Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Brutal Truth About America’s Healthcare
They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunizations that could end up saving their life.
The LA Forum in Inglewood, California, hosted dental and medical examinations, for thousands of people thanks to the charity Remote Area Medical. (AFP/Getty)
In the week that Britain's National Health Service was held aloft by
Republicans as an "evil and Orwellian" example of everything that
is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood,
California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President
Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.
The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed - for eight days only - into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.
In the first two days, more than 1,500 men, women and children received free treatments worth $503,000 (£304,000). Thirty dentists pulled 471 teeth; 320 people were given standard issue spectacles; 80 had mammograms; dozens more had acupuncture, or saw kidney specialists. By the time the makeshift medical centre leaves town on Tuesday, staff expect to have dispensed $2m worth of treatments to 10,000 patients.
The gritty district of Inglewood lies just a few miles from the palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills and the bright lights of Hollywood, but is a world away. And the residents who had flocked for the free medical care, courtesy of mobile charity Remote Area Medical, bore testament to the human cost of the healthcare mess that President Obama is attempting to fix.
Christine Smith arrived at 3am in the hope of seeing a dentist for the first time since she turned 18. That was almost eight years ago. Her need is obvious and pressing: 17 of her teeth are rotten; some have large visible holes in them. She is living in constant pain and has been unable to eat solid food for several years.
"I had a gastric bypass in 2002, but it went wrong, and stomach acid began rotting my teeth. I've had several jobs since, but none with medical insurance, so I've not been able to see a dentist to get it fixed," she told The Independent. "I've not been able to chew food for as long as I can remember. I've been living on soup, and noodles, and blending meals in a food mixer. I'm in constant pain. Normally, it would cost $5,000 to fix it. So if I have to wait a week to get treated for free, I'll do it. This will change my life."
Along the hall, Liz Cruise was one of scores of people waiting for a free eye exam. She works for a major supermarket chain but can't afford the $200 a month that would be deducted from her salary for insurance. "It's a simple choice: pay my rent, or pay my healthcare. What am I supposed to do?" she asked. "I'm one of the working poor: people who do work but can't afford healthcare and are ineligible for any free healthcare or assistance. I can't remember the last time I saw a doctor."
Although the Americans spend more on medicine than any nation on earth, there are an estimated 50 million with no health insurance at all. Many of those who have jobs can't afford coverage, and even those with standard policies often find it doesn't cover commonplace procedures. California's unemployed - who rely on Medicaid - had their dental care axed last month.
Julie Shay was one of the many, waiting to slide into a dentist's chair where teeth were being drilled in full view of passers-by. For years, she has been crossing over the Mexican border to get her teeth done on the cheap in Tijuana. But recently, the US started requiring citizens returning home from Mexico to produce a passport (previously all you needed was a driver's license), and so that route is now closed. Today she has two abscesses and is in so much pain she can barely sleep. "I don't have a passport, and I can't afford one. So my husband and I slept in the car to make sure we got seen by a dentist. It sounds pathetic, but I really am that desperate."
"You'd think, with the money in this country, that we'd be able to look after people's health properly," she said. "But the truth is that the rich, and the insurance firms, just don't realise what we are going through, or simply don't care. Look around this room and tell me that America's healthcare don't need fixing."
President Obama's healthcare plans had been a central plank of his first-term program, but his reform package has taken a battering at the hands of Republican opponents in recent weeks. As the Democrats have failed to coalesce around a single, straightforward proposal, their rivals have seized on public hesitancy over "socialized medicine" and now the chance of far-reaching reform is in doubt.
Most damaging of all has been the tide of vociferous right-wing opponents whipping up skepticism at town hall meetings that were supposed to soothe doubts. In Pennsylvania this week, Senator Arlen Specter was greeted by a crowd of 1,000 at a venue designed to accommodate only 250, and of the 30 selected speakers at the event, almost all were hostile.
The packed bleachers in the LA Forum tell a different story. The mobile clinic has been organized by the remarkable Remote Area Medical. The charity usually focuses on the rural poor, although they worked in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Now they are moving into more urban venues, this week's event in Los Angeles is believed to be the largest free healthcare operation in the country.
