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Cognitive Dissonance: The Healthcare Reform Battle's State of Mind
WASHINGTON, DC - It seems everyone in the healthcare reform movement is hitching up his or her britches and feeling mighty proud of the prospects for action under President Obama and the adoring Democrats in his Congressional arsenal. Even some prominent Republicans are inching ever closer to supporting change to the broken health system. But I'm feeling significant dissonance between the words spoken and the policy offered to move forward.
So listening to the speakers here at the Families USA Health Action meeting this week has been upsetting - OK, it is outrageous to watch these folks being self-congratulatory while also promoting those purporting the overhaul of the health system with the biggest bailout we've yet given any industry in recent months. The proposed mandates for all Americans to purchase private, for-profit health-insurance (or buy into a public pool that will be weakened by the insurance interests) is being sold to us as reform and it simply is not. And my brain hurts from the disconnect.
I cannot reconcile Princeton's Uwe Reinhardt's message that we've become an aristocracy - not a middle-class society or even a democracy - with his embrace of the insurance industry and expansion of the broken healthcare system that clearly provides better healthcare protection for our American royalty and not the peasants among us. He carefully charts for us the rising debt of American families - including crushing medical debt assumed under the for-profit health insurance based system-and the lack of savings by Americans in recent years. But there is little acknowledgement that some of the debt and lack of savings directly relates to the increased costs American families and workers must shoulder for health coverage - health coverage that doesn't adequately protect financial standing.
Sen . Charles Grassley of Iowa assured the crowd that there's a big difference between the Hillary Clinton plans of years gone by and the Obama plan now - "He (Obama) will stick to his guns on a private-public mix (for insurance)." Grassley goes on to say everyone knows you get over-utilization when you have "gold-plated" plans. The implication is always that if you give access to care then millions of us will clamor to sit in doctors' offices and get procedures and tests done simply because we have the means to do so. I actually think the gold-plated stuff will be reserved for Sen. Grassley and his cohorts - the rest of us will work hard to even get a plan that can assure minimal coverage or care. Grassley said they'd remind the Democrats that they said they'd adhere to a "pay as you go" with healthcare reform and other programs. Here's the nod to the "bi-partisan" efforts we hear will guide the day for us all - the new agenda, the cooperation that will bring us all to the promised land of expansion of the insurance industry.
Then the Dems. I hear Rep. Steny Hoyer rightfully cite his outrage about a Maryland child dying for want of a tooth extraction, yet stay safely and clearly away from angering the insurance industry. I listen as Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan talk about her compassion for families struggling for care yet quickly adding when she talks about providing healthcare for immigrants that we should reward with healthcare those doing "the right thing." I have a hard time reconciling the disconnect between the suffering unfolding every day - death by death by denial by denial - as the dance continues.
We want a "uniquely American" answer to the healthcare nightmare, they all say. I've heard that until my brain hurts just considering it. Oh, we're unique all right. We're the only industrialized nation on earth that tolerates the killing of its citizens on our own soil at the hands of this healthcare system and then wants to fix it all by handing more business, more money and more power to the same industry committing the murders. That's unique enough.
None of this sounds like the language of basic human rights. And I think I heard our new President say that he clearly understood healthcare to be a human right in response to a debate question just a few months ago. That was such a gift just to hear the words spoken. I just know he knows that this basic human right is not going to be protected by hoodwinking the American people into bailing out the insurance industry.
The heavily funded activists (come on folks, that alone should send up big, red flags - heavily funded activists for human rights?) pushing for a private-public national healthcare policy are in and of themselves a conundrum to me. I hear on the one hand the message that the private, for-profit health insurance industry is very bad indeed - blocking healthcare through denials and high premiums and all the practices the American people have had to endure for years. But then I also see the activists and the industry folks co-mingling ever so deftly in a dance of political theater aimed at convincing us all that in response to demands for insurance regulation and restriction the industry will put up a fight but then capitulate to the demands or risk being left behind.
