need: single payer.

So much for "democracy".

"She said she hears "over and over and over again" how people are frustrated by the current system, particularly dealing with their insurer, and that as soon as they understand how single-payer would work, they usually support it.

"I think that the only thing that keeps this from happening is the lack of political will by the president and our Congress," Paris said."

No... The problem is the lack of media coverage. Her statements clearly indicate that a probable majority of the public would push for single-payer as the reform if they knew the facts.

But this is not a democracy and the MSM is complicit.

'"The next 60 days are critical,"'

This is actually accurate.

--
Eric Patton
Cincinnati, OH
ebpatton@yahoo.com