From the article:

"...18,000 deaths a year (that's the estimate of Americans who die every year due to lack of health insurance.)"

With all due respect, nobody has ever died from lack of insurance.

But far too many have died because they were refused treatment after it was determined they couldn't guarantee payment.

The ones who made those decisions have names and addresses.

BEAUTIFUL!!!THE ACTION BEGINS!!!!! I'LL BURN MINE-3,000 DOLLARS FOR A DIVERTICULITIS TEST-BUT I TOLD THE IDIOT DOCTOR I HAVE A CYST ON MY OVARY TO BEGIN WITH.DID HE DO THE ULTRA SOUND? NO DID I HAVE DIVERTICULITIS?NO. AFTER 10.5 HRS IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM AND DOING THE WRONG TEST, HE SAYS OH DO YOU WANT ME TO DO THE ULTRA SOUND? MY HUSBAND HAD COME UP WITH MY KIDS, IT WAS 11: 00 AT NIGHT. I SAID NO!!!!
i STILL HAD TO GO TO ANOTHER HOSPITAL THE NEXT DAY TO HAVE THE ULTRA SOUND DONE. thE FIRST HOSPITAL CHARGED ME 3,000 DOLLARS FOR DOING REALLY NOTHING.

tHE SECOND CHARGED ME 1,800 FOR THE ULTRA SOUND. I HAVE INSURANCE. BUT I STILL OWE 1,600 FOR EVERYTHING. i WAS IN VERY SEVERE PAIN FROM A CYST ACTING UP. SECOND HOSPITAL SAYS WE'LL JUST WATCH THE CYST BECAUSE I'M ACTUALLY HITTING MENOPAUSE... SO OVER ALL I WISH I HAD JUST STUCK OUT THE PAIN-THE ONLY REASON I WENT WAS BECAUSE MY AUNT ALMOST DIED FROM A BURST CYST,I WAS TRYING TO DO THE SMART THING AND STAY ALIVE FOR MY KIDS. bUT I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE RISK - I WOULD BE 1600 DOLARS RICHER... iT'S THE COST OF THE MEDICAL CARE THAT IS THE PROBLEM AND THAT'S BECAUSE OF THE NEED TO MAKE PROFIT...

Well said! I agree little will happen for our benefit unless we rattle the cage. I call them profit maintenance organizations.
I have a fantasy: If on April 15th 2009 50 million or more US citizens picked up their telephone and canceled their health home and auto insurance we could have real public healthcare in months instead of decades. The trouble will be maintaining continuity of care during the transition to single payer.

Since most of us get insured by payroll deduciton, most of us don't even get isurance bills to burn - only bills from the doctors and hospitals.

But I agree, the should be some kind of mass action - boycott or strike or mass sit-in of some sort - the we or medical workers could do.

Pennsylvanians and West Virginians could stage a takeover of the ugly Blue-Cross Highmark headquarters building in Pittsburgh...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highmark

---USAn---

What? Medicare pays about 40% of the bill, no? It is unrealisticto expect that even under a universal single-payer system there would be no co-pays or deductibles, at least in the beginning. Neither would it necessarily have no network restrictions, at least under Obama's current plan which would allow people to keep their present coverage and patronize privately run clinics who opt out of the system. Obviously, the public system would not allow itself to be over-burdened with paying for alot of expensive, ineffective, for-profit care: one of the big reasons the present sysyem is heading for bankruptcy.

Theinitiate makes an important point: reform must include systematic use of an evidenced-based medicine- escrewing expensive tests with little diagnostic or prognostic value which hithertofore have just fed profits into the medical-industrial complex. This requires genuine oversight organized on a nation-wide basis by competetant, peer-reviewed authorities, not the slap-dash State-by State custom-based system which predominates today. It requires that new therapies, devices and drugs undergo vigorous, gold-standard clinical studies before approval for general use. A more clearly definable way to judge what constitutes genuine innovation and discovery has to be established and other means found to compensate those responsible than the current parasitic system of patents.