Doctors, dentists and therapists volunteer their time, and resources to the organization. To many US medical professionals, it offers a rare opportunity to plug into the public service ethos on which their trade was supposedly founded. "People come here who haven't seen a doctor for years. And we're able to say 'Hey, you have this, you have this, you have this'," said Dr Vincent Anthony, a kidney specialist volunteering five days of his team's time. "It's hard work, but incredibly rewarding. Healthcare needs reform, obviously. There are so many people falling through the cracks, who don't get care. That's why so many are here."
Ironically, given this week's transatlantic spat over the NHS, Remote Area Medical was founded by an Englishman: Stan Brock. The 72-year-old former public schoolboy, Taekwondo black belt, and one-time presenter of Wild Kingdom, one of America's most popular animal TV shows, left the celebrity gravy train in 1985 to, as he puts it, "make people better".
Today, Brock has no money, no income, and no bank account. He spends 365 days a year at the charity events, sleeping on a small rolled-up mat on the floor and living on a diet made up entirely of porridge and fresh fruit. In some quarters, he has been described, without too much exaggeration, as a living saint.
Though anxious not to interfere in the potent healthcare debate, Mr Brock said yesterday that he, and many other professionals, believes the NHS should provide a benchmark for the future of US healthcare.
"Back in 1944, the UK government knew there was a serious problem with lack of healthcare for 49.7 million British citizens, of which I was one, so they said 'Hey Mr Nye Bevan, you're the Minister for Health... go fix it'. And so came the NHS. Well, fast forward now 66 years, and we've got about the same number of people, about 49 million people, here in the US, who don't have access to healthcare."
"I've been very conservative in my outlook for the whole of my life. I've been described as being about 90,000 miles to the right of Attila the Hun. But I think one reaches the reality that something doesn't work... In this country something has to be done. And as a proud member of the US community but a loyal British subject to the core, I would say that if Britain could fix it in 1944, surely we could fix it here in America.
Healthcare compared
Health spending as a share of GDP
US 16%
UK 8.4%
Public spending on healthcare (% of total spending on healthcare)
US 45%
UK 82%
Health spending per head
US $7,290
UK $2,992
Practising physicians (per 1,000 people)
US 2.4
UK 2.5
Nurses (per 1,000 people)
US 10.6
UK 10.0
Acute care hospital beds (per 1,000 people)
US 2.7
UK 2.6
Life expectancy:
US 78
UK 80
Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births)
US 6.7
UK 4.8
Source: WHO/OECD Health Data 2009
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
104 Comments so far
Show AllAnd in the corporate media, has anyone seen this story? This should be required reading for all Americans.
MichaelC
Yes, this story, with the same or similar photo, was covered in the Los Angeles Times, but with a much more cursory, matter of fact tone, and without stating the obvious, namely, that the American health system is completely illogical and dysfunctional. It is good to get a foreigner's perspective on this debacle.
The LA Times also did not point out that this same situation happens every weekday morning in the few free community clinics that accept walk-ins. People line up in long lines for hours before the opening time, even when it is raining, and even though only the first few people can actually get care. In the clinic closest to me here in LA County, it takes 6 months to get an appointment for any kind of care.
This all will get worse, since California is kicking 60,000 poor children off of public health care in an attempt to fix its budget mess. Of course poor kids take the hit, while the corporate sector or the rich are not being taxed one penny more. I could go on....sigh.....
Well 'nosurrender',
You COULD go on, but sigh all you wish.
Until the American people decide to no longer be slaves to the Plutocratic Oligarchy they have allowed to exist from the beginning, they will be a needy and ill population, who willing supports the 'slave masters'.
It really is that simple.
Good Luck America, you really need it.
Under slavery, there was a direct correlation between prosperity and the health of your slaves. It was the poor southern white who was superfluous and who had no one to care whether he lived or died or was healthy. No wonder he became so embittered and bigoted and nasty. Yes, America does need good luck--to escape its Karma.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Now THIS needs to be Mega Mailed to every Person in
the good ol' USA !!!
****Remember the Beatles British Invasion of Music ????
****Let us bring on the New Brit Invasion===Free Medical Care
for All, and How to Do It !!!!
Get this immediately in the hands of all disbelievers, as well as the DVD "SICKO", by Michael Moore, which tells the true story of Healthcare in America and what needs to be
done for the welfare of all Americans.
Tku to CD for the inclusion, and to British Healthcare for the very real demonstration of what can be achieved in our field of Dreams for America ! If the Queen can do it, so can we. Please Invade US, Brits, Please Invade us.