Look at the list of bedfellows and trust your instincts America. Like our moms and dads taught us, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, guess what? It's a duck. A bailout called healthcare reform is still a bailout even if we're told otherwise. If AARP and UnitedHealth Care and Wal-Mart and SEIU and the others in the HCAN coalition are joining hands and forces, is there anyone among us who doesn't know that's about money and power and influence still? That's a duck. And that's going to be a very well treated duck.
So, let me get this straight... the insurance industry has been a big part of the problem. Worse. The industry has allowed the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans every year in order to protect profits.
I think of dead -- 2-year-old Mychelle Keyes and dead 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan and dead 38-year-old Tracy Pierce, and that dead little boy with an infected tooth in Maryland -- and I don't wonder at all what the new for-profit insurance-friendly political coalitions are fighting to protect. And it isn't the future Mychelle's or Nataline's or Tracy's. They are fighting to protect the folks who killed them.
All of these dead were killed at the hands of the industry now being simultaneously chastised and coveted. This same greedy industry can be trusted to roll over just a little while helping craft their own industry's regulations going forward? Oh, yes, that seat at the table is firmly fixed and being kept ever so warm for the insurance folks. In exchange for setting some of their own regulation, the insurance industry will be rewarded with the business of millions more of us who have had absolutely no say in the matter. None.
Those Americans not acting as political operatives for the quasi-activists organizing the reform transition for the insurance industry are not exactly anxious to hear from you and me. No, they have well-heeled and well-connected leaders who rub elbows and move easily within all of the halls of power where we can never go.
And unless we rise up and say we know what is going on and we smell a lot of big, fat rats, reform that expands the broken system and enriches the already elite of the healthcare profit-mongers will be sold to us by bipartisan bluffing and insurance company operatives slip-sliding us forward.
As for me, I will keep listening to Rep. John Conyers talk about human rights and healthcare for all and the long arc of history leaning towards justice. Oh, and his talk about how the automakers just barely across the river in Canada can build cars much more cheaply than in his native Michigan because they don't suffer the health-insurance nightmare. Huh? Human rights and good business. I do like the quack of that. And my dissonance subsides...
- Posted in
62 Comments so far
Show AllThis is a wonderful article that tells it like it is. Donna Smith knows what she is talking about.
"If AARP and UnitedHealth Care and Wal-Mart and SEIU and the others in the HCAN coalition are joining hands and forces, is there anyone among us who doesn't know that's about money and power and influence still? That's a duck. And that's going to be a very well treated duck."
The truth is there to see in the entities that are in HCAN just as she points out. Unions too, another betrayal of the American worker, but this time they are joining a lot of others in betraying all Americans.
By the way, can anyone explain why the Insurance Industry should be exempt from the anti-trust laws? How much did that cost?
Agreed, I'm a union man, but the SEIU under the crook Andy Stern is absolutely corrupt. He is in the pocket of the Big Healthcare. He has even put gag clauses in health care worker's contracts that prohibit them from speaking out about poor patient conditions at their workplaces.
And his attempted hostile takeover of the United Healthcare Workers is absolutely disgusting. It used to be the mob-affiliated crooks killed the good guys like the assasination of the Mine Worker's Jake Yablonski. Well, if Stern met an unfortunate demise, it would be a good guy doing it.
---USAn---
"He has even put gag clauses in health care worker's contracts that prohibit them from speaking out about poor patient conditions at their workplaces."
I was totally unaware of that. Thank you for the update! Andy is not one of my favorite folk.
The proposed Obama/Democrat health care ""reform"" centered around of mandatory purchase of coverage from the big corporations is a sick, sick joke. There is even talk of harsh enforcement mechanisms like losing ones drivers license for non-compliance, withholding tax refunds or social security benefits, or (like the ridiculous Medicare part D) ever increasing punishing premium increases if one delays buying insurance.
