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Progressive House Dems Want Medicare for (E)veryone
Say hello to "Medicare Part E" - as in, "Medicare for Everyone."
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in this file photo. Kucinich called his single-payer coverage proposal "Medicare Part E." But, the question remains, can the so-called 'public option' be re-branded as Medicare, which more people understand but may present other problems for health reform advocates. (SEIU file) House Democrats are looking at re-branding the public health
insurance option as Medicare, an established government healthcare
program that is better known than the public option.
The strategy could
benefit Democrats struggling to bridge the gap between liberals in
their party, who want the public option, and centrists, who are worried
it would drive private insurers out of business.
While much of the public is foggy on what a public option actually is, people understand Medicare. It also would place the new public option within the rubric of a familiar system rather than something new and unknown.
The idea has bubbled up among House Democrats and leaders in the past week, most prominently in a caucus meeting last Thursday.
Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) spoke out last week in favor of re-branding the public option as Medicare, startling many because he has loudly proclaimed his opposition to a public option.
Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), the veteran chairman of the House Transportation Committee, also voiced his support, as did House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).
John Schadl, a spokesman for Oberstar, explained the congressman likes the idea because people are familiar with Medicare.
"One of his concerns is that people don't know what a public option is. Medicare is a public option," Schadl said. He said Oberstar started talking about "Medicare for Everyone" during August town hall meetings.
A notable incident last summer demonstrated the popularity of Medicare and the confusion over the public option when a man famously told Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), "Keep your government hands off my Medicare."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) planned to unveil a proposal to her caucus Tuesday night that would include the public option favored by liberals in the healthcare bill Democrats want to bring to the floor, according to two House sources.
The plan, called the "robust" option or "Medicare Plus 5" in the jargon that has emerged on Capitol Hill, ties provider reimbursement rates to Medicare, adding 5 percent. Leaders are planning to roll the bill out next week, and are hoping to vote the first week in November
Some Democrats say there's no need to rename a legislative concept that's gained steadily in support since being lambasted as a "government takeover" in August. A Washington Post-ABC poll published Tuesday showed 57 percent of the public supports the idea - up five points since August - while 40 percent opposes it.
"It keeps polling better and better as a public health insurance option," said a senior Democratic aide. "I don't think it's changing." Polling experts, however, have documented that many people don't know what a public option is, and that small changes in language can cause poll results to vary widely. An August poll by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates showed that only 37 percent of those polled correctly identified the public option from a list of three choices.
"Before this year, few people had ever heard of the term ‘public option,' " Ross said last week.
It's not clear exactly how the new Medicare idea would work. Some want to expand Medicare itself to uninsured people under 65. Others want to simply rename what is now called the public health insurance option.
Oberstar, who supports a "single-payer" system that would be completely run by the government, doesn't want a Medicare public option to be based on existing Medicare rates because he believe Minnesota is one of the states shortchanged by Medicare reimbursements.
Republicans mocked the idea of re-branding a plan they still consider a government takeover of healthcare.
"It didn't matter what they called Crystal Pepsi; no one wanted to drink it," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). "No matter how the Democrats ‘re-brand' their government takeover of healthcare, the American people oppose it."Republicans also note that Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole and is projected to go bankrupt by 2018. "Has anyone noticed that Medicare is completely broke?" said Andrew Biggs, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who worked in the White House on President George W. Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security.
The public health insurance option would be a government-run plan designed to push all insurance premiums down by creating more competition in a business where one or two insurers dominate many markets. The idea has gotten a cool reception from some Senate Democrats, and Republicans are adamantly opposed. But Pelosi has flatly stated that the House bill will include a public option.
In a closed-door caucus meeting last week, Ross, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, offered support for expanding Medicare, saying it would prevent the need to create a new bureaucracy. He said he wasn't advocating a plan, however, and added that the new coverage would have to have much higher reimbursements for physicians and hospitals. He also said it would need to compete with private insurers.