Note that this is taken from the British press.
Please, everyone, forward this to your local press and your congressperson.
These generous doctors are not only helping people, but spotlighting the problems of our non-system for all to see.
Not a word about single payer. And from the Independent UK in a country that has single payer. What the hell kind of article is this? Are the words, "single payer" being written out of history?
I have no problem with this program and the generosity of the doctors and all involved. I just believe writing an article like this without a mention of single payer can only be a form of censorship at some level.
Obama is not trying to reform a damn thing. All he's doing is catering to the health care industry with his usual placate everyone EXCEPT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN.
SINGLE PAYER IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO. Nothing else will work and each and every one in the lower 98% income bracket will regret and resent this "reform". Do not let this happen. Demand single payer!
Pass this around.....
A PEOPLE’S REFERENDUM FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE
Whereas the healthcare bill currently under consideration in Congress does not reflect the People's will, is inadequate, compromised and expensive, catering to the medical, pharmaceutical and insurance giants, we, the undersigned, call upon Congress and the President of the United States to create and initiate a single payer healthcare program. Such a program will cover all citizens of these United States with complete preventive, medical and hospital coverage, regardless of age, pre-existing conditions or terminal illness. We suggest the Congress follow the example of a system proved and already in use for many years such as that in Denmark. We also understand the current economic situation may warrant a degree of rationing, which shall be determined by a “citizen’s board” representing the factions that may have a stake in the final outcome. This body shall be open to public scrutiny at all times and on all levels.
Name Email address Physical address
Agreed, there seems to be a good bit of confusion among the British as to what Obama and HR3200 is proposing for healthcare. Many seem to think some kind of comprehensive fix is being proposed - at least a Canada style system.
pjd412 August 15th, 2009 12:56 pm.......Have you ever seen any bill introduced in the CONgress that was not confusing and loaded with double meanings and many possible interpretations? Brevity, clarity and conciseness are not in the vocabulary of the CONgress. Of course, neither is integrity, honesty and openness.
Nevergiveup--This is from a UK newspaper. Nobody in the UK knows what the hell "single payer" means! It's a term used only in the USA. And the National Health Service isn't exactly single payer; it's a wholly state-run system in which the doctors, nurses and all the other personnel are employees of the government, like other civil servants, and the hospitals are government owned (like our V.A.). There is a small private sector where the above isn't true, of course, but they cater either to the richer than Croesus in the world like certain foreign potentates, or those Brits who can afford (or whose employers offer) supplementary insurance so they can get beds at clinics with cordon-bleu meals and other other trimmings. They pay for luxury, convenience of scheduling, and vanity stuff like most plastic surgery.
Rainborowe
The current "debate" about fixing health care delivery in the U.S. is just phony. A serious debate would be analyzing expansion of Medicare versus expanding the Veterans Health Administration.
Expanding Medicare would be like Canada, where the providers of health care services remain in the private sector and all bills are paid by a single-payer, the Canadian health coverage provided by the government.
Expanding the VHA would give us a system like that in Great Britain, where the health care providers such as doctors and nurses are salaried and are government employees.
Statistics show that expanding the VHA would likely give us the most healthy population of the two choices and also save the most money. The biggest advantage of the VHA expansion approach would be the elimination of the fee for service model our health care capitalists now follow. This often results in excessive tests and procedures that sometimes result in serious complications and even death. And even when things go well, who wants to be cut on because the doctor didn't want to "leave money on the table?"
Getting rid of fee for service is and essential part of any serious health care reform. The petty rule changes being discussed regarding for profit insurance are a poor substitute for serious debate about health care reform.
I agree completely.
Rainborowe
The current "debate" about fixing health care delivery in the U.S. is just phony. A serious debate would be analyzing expansion of Medicare versus expanding the Veterans Health Administration.
Expanding Medicare would be like Canada, where the providers of health care services remain in the private sector and all bills are paid by a single-payer, the Canadian health coverage provided by the government.
Expanding the VHA would give us a system like that in Great Britain, where the health care providers such as doctors and nurses are salaried and are government employees.
Statistics show that expanding the VHA would likely give us the most healthy population of the two choices and also save the most money. The biggest advantage of the VHA expansion approach would be the elimination of the fee for service model our health care capitalists now follow. This often results in excessive tests and procedures that sometimes result in serious complications and even death. And even when things go well, who wants to be cut on because the doctor didn't want to "leave money on the table?"