Here's an example. I'm 52 and say lose my job. I can of course can continue the former employer coverage for me and my spouse under COBRA at full cost - for about $1,600 per month! Or I an apply to this "pool". It will no doubt be a just like applying for welfare - a humiliating process if you've ever tried it - for which I would get rejected anyway because of my modest house and and even more modest retirement savings. It will no doubt be like Medicaid - you practically have to be homeless to qualify. And I'm sure this coverage, like Medicaid would be absolutely lousy - using corrupt HMO-like contractors to provide the actual health care.
I'm sorry to say, but the only way to defeat this will be if we can combine with the right wingers on this one. We oppose it because it is a big corporte insurance support plan and doesn't come close to our goal of universal free coverage. The "libetarian" right will oppose it because the draconian laws needed to force beople to buy into it will be "big socialistic government coercing us", as they say, and in this case, I would agree.
It is better that we defeat anything Obama is proposing maintain the status quo for now. Then as the economy goes south, government will slowly come to it's senses, and if it douesn't then seriously consider HR 676, it will be forced to provide direct benefits for increasingly more people in a piecemeal manner - children first, as the current SCHCIP plan expansion is doing, later unemployed adults, then everyone.
It is going to be a long slog, and we MUST be prepared to mass disruptive protest actions.
---USAn---
Excellent comment. Especially about the joke that Cobra is.
Though I am opposing the current SCHCIP plan because it would allow folks making up to $100,000 per year to insure their children plus it will allow illegal immigrant children to be covered with these funds.
There are simply too many uninsured lower wage families children that are not covered to allow this. And no American child should ever go without health insurance in favor of a foreign resident. Ever.
Now if you are saying get coverage by expansion creep at a later date using this method....hhuuummmm, another story. If no other way, beats a nail in the foot.
How's Mexico treating you? Goodness gracious I've missed you. Though how you get racist out of illegal immigrant is beyond me.
But they were great days!
Racism had nothing to do with Venezuela any more than racism could be gotten out of illegal immigrant.
32 and cold here!
If I may get a word in past your stalker....
Thomas ( may I call you such?), The $100,000 dollar limit seems reasonable to me, especially if you factor in a two income family. The inclusion of "illegal immigrant children" is a nebulous citing at best, fails to understand that unhealthy children spread disease and affect the entire body of our population whether of legal status or not. Further to seek to deny health care to children is a seemingly heartless position. Have you taken into account the children born here to illegals? That would make those children citizens of the USA yet , as their parents have no status, they still cannot get health care.
Your statement:
"There are simply too many uninsured lower wage families children that are not covered to allow this. And no American child should ever go without health insurance in favor of a foreign resident. Ever."
might be better phrased as, no child should go without health insurance, period! Or do you seek to make war on children as well as those illegals you seemingly hate with such misguided passion?
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
It is a pity that you miss the obvious; namely that all persons are entitled to opinions, all are entitled to polite discourse whether or not one agrees or disagrees. Passion is no reason for vitriol. I passionately disagree with some of Mr. More's beliefs, and I state that disagreement whenever I find such. However I do so in a fashion that allows Mr. More dignity and space to reconsider those opinions. You on the other hand only alienate him. What constructive purpose is served by such?
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
Mr. More,
Well, I agreed with most of you above statement, but when you got to your heartless statement about immigrant children, I dedided to bite my tongue and not start an argument. Looks like other picked up the job and provided some good responses.
Thanks, Red Rick for pointing out that besides the compelling argument of compassion, ther is a very self-interested reason for broad health care coverage. this is what many European countries do.
---USAn---
Sioux Rose
PDJ: When that awful Powell was prepared to allow the few broadcasters to buy yet more influence in an already propagandized press/media complex, something like a million angry letters from both sides of the aisle (and then some) flowed in. In other words, there are some issues so scathing and irrational that EVERYONE agrees NOT to allow them. I hope that occurs with this bogus insurance scam. Insurers are right up there with mafia loan sharks as far as I'm concerned... any who put profit before human life and dignity don't deserve to do business anywhere! The price Americans have paid for "deregulation" which is a fancy way of saying letting PROFIT define public policy from the cradle to the grave cannot be assessed, for it's been paid in blood, money, pain, tears and treasure. "How can thinking men (and women) think so wrongly." That quote seems to account for the new American way. Mr. Shakespeare would understand.