In an odd reversal, that idea was shot down as too liberal by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), himself a liberal champion. Waxman said expanding Medicare would essentially move toward a fully government-run single-payer system, while the public option was designed to spur competition.
People have been talking about some sort of Medicare Part E since Congress debated the prescription drug benefit, Medicare Part D, in 2003. In the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) called his single-payer coverage proposal "Medicare Part E."
The idea of expanding Medicare while still keeping private insurance was proposed in 2007 by Johns Hopkins University Professors Gerard Anderson and Hugh Waters. They presented a paper at a forum of the Brookings Institution advocating "Medicare Part E(veryone)," and said their proposal would expand Medicare to ensure universal coverage while allowing people to stay on their employers' health plans.- Posted in
77 Comments so far
Show AllYes!
This "rebranding" nonsense only serves to increase public confusion about healthcare financing reform and thus serves the purposes of the corporatists.
Congressional Progressives need to stick to one term - and "public option" is not it.
The only realisitc alternative to the existing nightmare is single payer. Call it Medicare Part E (for Everything) if you want but make absolutely clear that it would eliminate the private healthcare insurance industry and, as Otis Redding said, "That's good!"
q
There is nothing to add to the statement above. Says it all.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Supposedly Churchhill said that "You can always to trust the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else first.."
I think at some distant point in time we will have a single payer system after the current scam bankrupts the country. But until then every attempt will be made to keep the current mess going. If things end up like it appears they will, and everyone is forced to buy insurance from the current racketeers things may improve for a time. They'll have millions more customers and billions more poured into their coffers, this should drive down prices for some time.
But if there is no fundamental change, once they absorb all these new members they will have to come up with some new ways to scam us because of the need for ever increasing profits which cannot be continuously squeezed out of the current system and ever increasing rates.
Then maybe we'll get single payer. Unless of course someone dreams up some other scam that will catch the eyes of our politicians like tinsel hanging from a Christmas tree catches a kitten's eyes. Then we'll end up going down that diversionary road for a while, but at some point I believe we will have a single payer system.
Kittens like to eat tinsel. This is soon followed by a kitten with 'tinsel butt' - eight inches of poo-covered tinsel, dangling.
Oh wait...that describes the current system. The insurance companies will try to convince you that their tinsel is gold.
Umm, tinsel butt, could be a good but rather disturbing way to check out which congressmen have been distracted by lobbying dollars. ;-)
Oddly enough, Über-Generals Petraeus, McChrystal, and Odierno also suffer from chronic tinsel-butt.
When they appear before Congress in their dress uniforms, they are festooned from the neck down like over-decorated Christmas trees.
And apparently they can't help nibbling on their baubles when the cameras aren't on.
Fortunately for them, they have orderlies to deal with the consequences.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Rebranding a public option as any type of Medicare is a downright LIE.
Single-Payer IS "Medicare for All"
If Progressive Democrats want Medicare, let them vote for HR 676.
(A note to the author of this article - Dennis Kucinich supports HR 676 which was introduced by JOHN CONYERS, D-MI. I think it is important to give credit to John Conyers for working steadfastly for ALL the people)
Conyers's 676 is a re-branding of the bill DK introduced in '03. Credit where due.
Beat me to it. Thank you!
Single-Payer IS NOT "Medicare for All", as AGG (October 21st, 2009 4:26 pm) points out. See:
Mary Lynn Cramer, "Don't Confuse Medicare with Single-Payer: Progressives Abet Obama-Fraud", CounterPunch, August 18, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.com/cramer08182009.html
Oberstar is therefore quite right not to want "a Medicare public option to be based on existing Medicare rates".
"Republicans also note that Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole and is projected to go bankrupt by 2018." Yeah, right. Remember how Social Security was supposed to go bust any day now?
THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN ABOUT!
We are slowly drilling down to the real compromise. Any readers represented by Mr. Waxman would be wise to send him an email encouraging him to rethink his position. Your vote or lack thereof is always good motivation for a criminal like Waxman.