Getting rid of fee for service is and essential part of any serious health care reform. The petty rule changes being discussed regarding for profit insurance are a poor substitute for serious debate about health care reform.
A life for a penny,a dime,a nickel,a dollar?How much?Tony
The "brutal truth" is that the United States of America is NOT A DEMOCRACY.
The U.S. is a failed state in which the interests of "corporate persons" override the interests of human citizens every time. All other "brutal truths", whether about its health care system or any other aspect of any of its domestic or foreign policies, are merely products of that single simple fact. The insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbies are not essentially different from any of the rest of the MICC. It's all part of the same underlying systemic problem that has become integral with the entire U.S. system of governance of, by and for the financial power of corporations.
Unless and until that underlying problem is addressed and corrected at its roots (if it can be) symptomatic treatments are the equivalent of palliative care for a doomed patient.
Of particular note pay attention to the American going to mexico to get health Care.
This is widespread with close to a MILLION documented Americans going abroad for health care each year.
Use that as a talking point for the people who justify the US system by claiming other people come from the world over to use it.
Explain the difference between WEALTHY and not wealthy and then point out that the US system is designed for the wealthy.
nevergiveup
There's no reason for him to call it a 'single payer' system, that not what its called there. It The National Health Service (NHS), and that's what it provides, national health service to everybody - insurance is not part of it, so why would it be called 'single payer.'
"Pay for it" is the american way of life.
dr.kcusick August 15th, 2009 11:10 am...........The article is more about health care here than the UK, although it does use the UK as a basis of comparison. The same type of health care in this country would be called single payer. I'm sure the writer is familiar with the term. I see it as an obvious omission. Maybe you don't. The point is that single payer is the only system that is viable in this country....as it works in most other industrialized nations.
"I'm sure the writer is familiar with the term."
Probably. But he's writing for a U.K. publication, many of whose readers may not be. It's unlikely that you'll ever see this article published by any of the U.S. MSM.
RV August 15th, 2009 11:35 am...............Precisely. and until we progressives get some say in the MSM, nothing...not a damn thing will change. This is the key to it all.
It now appears that I may have been at least partly wrong. According to nosurrender (below) the LA Times has actually published some version of it.
Perhaps there are a few small cracks developing in the wall after all. One can hope so anyway.
RV August 15th, 2009 12:01 pm........................How about a "National Free Press"? Know any billionaires with progressive tendencies?
Heh. Haven't met any recently. :)
What about Bill Gates Jr.?
nevergiveup:
You're not getting it. "Single payer" is a fee-for-service term. You have Medicare, you go to a doctor, the doctor sends in a bill to the government for treating you, the government pays him for that service. In the UK that doesn't happen. You go to the doctor and that's an end to it; the doctor is paid a salary simply by being employed by the National Health Service, just as teachers are paid for being teachers, not paid for each class (or each student) they teach.
Rainborowe
where i live in denver,colo. we have a '9 health fair' in the fall..... uninsured and under-employed, i went to check it out for the first time and even first thing in the morning the lines were super long and you saw a range from the obviously wealthy to homeless showing up for various kinds of exams... some free and some not, but it was evident after running into folks from my old job (who had insurance) that i'm not the only one without affordable health care who needs it. what a crazy world we're living in with such a gulf between the ethic of privatized and that of genuine health CARE!!!! how we human beings organize ourselves to feed, heal, shelter ourselves both individually and collectively is woefully stunted by the dictates of dominant convention. maybe there's a silver lining in this economic collapse--out of it maybe there will open up a space for the human HEART to see humanity's place within nature as something other than business-as-usual dominator and our potential intelligence can expand in ways we are blind to now since compassion has been so smothered by the profit motive and such a myopic and exclusionary view of 'self'.
Jim Shea
"RV" is right. The US is a failed democracy where corporate interests override public interest in almost every instance.
Good luck to our descendants and to the rest of the world when they cross the US.
Unfortunately for the tourism industry, the rest of the world is finding the cost of special health insurance coverage for U.S. trips increasingly prohibitive, not to mention the barriers, hoops and loops of U.S. "security precautions." I suspect the number who cross the U.S., other than as briefly as possible for absolutely essential business purposes, will be diminishing quite rapidly.