Even when you are homeless, you don't qualify. I just went through the process and while I did get foodstamps, that was all I got. Nice, isn't it?
Thanks, herbalist,
I just did some checking. Sure enough, in most states, a single adult or couple who don't have children or a disability cannot qualify for Medicaid - even if they are absolutely destitute and homeless. Isn't capitalist Amerika wonderful!
Well, one could arrange to get a disability. Or maybe just go to a hospital, take a hostage at gunpoint, and demand that a loved one gets treatment or the hostage dies. And I don't mean compliance with the law that requires that the poor gets looked at in the ER for 30 seconds then thrown back out into the street.
Maybe HR676 might have a chance if some people started doing this.
---USAn---
The ironic(?) thing is that these uninsured and destitute folks wind up in emergency rooms for very preventable conditions, thus costing this nation far,far more than would universal coverage and prevention.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
Obama and his party have no united support for single payer healthcare. Why do I get a bad feeling that the best we'll get is the same band-aid solution that passed in Massachussetts of all places ? It was neither universal healthcare nor single payer but just another giveaway to Big Insurance in the form of mugging the little guys into Mandatory Payups as I see it ! Can anyone in MA confirm this or correct me if I'm wrong?
MANDATED Insurance is a TAX . It is a TAX wherein instead of the monies going to the Government they flow to Private Industry.
This industry will then use these premiums to invest in stocks or those CDOS and it would not be surprising to see them having to be bailed out every 20 years by that same Government because of more financial shenanigans.
It is a blatantly STUPID plan. I really do not see how any can support it if they have the well being of Americans in mind.
Ask the so-called "liberals" in MA who supported that scam which wasn't even universal healthcare or close.
Two liberal universities, Tufts and Harvard were reposnible for much of the planning that went into the Massachusetts Health Reform.
Tufts runs one of the highest premium health plans for well heeled corporations in Massachusetts. Harvard just dropped out of the Medicare market since they were not making enough profit for their overpriced HMOs.
MassHealth is toally dominated by left leaning bureaucrats who spend most of their time in meetings and little time getting the health care to the people.
Liberals are very good at discussing health care. They fail miserably at getting health care to the people.
While the "for profit health system" has failed miserably in far too many areas, it has managed to provide health care to the vast majority of Americans.
Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we need to reform the current for profit system while taking advantage of their distribution system.
Three years into the Masachusetts experiment, very little has been done to get health care to small business and the struggling middle class. The more affluent still have their high priced health plans. There are many more people on Medicaid and the state is facing bankruptcy.
Should America throw out the existing system and start over. Do we have five to ten years to make this work? We need reform today. We cannot afford to tear down the existing system when it will take considerable time and patience to build a new system.
The first step is reform. We cannot afford to lose the "horrible' system developed by for profit industries.
And, by the way, check out the politics of Mass General and Brigham in raising the rates and costs of health care in Massachusetts. Two of our finest hospitals just laughed at health reform in Massachusetts. They do not want government telling them how to run their hospitals and how to spend their money. Since the people of Mass want the quality care offered by Mass general, health premiums at the major plans in Massachusetts went up by more than 20%.
Tufts challenged Mass General. Mass General told them to get lost. Tufts lost a large number of their subscribers and caved in to Mass General.
It's not a simple tear down and replace proposition.
Thanks so much for the insights -- the Mass plan will be the subject of an upcoming briefing here in Washington to take a look at the system some of the national power players wish to extand to us all.
We'll be urging all Americans to learn more and offer more to the discourse. The only way we will make the kind of significant change that breaks the cycle of death-denial and more of the same will be through public pressure on elected officials which exceeds the private pressure the insurance industry puts on those same people. It's the only way.