Yes, I'm always amazed by those who think Waxman is on our side. How can they be so dim?
IMO, Waxman belongs in a group of Elected Misrepresentatives who were considered "good guys" during their political "formative years" -- exceptionally competent and dedicated liberal reformers who seemed to have a pulse, generally supported civil liberties, and were accessible to grassroots activists.
There are probably others, but off the top of my head, Dave Obey, John Conyers, and Barney Frank are in this group.
They've all devolved, or mutated, into bought-and-paid for executive technocrats dedicated to going with the flow, going along to get along, not letting the perfect be the enemy of their self-interest, and recognizing that the bidness of government IS bidness. So hath their god, Mammon, commanded.
AFAIK, at least Waxman hasn't directed imperious hissy fits at dissatisfied citizens, or had activists arrested by Capitol Police. But he's become another major disappointment-- even given the soft bigotry of my low expectations.
For the last couple of months in 2006, after the Democratic electoral sweep, I thought Waxman would lead the Democratic reform movement to "go after" the criminal Bush maladministration. Since it turned out that there WAS no "Democratic reform movement", I can't fault him for not leading it.
Yes, I used to think of Waxman as a pit bull, and vainly hoped that once he broke out of the pack sank his teeth into Dubya's knotted calf, his feckless colleagues would join in.
Now I think of Waxman as one of those dogs who obsessively chases cars, even though it's unable or unwilling to figure out what to DO with it in the event that he actually CATCHES it.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Conyers seems to be holding steady. Barney Frank is turning into political gumby. I half expect to see him on TV with someone posing him with his head up his posterior. Kucinich seems to be holding steady. Pretty slim pickings really.
Yep.
I kind of like cradle to grave medical AND dental paid 100% by the Department of Defense. We could call it "War on disease and cavities". If you wanted to practice medicine in the USA, you would have to join the new branch called the USMC (US MEDICAL CORPS).
I can see it now:
You too can be a physician. Join the Medical Corps and we train you free. Medical pay is based on GS rates so a nurse of many years can make more than a young doctor.
Well, how about it, senators and other congress crooks? Doctors are supposed to be in it to heal the sick, not to get rich.
I think that's a beaut! Cover the cost of schooling, and pay up to 3 claims for actual malpractice (after which: 'find other work, fella, you're no longer an MD'). Pay a salary sufficient to provide a comfortable life with no more than 40 hours/week work, with a bonus for providing care where it's thin on the ground. Every year, a paid month for continuing ed, and a paid month of holiday, with locums to take up the slack.
Get rid of the boondoggle Medicare is now!
The argument is that Medicare is already costing too much.
The solution is cutting out the middle men.
Have it so everything is paid for except personnel. When you use any medical services in the United States, there is no charge for using the facilities. You are only charged for administration and professional fees.
Those fees would be paid for under a Medicare for All! A drop in the bucket compared to how we do it today.
One good prospect of this "Part E" woiuld be that it could be easily be modified to eventually become a universal government plan that covers everyone with minimal out of-pocket premiums and copays (hopefully better than the exceeive out of pocket fees in currnt over-65 medicare).
But this would be the corporation's much feared "Trojan Horse and unfortunately, Obama has already assured his corporate buddys that an legislation would contain no "Trojan Horses" that could in any way (gasp) eventually, even in the far future, result in government-provided universal healthcare.
So would he veto such lieislation?
Keep your eye on the recent shift in White House focus & policy.
Twice this week, the President has returned "federally snagged regulations" back to the states. (e.i. Medical marijuana and State bank regulators)
The Kucinich amendment to HR 3200 permits individual states to choose Single-Payer (HR 676) INSTEAD of HR 3200.
IMO, this could be the way to avoid the insurance, medical & pharmaceutical lobbyists and give the people single-payer, even though it is "off the table".