Those descendants you mention may find themselves living in "splendid isolation" to use an old British term for their earlier situation at the imperial center of the world.
I pay $45 a month for supplemental insurance for my healthy, 24-year-old dual-citizen daughter, so she can flit between Canada and the US at will. It also covers some dental, prescription and other services in Canada that aren't covered by the provincial health plan. Like most Canadians, I also have supplemental private insurance, including travel insurance, through my employer. The real impediment to visiting the States for me, as for many other Canadians, is not the cost of travel insurance, but the understanding that I leave my habeas corpus rights at the border.
does habeas corpus apply to itself?
Right on with all of the comments and I would like to add that there is something very evil in the american systme where if u cant pay for something u have to be hounded and humiliated. Of course Im referring to that particularly putrid american phenomenon called the "debt collector", where you will be harassed to the point of insanity until you either file bankruptcy or die. Amazing that here this is accepted as normal when it is incredibly abnormal.
Here in the USA we call it single payer because the "single" is the US government which has a constitutional responsibility to provide for the "general welfare" of it's citizens.
As Obama and the rest of our elected officials will not carry out their sworn constitutional responsibility RV is quite right our democracy has now been demonstrated to be a failure.
Obama is a corporate sock puppet. The rest of the leaders are part of the 1%of the rich who only promote their own interests. This is called oligarchy. Taking care of their own and corporate business instead of doing the peoples biding is called Fascism.
And that realization which does appear to be growing slowly but quite widely, even including, it should be noted, a few conservatives who remain true to their original political philosophy, is what the established "power elite" fear most. Or, more precisely, they fear the common ground that the realization might possibly provide for concerted popular corrective action that could spell their doom.
From their perspective, the health care issue and the 85% of Americans who favor "fundamental change" in that area is merely the thin end of the wedge and very threatening to the overall "social stability" (read submissive acquiescence) upon which their own wellbeing depends. Any such "snowball effect" must, of course, be avoided at all costs.
Abe: you are the first writer who cites this fundamental constitutional responsibility of the government. It is sad to watch Obama supporters failing to nail the conservatives who demand that "we return to the constitution of the founding fathers" with "general welfare" which, in my opinion, clearly includes health. It also shames people who aver that "providing for the general welfare" is exclusively the responsibility of churches. Thanks Sir, you know more about the constitution than its so-called scholar who resides in the White House.
The very first time I saw one of those health fairs on public TV, I thought it was being held somewhere in Africa or in a third-world country. SHAME ON THE USA.
When I was a child I saw a movie about Albert Schweitzer's clinic at Lambarene. I knew something was wrong with that picture. Although Schweitzer meant well, there was something not right about making desperate and sick people stand outdoors on long lines all day, or for many days, in order to receive care. It was the humiliation of receiving thin and fleeting charity. It was like the great white father and the natives. I found the praises heaped on Schweitzer fulsome.
Poor people in this country used to have quiet and effective public health stations and clinics. Those government run facilities have gradually disappeared, chiefly during various budget crunches. The philosophy of public health is that healthcare should be a profitable industry for those who can pay, with exceptions for veterans, the elderly and certain other select groups.
Now the US poor have finally achieved health care at the level of colonial Africa. Yay!
Joe
America's selfishness, its gullibility, laziness, nastiness and stupidity, its layer upon layer of hard bark covering up a heart of stone and a government made up almost entirely of people who spent their youth stealing other kids' lunch money has already made us a Third World nation.
Recent experiments on rats found that feeding rats a high fat diet wherein they put on weight, made the rats stupider and lazier.
What has to be done is absolutely crystal clear.
National health service must be established.
And everyone must receive education about the value of proper diet and pure food, regular exercise, a balanced mind, the value of rest, the nature of happiness–in short, a complete re-evaluation of the life most of us lead.
The US "lifestyle" is inimical to maintaining vibrant good health, which is far more than the absence of disease.
"Disease" means lack of ease. Make of it what you will. The assessment of one's health has many dimensions, many, many layers.
Actually the British National Health Service came into being in 1948. The NHS as it's called has performed well, but with the private health insurance industry now getting its foot in the door of British health care, the quality of British health care has dropped including that of doctor/patient relationships. The Blairite gang running UK Labor today started bringing the private health insurance industry in 2002 as I remember, but at first only for a small category of services, but these services then became off limits for the NHS. Then by 2008, the private health insurance industry including US health insurance companies were getting their foot much further in the door and displacing an NHS which had worked so well. The problems with British health care today can traced to letting the private health insurance industry getting its foot in the door.