So let's really look at the Mass plan and express our opinions while we have the chance.
The major changes are never simple -- never. But in this case, we can do so much better. We can make sure our national policy reflects what President Obama said: healthcare is a human right. And so far as I know, human rights are not to be bartered -- human rights are acknowledged and protected by those who value them.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
I am not trying to be confrontatinal, Donna, but, can you please explain to me , how you can still have "hope" , that we will get any type of universal, with an administration who has made it very explicit that it will do no such thing?
Even Waxman , now, basically, has said that he will go along with what amounts to "pooling" of the poor. The $126 b promised in the "stimulus" (DEms will cave to GOP on this one--just watch) will not even come close to funding all the people who are going to become eligible when they lose their COBRA---(they should extend their COBRA for them instead)--for Medicaid (however, since most people would NEVER put up with the level of "care" you get under such a plan---[perhaps the Am. people will grow some balls???) Nah...never gonna happen in this lifetime.
Welcome to Medicaid, those on unemployment---see what others have been going through while you bitched about the price of COBRA,...I would LOVE to have my COBRA back, at any price.
GwNorth
I'm beginning to worry....complete agreement twice in omne week? (lol)
Dear Senator Grassley:
Please explain why the health plan you, your colleagues and their families enjoy isn't good enough for the rest of us.
It's not about the Republicans inching ever closer to supporting change to the broken health system.
It's not about the Republicans at all.
It's about Obama and the Democrats making a basic moral decision:
To extend a corrupt system to include all or to take the corruption out of the system.
That simple.
And make no mistake about it--once a corrupt system is extended, the likelihood of then later, going back and taking out the corruption, is nil.
Whichever way the Democrats choose, their choice will weigh heavily on the credibility of their subsequent appeals to the American people.
I souldn't answer an off-topic post by going off topic myself, but here goes:
Most of us are fully accepting of the possibility that the US government "did 9/11".
But we reject it because even the most bare facts of four incidents - the fact that they were done by suicide-hijacked airliners, on targets of economic and symbolic power to the US itself, makes direct US government involvement not the least credible.
In their efforts to make it credible, the "911 was an inside job" theorists either invoke fantastical, comic-book/James Bond-level explanations, or they invoke red-herring explanations involving an complete misunderstanding of materials and structural engineering, building construction and demolition methods, or even simple physics.
They also seem to be unable to see the incredible simplicity in the way the attacks were carried out - a few physically fit men, stanley knives, flying lessons, and defective protocols that instructed airline crews that it was safest to cooperate with hijackers. They instead insist on fantastically lurid and complex government operation, requiring the perfect cooperation and silence of hundreds to thousands of people.
Most of all, they also are unable to accept the possibility that US foreign policy and it's puppet Isreal could have enraged some people enough that they would sacrifice their lives to attack the key symbols of it's economic, military and (almost) political power - and murder about 3000 people in the process.
Now, a "let the terrorists do it by hampering investigators" theory it is credible, particularly when the US agencies involved had no knowlege of the specific targets, or possibly even the notion of deliberately suicide-crashing airliners into large buildings. They probably considered the lives of a few planeloads of people an acceptable price, for what the terrorists would be ultimately to blame for anyway.
I'll probably regret writing this.
---USAn---
Well then I guess I don't regret it. Just trying to be polite.
The 9/11 conspiracy kooks were an enormous monkey wrench thrown at our efforts over the past 7 years. The USAn people don't buy your kooky "theory" not because of cognitive dissonance, but because it is positively nutty.
---USAn---
Thanks -- but I'm the one with the dissonance when I listen to the yarn from this crew. I hope I can stop having that sense when listening to this discourse.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Bloomberg.com
January 28, 2009
Recession Slows Medical Inflation, Helping Insurers
By Avram Goldstein
The recession may restrain growth in medical expenses this year as fewer people visit doctors, buy drugs or have surgery, helping health insurers such as WellPoint Inc. safeguard profits, analysts said.