Actually, I thought that the Kucinich amendment only authorizes the states to set up their own single-payer-type systems. It is odd that states need "permission" from the feds to do this, but apparently, they do. We have such bills, languishing permantly in committee, here in PA. Such systems would be on the states own dime with no federal help. Considering how most state governments are dominated by conservatives who have dismantled all forms of progressive taxation, the chances of any state adopting their own universal coverage, with the possible exception of so-called "far-left" Vermont, to be about zero.
I hear ya. But I live in Vermont and the only thing "far-left" here is Bernie Sanders with his impotent and ignored cries in congress. Our governor is a Republican and is currently laying employess off left and right. Health care in Vermont is expensive, not cheap. The poverty and ill health of many here (just the missing teeth of a lot of the poor is scandalous) doesn't make headlines because the community here thrives on pretending everything is just fine, thank you.
The one good thing we have here and in 8 other states is an insurance charge limit based on age. In Vermont you can charge only 1.2 times as much for the same policy on someone because they are over a certain age. In Maine it's 2 times as much so we are much better off, relatively speaking.
"lie-islation" -- good one!
Allowing everybody who so desires to opt int Medicare could be a good thing, or a bad thing. The Medicare budget is already in financial trouble. If enough young and healthy people opt into the program along with those who are in ill health, this could be of benefit to everybody. However, if only those who are chronically ill opt into the new Medicare plan, this could bankrupt the program. Of course, another possible way to allow everybody access to Medicare would be to create a graduated scale for premiums. Those who have been already contributing to Medicare for a good many years would pay less than those who are just entering the work force. I am all in favor of opening Medicare to anybody who wants in, but we need to be careful that we don't kill the existing program in the process.
HR 676 Single-payer funding
In addition to an modest increase in current funding levels, there would be a 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners; 10% tax on top 1% of wage earners, 1/3rd of 1% stock transaction tax.
Wouldn't you love to see Wall Street & its greedy pick up the full tab for your complete health care coverage?
That seems like a fair exchange for taxpayer money used to bail them out.
HR 676 could fix a few problems all at the same time. It could happen.
"Wouldn't you love to see Wall Street & its greedy pick up the full tab for your complete health care coverage?
That seems like a fair exchange for taxpayer money used to bail them out."
Yes! On all points.
I agree.
Medicare, as it stands, covers roughly 80% of most costs. Hence, the private insurance have a very large market in supplementary insurance. So the insurance corporations would still get their pound of flesh; it would just be a more reasonable pound of flesh.
John Boehner (R-Ohio). "No matter how the Democrats ‘re-brand' their government takeover of healthcare, the American people oppose it."
Yet the article says it's "a legislative concept that's gained steadily in support since being lambasted as a "government takeover" in August. A Washington Post-ABC poll published Tuesday showed 57 percent of the public supports the idea - up five points since August - while 40 percent opposes it."
The other repo talking point is that Medicare is broke, which to my mind only means that Congress will have to deal with that problem some day, too. Why not get a running start and revisit Part D, which stand for a really Dumb looting scheme that even Republicans had to be conned to get passed.
One estimate is that Part Dumb cost us $15 billion a year EXTRA. It was started as a bill to "help our seniors afford their prescription drugs" and became one of the biggest porkers ever. Now Republicans like Boehner can allude to greedy seniors sucking on the teat of entitlement while at the same time ignoring the FACT that the real entitled teat-sucker is none other than The Pharmaceutical Industry. And drugs aren't the end of it, as we could also look into the build-out in hospital infrastructure that is beginning to look like the McMansion bubble of stuff we can finance for Finance, but can't afford to use.
Ezra Klein gives an estimate, disputed by commenters, that Part D was estimated in 2007 to be costing $964 billion over 10 years, putting it about par with the Dem's current plan. Some said a 2007-2016 estimate for Part D was ONLY $520.7 billion. In either case, it is an entitlement to tax money that serves no benefit to those from whom it is taken. It is time to revisit the entire profiteering structure that has swelled like a tick on Boehner's free market hallucinations.