The figure of 18,000 preventable deaths due to lack of the availability of medical care is a conservative estimate. Some say 100,000. Lack of insurance is clearly a part of this short-fall. People avoid going to the doctor because they still have to eat and pay rent. The typical $180 fee just to walk into the door a primary care physician ( an increasingly rare phenomena as well as being over-worked and underpaid) is a huge disincentive. The simplest blood tests are often equally expensive and just the first step if a problem is discovered.

Theiniate is lucky in the sense that she had the experience of her aunt to goad her into getting a serious diagnostic process going which might have saved her life despite the damned expense ( they can't throw you in jail for not paying your med. bills!). Others are NOT SO LUCKY.

And that's what we are talking about all along the line: Luck.

"the race is not to the swift, nor battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to the men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."-Ecclesiastes 9/11

In the face of the present financial meltdown and serious recession even the editors of "The Economist" squeakily put forward the proposition that the pursuit of unrestrained economic growth enriching the few at the expense of all the rest (trickle-down, neo-liberal globalism) may have run into an impassible roadblock. The expansion of the financial sector with its generation of enormous money-capital profits cannot overcome failing production sectors, stagnant GDP growth, the decline of real wages and important, humanitarian, socially cohesive benefits like health care. Maybe the Fed and the Treasury will be able to bail-out the irresponsible and criminal investors one more time but the problem will remain and grow worse.

It's time that Justice be served and for ordinary people stand up for their rights without fail!

BTW,initiate, an ultrasound should cost all of about $20. This is an example of how crazy the US Medical System is that it cost this woman in search of an ultrasound $4,800 instead of pennies. And if she had been without insurance she might still be trying to get that diagnostic done? Result? She never got any real treatment done.

What a disgraceful mess, and I am an RN with 25 years experience speaking about it, too. Multiply this woman's experience by tens of millions and you have a good picture of the US Medical Experience as is. Incredibly though, so many Americans are so brainwashed by Big Business that they still consider The System to be the best in the world!

I was chatting with someone online the other day who lived down in the States and was about to lose her job so was in a rush to get certain medical stuff addressed all at once before her insurance coverage lapsed.

I mentioned that they needed Universal health Care and got back "OH we do not want a system like in Canada, a doctor here is from Canada and said Doctors can not make any money there".

Now it certainly true Doctors in America make more money then in Canada. That does not mean Doctors in Canada "Can not make any money". (on average as I recall doctors in the US make about 20 percent more).

The Fraser institute also likes to point out that we in Canada train many nurses who then go down to the United States because they make "More money" thus proving the US system of for profit superior.

Well DUH. If you charge 100$$ for an aspirin or 3000 dollars for an Ultrasound of COURSE you can pay a higher salary but health care should not be all about dollars and cents and that money has to come from SOMEONE else.

Nurses in Canada do very well thank you and it not at the cost of squeezing bucks out of an ill person who makes a lot less.

Something is wrong with the notion of seeing an ill person as a source of MONEY and little else . They are people who have lives and families outside of that hospital room. Taking 1600$$ out of their pockets when they are struggling to feed a family or keep a roof over their head is just so very WRONG.

I had no insurance for six years--couldn't afford it. I now have Medicare and I still have to come up with money for everything. However, Medicare better pay more than 40% or I will be in debt until I die. I'm about to have hip replacement surgery and expect 80% or more to be picked up by the government, or I would not be able to get treatment. Imagine being in pain for six years because you're too poor to pay but considered too rich for help. This country's lack of decent health care for all is shameful. I wish every member of Congress had their free health care taken away and then they try to survive on a small Social Security payment, the way I do.

under single payer universal healthcare americans should not have to pay any deductibles or co-pay.

the only thing you to do is

cut military spending.