WellPoint, which covers one in nine Americans, rose the most in four weeks after reporting that medical expenses climbed less than 8 percent in the fourth quarter. The increase was at the low end of a forecast given in October, and the report sparked a rally for managed-care companies.
During an economic slump, people who are worried about costs hesitate to tend to their health needs because of out-of-pocket expenses. The U.S. entered a recession in December 2007, and the economy suffered the biggest job losses last year since the end of World War II.
"Many analysts, me included, think that the recession will lead to lower health-care utilization, which could benefit managed-care companies or at least help stabilize their margins," said Matt Perry, an analyst with Wachovia Securities Inc., in a note to clients today.
WellPoint rose even though it reported a 61 percent drop in net earnings. Besides investment losses, WellPoint had 288,000 fewer customers, mostly because of job cuts by its clients. The easing in costs outweighed the loss of subscribers.
The insurers "have very thin margins, so margin expansion is much more important to earnings per share than changes in enrollment," said Ana Gupte, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., in a telephone interview today. "Everyone is expecting the recession will moderate" policyholders' use of benefits this year, she said.
The cost of living fell in the U.S. in December as the recession deepened, capping the smallest annual gain in a half century, according to Labor Department data released this month. Consumers' medical-care prices rose 2.6 percent last year, compared with a 5.2 percent increase in 2007.
WellPoint forecast in October that medical-cost inflation, which affects the setting of premium rates, would range from 7.5 to 8.5 percent and that it could speed up in 2009. The company said it was raising 2009 prices to stay ahead of that trend.
"We're not ready to declare the trend has slowed down, and we've maintained our higher pricing levels," said Wayne DeVeydt, WellPoint's chief financial officer, in a conference call today.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aAeilLHULubY&refer=healthcare
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Sioux Rose
DONNA: Thank you for your tireless efforts on behalf of GENUINE justice. THAT this nation GAVE $860 BILLION to the bank hustlers who betted our savings on Wall st style Vegas tables, but wish to do the dance you spoke about to only APPEAR concerned about public health shows the bankrupt value system GOVERNING. The reps do not wish to lose their (insurance) corporate sponsorships, and this mirrors everything going on in DC lately. From the fake war to the artificial ups and downs of gas prices; from the pandering to right wing Republicans under the guise of "free trade" or some other twisted notion, America is being dismembered and refitted into something more akin to a land of nobles and serfs. It's happening right before our eyes.
There's money for bankers, prisons and bombs, but no one gives a damn about the average man (or woman). It stinks to high heaven that this rich nation has priorities more toxic than biohazard wastes.
I'd love to say justice will win, but until there is a major PURGING of those who have been feeding too long at the public trough, I am not holding my breath. Obama is a nice man, an intelligent man, an accomplished man, but so far he's playing footsies with all the wrong people (oh, yeah, they have power, but where is the heart? soul? conscience? decency? capacity to think long range?) and shows an eager willingness to work towards consensus with those who are WRONG about everything.
If mankind survives this era, I think the most telling symbolism will be the realization that the lion's share of resources in a time that called for tightening belts, HOLDING THE RESPONSIBLE TO ACCOUNT, and changing priorities, instead REWARDED all those that brought our nation to this abyss. Disgusting doesn't begin to touch what's going on.
My advice: Eat as much organic greens as you can. Lay off the sugar, white refined flour, ANYTHING deep-fried, do not ingest any aspertame or fake sugars, and go easy on alcohol and dairy products (if at all). This YOY (you're on your own) is very real, and since our nation has shown an ease of paying for warfare while treating its own citizens like slow-motion collateral damage, the will and resources we'd like to see directed our way are being sold to the highest (generally least moral) bidders. In time things may change, but I am NOT optimistic.
Thank you for caring enough to comment --
I am probably the person folks would least expect to be hopeful, yet I do have hope. I have seen tremendous growth in the movement toward a just system.