Medicare Part D is a total sham. This benefits the pharmaceutical and insurance companies far more than seniors or the disabled. Part D covers (based on a teir system) prescriprtion drugs up to I believe $2400, at which point it becomes all out of pocket (the donut hole) for the next $3,800. Name brand drugs other than generics carry a huge co-pay. This, plus the fact that the law forbids Medicare from negotiating bulk prices (free market???) with the pharmaceutical companies make iit a complete windfall for big pharma. It would now appear that Obama has allowed this to continue for the next 10 years? Under Obama we got Government Part D!
The least we can do to help make up for the legacy of debt and dysfunction we are leaving our children is to begin a single payer healthcare-for-all gov't system.
As well, we should begin public college education for FREE for all who qualify.
And of course, we should be cleaning up the environment, building smaller local organic farms (jobs!), and getting off fossil fuel dependence.
Last but not least, get our national economy out of the war and killing business.
donnalou, I'm with you! To paraphrase the sneering put-down of current medicare funding, "has anyone noticed the trillions we have committed to wars, and Wall Street and bank bailouts?" The money is there--it's the will that is missing.
Poet
"As well, we should begin public college education for FREE for all who qualify."
You couldn't be more correct! The republicans would obviously tout this as a "give away" to those who don't want to work their way through college or some such crap. In reality, this would be one of the best investments we could make in the successful future of this country! I do believe one provision would need to be put on "free college education" though. It cannot be used for careers in finance. Have this fund engineering, mathematics, medicine, and science fields. These are areas that the U.S. is woefully lacking in as far as education is concerned.
BOY! You are now in trouble with every college professor in America who would have to take pay cuts and actually go back to the classroom and teach. And remember, nothings free, someone has to pay for it.
Oh, we wouldn't all be upset, Henry, and the pay cuts are here now either way. And our colleagues in many other countries where students are not charged directly are not doing worse than we are.
I'll grant you the "Nothing's free."
When you write that, though, at least some people will imagine that the students are the beneficiaries of education, and so should pay for it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am reminded of those bumper stickers that say "If you can read this, thank a teacher." We might do better to instruct people, "If your accountant can add, thank a student."
The accountant was a student, as were our doctors and nurses, our reporters, and a lot of the other people who provide us services.
Of all the things I failed to understand about other countries and peoples, one thing I did learn living in places wherein clever, experienced, resourceful and even in some sense educated people are illiterate was a deep appreciation of literacy in itself, even the literacy of other people.
I would sure welcome a more literate electorate in the States, though I think some structural changes in the system might help that more than just a shot of $$.
A major, critical problem with charging American students for education, and particularly with charging them so much, is that they now leave college with a great need to sell their services to high bidders. They cannot choose to solve the problems around them, but must fall headlong into the culture of greatest wages.
So the US loses its poets, its publishers of small zines and political broadsides. The US loses its reporters, or they fight for dwindling scraps at the Times. American novelists work part-time after their classes. American artists go into advertising, outside of the few who can get in at Dreamworks or somewhere.
The US loses its social workers to Sallie May payments. Its progressives and radicals are often still in school because, well, they have not yet sold their attention to an employer.
That's not free either.
It may sound cheesy to say it, particularly since educators give lip service to this kind of things, but a lot of the students I meet are downright heroic. They have some idea or other of what they want to do to or with this world. They work on, often with little sleep and less support. They put up with overpriced texts, arcane explanations, and a lot of foolishness that parades as wisdom so that they can glean some small understanding of our lot as well as their own.
It throws me against my own limits every day, and those limits make me want to weep.
Students carry us more than the other way around. We do not know it, sadly. More sadly, they do not either, and they don't believe it when they're told.
As a retired middle school teacher (Language Arts) I fully concur with your sentiments. The questions of students alone are an education in themselves and one of the ways that anyone who teaches (if they are at all effective and paying attention) learns much more from his students they ever will from him.
Poet
These are all noble goals, Donna. Regarding health care (of all the issues you mentions, the focus of this article), it's a certainty we need an alternative to the current system where greed has too often taken precedence over health.