Dr. Patch Adams, the subject of the movie staring Robin Williams is still around 30 years on, trying to piece together the first free hospital in America. He's raised millions and has plenty of willing doctors and nurses, but the insurance debacle is a huge hindrance.

here's the url

http://www.patchadams.org/

AIG is a bloated tick! We now have a government giving them around $80 billion in 'relief'. Can you believe that?!

http://pol.moveon.org/thisyear/?rc=caf

petition to be delivered to Obama summit on health care reform. 200,000 signatures so far - shooting for 1m.

room for comment

Tell Obama (http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ or 202-456-1111 and 202-456-1414) & Congress (202-224-3121) we don't need a TRILLION dollars wasted on national "security" (wars in Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan & covert ops in Iran, Colombia, & Africa; Pentagon Cold War weapons and ineffective missile shields; NASA space weapons; Energy Dept. nuclear weapons; Homeland Security police state expenses; DARPA, NSA & CIA "black budgets"; and more than 760 military bases in over 40 foreign countries) when a fraction of that is enough for real national defense and the rest should be used to improve the lives of ALL Americans, starting with single-payer healthcare.

All those unneeded military-industrial complex workers can be retrained to work on improving & modernizing our infrastructure and creating and maintaining a green economy which would obviate the need to send our soldiers abroad to kill and be killed for oil & natural gas.

Spread the message: Nag Obama & Congress till they work for OUR welfare, not only their own and that of the Pentagon and the war profiteers.

Good article - till I got down to the part that said "...It will be a symbolic act..." More than symbolism is required. Maybe it is time to take real action. Have you thought about checking into the salary and total compensation package of your hospital CEO? How about a protest against that?

Since we can either have insurance companies or health care for all - but we can't have both, how about finding a smart/ethical lawyer (if there is one) to bring criminal charges against insurance company officials. After all, they are responsible for the deaths of 18,000 per year. That makes them more dangerous than the worse of the terrorists.

Also, we would not be in this bind if the voters had voted for Nader or one of the other candidates who supported Single Payer. It always comes down to the voters. Seems to be a lot of 'voters remorse' going on these days.

Yes, we all need health insurance, but Americans also need to stop being fat, lazy, tabacco-smoking, fast-food eating, ignorant pigs as well.

Our third branch of government is "And the for-profit health insurance corporations."??

Another definition of insurance: Placing a bet that what-ever your are insuring against isn't going to happen.

This would appear to be the kind of action that Naomi Wolf was criticizing in her talk in the featured video in the upper right hand corner of the home page.

Now if Russell and his protesters wanted to put some zing into their "protest", they ought to blockade the entrances of the nearest health insurance provider's offices (or maybe since it's Washington DC, whatever K Street lobbying firm they use to carry out their discreet and sophisticated bribery of our elected representatives) and make the cops take them all away to jail. Then come back with a whole new band of protesters the next day and make them do it all over again.

Still, the Ritz-Carlton is really a lovely venue for this patty-cake protest and I am sure it will be one of the hottest tickets in town for that day's fun and games media spectacle.

Poet

I'm going to try and get a permit for Raleigh North Carolina and hold a simultaneous rally. I am very disappointed in the scattered groups, and an inability to reach everyone who supports this issue with ONE POSTING. I have very little resources and almost NO time to produce a similar event but I'm going to try. It is Thursday the 5th and this rally is NEXT WEEK!! I want to know who is planning the NEXT event for April? I think April Fool's day would be great to show how we were fooled into thinking that health insurance covers our needs.

MY ADVICE: GET ALL OF THESE ADVOCATES AND THEIR MEMBERS ONTO ONE LIST!!!

Petitions

http://ga1.org/campaign/support_hr676?source=guaranteedhealthcare
http://healthcare.change.org/actions/view/free_equal_health_care_for_all
http://www.healthcare-now.org/petition/
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1488/t/689/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2484
https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/personal2.asp?formid=healthpet
http://democrats.com/single-payer-petition?cid=ZGVtczUyMDY5NWRlbXM=

http://www.pnhp.org/action/hr_676_general_resolution.php (for a group to sign)

groups

http://www.amsa.org/uhc/
http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/
http://www.healthcare-now.org/petition/
http://www.pnhp.org/
http://www.healthwrights.org/
http://www.everybodyinnobodyout.org/
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-676
http://guaranteedhealthcare4all.org/

http://www.hr676.org/

Forums

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Right_To_Health_Care/?yguid=333385576
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=23941911448
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=4634895906

"If we're going to have a successful democratic society, we have to have a well educated and healthy citizenry".
- - Thomas Jefferson