The fight won't be easy. But it will be won.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
spinwing
I started to discuss the topic but then figured "why bother?" Look around folks, pick either the Canadian or German system and get on with it. What you have now is broke - severely broke - FIX IT.
From the 1961 Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine, private citizen Ronald Reagan speaks out. There is no video because this was an LP sent out by the American Medical Association
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs
Ronald Raygun: It's SOCIALISM, I tell you, be very afraid!
When it all shakes out, Stern is going to be one of the first led to the gallows. He, and all the others that insist that PROFIT has to be the first consideration. Romanovs loved their Faberge eggs, and they clutched them all the way to the firing zone. Andy Stern has betrayed the movement, and he'll end up paying for it. I'm a retired RN, and I can't believe the way things have gone in healthcare. I'm glad to be out of it.
Sioux Rose
EMAHO: Colorful analogy. It's not just health care... this sell out to big money, this worship at the altar that Mammon built is so pervasive, so systemic, that it touches EVERY component of American life from the will to make war, to the punitive prison industrial complex. We see so much emphasis on force, control, violence, aggressive measures and so little in the way of caring, nurture, decency and BUILDING what Emmett Fox termed, "New mental equivalents." We all hope Obama will rise to the occasion, but the pattern thus far of working with adversaries who care less is not a particularly luminous omen. I feel for all those turned away from necessary medical care when the nation sends its bounty to dismember the children of other lands. These priorities are so foul that even when the lords of karma (through mother nature) send signs, no real change of behaviors follow. People do not connect the dots. They've been taught to put their energy into sports or making $, their allegiance to teams, and most have lost all capacity for compassion. Until the matter touches them, or a family member directly, they do not recognize what's at stake. This is definitely the time of "the darkening of the light," and inevitably the Light will return. How many martyrs will result in the interim is hard to say, and all too tragic.
Thank you for all the wisdom and compassion you demonstrate here every day. I always make sure I read all your comments. Peace.
Sioux Rose
NET MINNOW: Thank you so much for that lovely compliment. It is appreciated.
I'm glad there are others who fantasize of a violent end to Andy Stern. The hottest place in hell is always reserved for traitors.
---USAn---
Health insurance is a total racket, a criminal enterprise. When their investment portfolio does badly they raise rates; when that portfolio does well they don't drop rates---they try to buy up competitors. State regulations sometimes used to be good but now they are a sick joke.
The cognitive dissonance felt by the author goes to the fact that a large majority of Americans WANT single-payer, a majority of doctors want the insurers to get off their backs and let them practice medicine, and yet self-serving entities like SIEU and AARP (remember they backed Medicare Part Duh) continue to pretend that insurers should retain power and influence.
Anything like the Massachusetts model is more socialism for the rich and punish the poor with compulsory premiums which as noted above is really a TAX.
-30-
The fight for an evidence-based, single-payer national health care system is comparable to the fight to abolish slavery and faces a very similiar degree of resistance. We are in the "Missouri Compromise", "Kansas-Nebraska Act", "Dred Scott Case" stage of the conflict. Our legislators think the whole problem can settled nicely, over the "long haul". As in so many other areas Republicans raise the spectre of overtaxation, while most Americans gradually sink into the quick-sand of expenses.
...the extension of the corrupt system of slavery and the extension of the corrupt system of for-profit healthcare...good point.
Both systems are morally wrong.
Both example a profit-motive obscenely applied.
Both systems are rationalized by profiteers with: "This is business, I'm just doing my job."
I just hope when Obama does his job he is is not the antebellum version of Daniel Webster he seems to be but instead his opposite: Abraham Lincoln.
And finally draws a line in that sand--instead of sinking in it.
Health insurance companies are parasites, like the financial institutions. Their role must be nationalized; yes, socialized. We must all be very active to bring this about!
I am sorry to say it, but, anyone who has listened to Obama's campaign, read Daschle's book, or listened to any of the Dems, would already have given up on the idea of single payer. I will probably on horribel Medicaid the day I die. Or , on nothing at all. Obama is a conservative on thsi one. That is all there is to it.