Yet, as a working stiff as well as a progressive citizen, I'm concerned about going overboard regarding publicly-sponsored programs. I already turn a bigger chunk of my wages over to the government than I pay for housing, and have to say that it's more than an inconvenience. True, a justified scaling back of military expenditures and financial bailouts would provide substantial financing - but it wouldn't put a dent in the $60 trillion or so of unfunded liabilities attributable to just Medicare and Social Security alone. (I didn't pick those programs as an argument against their objectives - they're just the only ones for which I know the figures.)
That $60 trillion amounts to over $180,000 due from each man, woman, and child in the U.S. I don't see how I'm going to come up with my share, short of hyperinflation plummeting the value of U.S. currency. Throw together the wealth of Exxon, Phillip Morris, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and any other thirty or so economic titans that you can name, and they can't pay for it either.
As far as I can foresee, we are in need of a foundational change in our whole system that extends beyond reallocating funds between private and public sources of income, or from one public program to another. It will require a collective change in values, and probably more sacrifice from many of us than we wish to have to endure.
Do you know that that $60 trillion you mention is a projected aggregate over 75 years? Do you even know what this means? Do you know that a society can change its priorities if it has the will to do so?
Remember Kucinich in 2012, donnalou, and your above wishes COULD come true--with some help from a Progressive Congress, of course.
Attempting to "rebrand" the public option as Medicare takes a fairly complex issue which a lot of people still don't understand, and adds new layers of obfuscation. For starters, if you rename something (public option) with a name already in use (Medicare) it should at least resemble it. Randomly switching names around would be like overcooking a stew so you can't recognize any of the ingredients any more-- it just becomes a uniform gray glop. Even a lot of lawmakers, as evidenced by some of their statements in the article, don't understand either Medicare or the multiple proposed public option plans. If they didn't understand it before, they will be totally paralyzed, mired in misinformation and confusion now.
"...worried it would drive private insurers out of business."
And the point is...?
"...the American people oppose it."
Geez! An outright LIE from a Repug? Hard to believe.
I just got back from my VA clinic where I had a urine sample taken for analysis, blood work for a complete checkout, and an outpatient surgery to take a biopsy of a growth on my head.
All this AND whatever comes when the results are in will cost me the gas for a 36 mile round trip! Granted, I earned this 30+ years ago but EVERYONE should be able to get the same care and at the same "price"...period!
I believe this is a civil rights issue at least and a moral issue at best. Why is an allegedly "christian nation" so up in arms about loving and caring for each other? I guess money and greed will always trump kindness in the current, hypocritical society we live in.
Senators like Max Baucus who obstruct legitimate health care reform should be charged with mass murder as it is well known that there are 45,000 preventable deaths a year in the U.S. because people can't afford health care and therefore have no access to health care, which is a human right.
Then, after being found guilty, Baucus and many others should be marched out and shot at sunrise as my mother used to say.
Here's my plan:
1) Phase out private insurance within three years by paying the companies involved in coverage a salary as an ombudsman, at the rate of 8 % of all claims handled in the first three years and 2% as a government stipend for 5 years. The job of this insurance ombudsman would be to manage, as a distribution agent for the state, all clients in that state. The insurance entities would be responsible to create a nation wide data bank that would list all valid citizens health records, for use in hospitals and doctors office.
2) Use all funds of medicare to create a federal program.
3) Distribute the medicare funds to the states using the last census including a one-half % population addition, at a rate of $3000 per citizen.
4) Establish a state health tax at 3% on all earnings including investments up to $250,000
and one-quarter of one percent on all earnings after that.
5) Eliminate all payments towards health care by any business.
6) Integrate community based oversight councils into the legal process of malpractice, on cases that are considered minor or not life-threatening, for judgment by a panel of experts who are chosen by the oversight council.
7) After the steps of this process are implemented issue a photo i.d. health insurance card to every person who has a social security card. Any person who enters the country with a valid visa can also be issued a temporary card.