Germany and France do better neither allows those in the private sector to sell basic health insurance unless they're non profits
Also they can't refuse coverage to anyone due to health condition and are strictly regulated by the central government.
.
AD
Stop calling it US health care. It should be called US hell care!
US wealth care.
I call it DEATHCARE. It killed my entire family, and probably will kill me too.
Actually the British National Health Service came into being in 1948. The NHS as it's called has performed well, but with the private health insurance industry now getting its foot in the door of British health care, the quality of British health care has dropped including that of doctor/patient relationships. The Blairite gang running UK Labor today started bringing the private health insurance industry in 2002 as I remember, but at first only for a small category of services, but these services then became off limits for the NHS. Then by 2008, the private health insurance industry including US health insurance companies were getting their foot much further in the door and displacing an NHS which had worked so well. The problems with British health care today can traced to letting the private health insurance industry getting its foot in the door.
Germany and France do better. Neither allows those in the private sector to sell basic health insurance unless they're non profits.
AD
Americans would save a TRILLION DOLLARS every year if they just switched to Britain's healthcare solution. That's the statistic to shake at Republican sheep everytime they baah about creeping 'socialism' in healthcare. At some point, the worlds largest debtor nation simply can't keep ignoring the ton of money it is burning up every year to maintain its capitalistic faith. Capitalism is unrivalled in offering choice to consumers. Great for deciding what to have for lunch, but who 'chooses' to get sick? Who chooses to live in a bionic body, rather than the flesh-and-blood wimp-machine God put us in? You need health insurance like you need air, there is no choice here.
Since the World Health Organisation considers France's system to be one of the best in the world, I'd try to look beyond the system of the UK - forget it, just because they also speak English doesn't necessarily mean that they've got something great.
My GAWD!
I consider myself a conservative, but I am taken aback by the selfishness and cynicism of my fellow Americans which I regret to have seen on the news in the past several days regarding National health care. THIS is what is weakening America. Fact: 5O million Americans who are without health-care is a liability to the future of America's economic health and sustainability.
We have allowed our previous government to spend trillions on two wars which have reaped little to nothing in return and given billions of dollars in handouts to a handful of corporate hooligans- all under the pretext of national and economic security. Yet next to nothing is being invested in our workforce here at home. Other countries around the world are all too happy to see us redirect our monies in their own markets and industries. Billions not spent on National health care at home equals to billions to spend abroad.
Here is our chance to come together and realize a greater benefit for all which we could not achieve if we only thought about ourselves. This is not just about doing what is morally right, but about setting a course in strengthening America for all Americans!
I have left the Republican Party because I understand that they are not about making the US stronger. The devil may be in the details in this plan, but the kinks will be worked out in time. It remains clear to me that National health care is good for the country and will benefit all American directly and indirectly.
I hope that we will help President Obama do what we elected him to do.
(By the way I have very good health care, and am in no fear whatsoever of losing it.)
To the American Public:
I owe my great fortune to the many people who work for me, to the public that buys the products they build and to the interest my money accrues. Like my father, I have felt that fortunes like mine are obscenities in the light of the global economic disaster caused by a culture of greed, fostered by a system of inequality where those with the most wealth acquire the most power by virtue of compounding interest alone.
The oligarchy to which I belong, perpetuates itself through a system of legalized political bribery. One that has set up a system of apologists, or "useful idiots", to rationalize our existence as job providers and give us an aura of benevolent philantropy that enables us to live with ourselves, convincing even us Masters of the Universe that we are society's benefactors and "angels".
As redress for my role in this economic disaster, I will pledge 20 billion dollars to start a Single Payer health care system to cover all Americans. Another 5 billion will go to organizations that foster world peace, green energy and ecological living. And another 5 billion to donate computers to all countries starting with the poorest, to get their people online where they can communicate globally and educate themselves and the rest of the world.
Technology will soon enable Americans to have true self-government. The ideal of direct democracy as expressed in our Bill of Rights.
Yours faithfully,
Bill Gates Jr.
Thank you, very much.
that's the best laugh i've had in ages pioagape................
thank you, very much.