They are the party of big money now (for now) and , we will never get single payer out of this group.
What Waxman proposed today will just make for one big Medicaid (which is horrible care) and, everyone who can afford it will go to private. Other than covering kids why not just leave it alone, for some future party with some balls---these incremental measures will just throw more people into crappy Medicaid and Medical!
I knew that they would do this (to much insurance and private hospital money) and, I knew everyone wuld say, "How did this happen"??
Anytime anyone starts talking "reform", grab your wallets. Like the school teachers unions, healthcare loves to talk "reform"; it always means more money. I understand that the largest single contributor to Obama's campaign was the health care industry: how much "change" do you think we'll get from him? Nah, we'll get incremental "reform" as usual. Unless and until we get a true single payer system, everything else is just noise. Never, EVER expect those with money (power) to give it up for others (the fabled "national good"); never happened: ain't gonna' happen now.
So, how do we get to single payer? Simply put: we don't. The Laws of Probablity can explain that. Remember Hillary's planning and how the rich (health care industry) politically asassinated her with the Harry and Louise commercials? Did we reach the appropriate conclusion from that that the moneyed interests will spare no expense in defending their riches, even if the deaths of the uninsured continue unabated? Like I said earlier, they will never, EVER give up their power and wealth for you or anyone else.
Solution: I don't know. What did we do before this crisis existed? Is there another industry that went through this and was corrected? Is it realistic to expect us to "force" the right solution? Eg., when TR broke up the monopolistic trusts, did he set up an example or today?
Yes, it is realistic to expect a forced solution as the only one.
Before the TRUE 'crisis", alot of the middle class had policies thru Generous Motors. The insurance industry was second only to the oil industsry in profits last years--$38 billion , i think?
The solution--CUT PROFITS!!
Before I had to go n Mediciad, I worked with people on Medicaid. It is horrible and always has been. Sometimes , you are better off without any--charity care is better.
HR676 if THE answer, although not a true govt-only program, its better than this. We need regulation, we need a realistic look at corporate profits and we need a middle class with some BALLS!
Steve;
I'm with you' on this, but let's face it: "cut profits"? As I said earlier, there ain't a chance that's gonna' happen. Healthcare industry has the money (muscle) to get what they want, when they want it. Do the "Progressives" have a war chest to pony up? Of course not. Money talks and BS walks. As known, money is the mother's milk of politics, and let's face it, we ain't got any.
So, how do we get what we want? I think the trick to that is understanding what the elected reps want: money (from the special interests),but, if they don't have a job, they don't get the money, so, they gotta' be re-elected. The incumbency rate speaks volumes to this. Hence, making healthcare a "single issue" litmus test much like abortion may be a way to force their hands without having to pony up millions.
Make their jobs the issue, not special interst money. With the net and a few bucks, I bet we could do that.
That's exactly what we need to do. Like a broken record, "universal single payer health care" and make them see "That's the way you'll roll, ON THIS ONE SINGLE ISSUE litmus test. Pony- up or get the toss" Salud.
In East Tennessee, Profit Care comes way ahead of Patient Care.
http://www.wisecountyissues.com
The old capitalist beast had a "splendid" run. May we please take it off life support now?
Families USA and like-minded organizatoins have always been against single payer. They always will be. They think that they deserve "private plans", and, that that the poor do not. America is an aristocracy, and, I would rather become like Canada and sing "god save the queen"! We treat our politicians like royalty---if the Brits ever gave Q Elizabeth the power Obama has in his little finger, she wouldnt know what to do with it.
The govt here neither listens to nor cares about the people.
Answer---grow some balls, America...campaign finance reform. I saw Paris take to the streets again yesterday. Greece, France, Iceland. They would never take the crap we do. Why do we????
I've been thinking the same thing. What in the world is it going to take for USAns, particularly poor and unemployed USAns, to get in the streets???
Or, are we going to dutifully follow the path to destitution like dumb cattle to the killing floor.
---USAn---