8) This card can be used at any doctor, clinic or hospital for any medical procedure and 80% of over the counter drugs, except non-constructive plastic surgery and experimental surgeries or drugs not successfully used on at least ten patients.
9) Allow into the country fully screened pharmaceutical generic products and do spot testing.
10) Offer initial start-up grants to healing and health centers that are in remote settings to compensate for doctors' travel time , and other problems.
Nader was the first one I heard call for Medicare for All.
The elephant in the room is the MIC budget for war profiteering, Zionist wars. A progressively larger portion of it could fund Medicare for all and free higher education. It would commit the US to peace while still having the largest military by far. But like the most basic issues of humane population growth management and extreme wealth and power concentration, politicians will never touch the fattening pork laden MIC until bills are passed to get money out of politics.
The Elephant in the room is the dishonesty of this Congress and this President on Health Care, nothing else.
Nice article today about how the pentagon makes fools of young, naive, patriotic Americans by sending them to war under false pretenses. How can people allow themselves to be such fools? They die in battle for corporaations and then those who survive these stupid wars don't see the constant psyops being waged to defend war profiteering as "national security". Kill them and get the survivors to be loyal to the tom foolery- that's our Pentagoon motto- John Wayne meets Fantasy Island. And don't forget to put a light under the flag if you fly it at night. That's really, really important. Also, shoot anyone that "desecrates" said piece of cloth because, even though we don't worship that cloth (nahhh), we are just doing our patriotic duty to honor all those who died in battle for corporate greed (I mean our great and beloved, honest, beautiful, compassionate, helper of then needy and powerful, superpower, the best there is country, OF COURSE).
If you aren't paranoid about our government's corporate Wall/War street rule, you are mentally ill.
Actually, ezeflyer is right about the war profiteering, as well as the Zionist wars, and you are right about Congress and Obama.
Well said. Chop 4 parts off the pentagon building and leave it with 20% of its' current funding. Tack future funding increases to the COLA CPI so that if they keep gaming the CPI to fuck the people, they fuck the pentagon too.
Then make Health care a public utility. Businesses would NOT have to buy group insurance so they could then pay their employees more. A Tobin Tax in trades would squash speculation and finance regulation. Honest businesses would boom. Crooks would go bankrupt.
But that would be logical. It would help most Americans. It would make Americans proud of their country. It would improve our world standing. It would force Israel to behave.
But, the rich wouldn't make as much money so I guess it won't happen.
"But, the rich wouldn't make as much money so I guess it won't happen." –(AGG)
–Yes. This is true, and it points to another, even more serious issue: What exactly is true 'public' health care or Socialized medicine?
Even "Single Payer" does not go far enough.
All 'private' health care 'options' should be totally abolished, so that both Martha Stewart and your local street thug have the same coverage, under one and the same plan. Martha will go to same clinic and see the same doctors as the common gangsta: The jury duty concept of the 'common room.'
Going into business with private venture capital to provide lucrative 'alternatives' to the the common plan will not be an option for the investment classes seeking to create 'niche' services. No one will be allowed to make money catering exclusively to the rich.
The rich will not be able to use their immeasurably greater wealth to purchase qualitatively better health care on the private market through 'boutique' ventures tailored to their wealth. All private health care providers will be expropriated completely. It will be against the law. Complete and utter 'leveling' at the most exigent quality standards the society can provide for virtually every citizen.
Radical egalitarianism in health care services without sacrificing quality should be the only goal of any civilization where the lives of all citizens are valued equally at root level.
Conservatives, fascists and Democrats (Is there a difference?) may complain that Health Care is becoming a "public utility." Yes it is, and a truly PUBLIC one. No, I am not an extremist, but I am a medical doctor.
Beyond this is the even larger parameter: Should there even be rich people?
–(Jill Bains)
"Conservatives, fascists and Democrats (Is there a difference?)"
The difference is progressive house Democrats.