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TechnoratiGet Them Out: Rotten Apples in Congressional Witness Bushel on Health Reform
Many know by now that a single payer healthcare system is the type of reform most widely supported by the American people and a majority of nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals. Many also know that Congress has so far deftly and purposely shunned most expert witnesses who would offer evidence in favor of that publicly funded, privately delivered system. The media has also done its part to keep the message targeted away from single payer as recent independent studies showed how the mainstream media did its level best to keep big insurance and pharmaceutical advertisers happy by not reporting fairly on the topic.
Congress isn't alone in its shading the discussion nor is the media. Both followed President Obama's lead as he locked out the single payer voice from the first White House forum on health reform until the phone lines jammed with reports of planned protests by nurses in scrubs and white-coated docs marching outside the gates of the executive mansion while the industry "stakeholders" and the elected officials they support so mightily met inside at the invitation of Mr. Obama.
We might expect the fawning and fainting with glee over the cooperation between the usual suspects in this health reform period. With the most power-challenging and boat-rocking alternative kept out of the picture for now, those who profit most under a for-profit insurance based reform would be expected to act as if they have previously been enemies but are now ever so generously working together.
This is political theater staged by those with lots and lots of money in the game, and it is a fight for human rights being waged outside that political theater by those of us with lots and lots of real skin in the game. Millions of Americans have lost loved ones and homes and careers and good health and credit ratings to this travesty of a system, and none of the plans currently being "vetted" by this Congress or this President do much to mitigate that at all. It is a classic struggle of epic proportions.
But some of what is being offered and accepted as expert Congressional testimony is shocking even within this skewed and staged arena. There are some real rotten apples now in this Congressional record. And those rotten apples will spoil the whole process unless we all demand better. This fight for healthcare justice demands that we call for our best experts, our finest minds and not simply the most well-connected ones.
One example of the terribly biased testimonies being taken is that of the testimony submitted by Richard Scott to the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, subcommittee on health, on March 24, 2009. Mr. Scott reports that he was asked to submit his testimony to the committee. On his website, Conservatives for Patient Rights, Scott touts his own experience in the delivery of healthcare in this nation as reason enough to consider him an expert. And Scott is also launching some very inaccurate advertising on behalf of his "organization" in the effort to keep himself and his closet allies in the insurance and private provider industry in a very preferred position in the U.S. healthcare system.
Here's a bit of this Congressional expert witness's biography: Scott founded the Columbia Hospital Corporation in 1987, but dumped by the company's board of directors in 1997 in the midst of the nation's biggest healthcare (Medicare and Medicaid) fraud scandal. In 2001, Scott co-founded the Solantic Corporation, which operates walk-in medical care centers.
We need to know more about who is influencing Congress and the media now in the discussion. So, here's more about witness Scott: In July 1997, when Scott was then the chairman and CEO of Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America and was forced out by the company's board of directors, he left with a $10 million severance deal and 10 million shares of stock. At that time, the shares were worth more than $300 million. Scott was replaced by Dr. Thomas Frist, Jr., the co-founder of HCA and the brother of Senator Bill Frist, then Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate.
It's all just a little incestuous, don't you think?
But wait, our 2009 expert witness on healthcare reform in the U.S. left a little more than history behind at his company that speaks to how he views what is most important to him: making a buck in this system.
In 2001, HCA reached a plea agreement to pay $95 million in fines to the federal government to avoid criminal charges against the company. In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the government $631 million, plus interest, and paid another $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims. In all, civil law suits cost HCA more than $1.7 billion to settle, including more than $500 million paid in 2003 to two whistleblowers.
$1.7 billion with a great big "B" was paid by HCA to resolve the Medicare and Medicaid fraud mess orchestrated under Mr. Scott's watch who walked away with his own sweet deal. The largest Medicare and Medicaid fraud case in U.S. history, an investigation of over 10 years and he walks away with hundreds of millions of dollars only to return as one of our current expert witnesses on health reform? Whew. That's an epic award and an epic injustice.
I worked for a Columbia-owned hospital in 1990. I was the billing manager. I was asked to do some very creative bookkeeping and went to the Medicare law and read that I would be risking prosecution if "I knew or should have known" what I was doing was illegal under federal law. As I read the law, it broadly imposed appropriate sanctions upon those who might consider bilking the taxpayer-funded system. My bosses told me if I wouldn't do the transactions, they would hire someone who would.
As a consequence of what I read about the law, I packed up my belongings, walked to my car and drove away from that hospital rather than break the law. My husband was three weeks away from having his first open-heart surgery, and it was two weeks before Christmas. We had no other source of income.
What I had been asked to do in order to keep my job - my $35,000 a year job - was not right and I knew it even as a relatively "green" billing manager. How in the world am I to believe that Richard Scott knew less than I did about what was right and what was wrong under the Medicare program? And why was my life's course forever altered in ways so very much different? He walked away with hundreds of millions. I certainly was not rewarded in any way for my honesty. I reported what I saw by way of letters to the government, but never heard anything back from my letters, save one response from a Senator who said they'd look into it.
And the fraud cases that were settled didn't even touch on all the ways companies headed up by some of 2009's "expert witnesses" like Richard Scott came up with to skirt the rules and bump up the bottom line. What I saw related to how Medicare bad debt is reimbursed - and it's still an area where rules are broken today. Scott never went to jail. He took his hundreds of millions and now returns to say what's needed in healthcare reform.
It's all about the money folks. It's all about the money.
We must demand that our Congress and our president hear from experts that are not of this ilk. We are better people than this. And our healthcare system must reflect our values of justice, decency and compassion. Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program testified finally a couple of weeks ago - but so far he has been the only expert from outside the corporate fold allowed to utter a word on the Congressional record on behalf of single payer. The Senate has invited no witness who strays from the canned agenda that will force us all to buy the defective product that is for-profit health insurance.
Mr. Scott didn't care one bit about ripping off you and ripping off me and ripping off any other patient or taxpayer in this nation. He should not be an expert now advising Congress or anyone else on healthcare reform. His commercials and his organization's communications should have to carry a disclaimer fully disclosing his involvement in the Columbia/HCA fraud case.
In fact, every witness ought to have to disclose their current source of any income as well as their conflicts of interest. Otherwise, we'll end up with a system crafted in large part by those whose interests are not shared by hard-working Americans who don't get rewarded if they break the law. How could Congress - our lawmakers - do less than demand full disclosure?
And, I would sure like to hear from a few witnesses whose salaries are not paid by the largest corporate interests in healthcare insurance, big Pharma or for-profit provider corporations. Congress needs to reverse this right now and invite real expert testimony from the broadest spectrum of law-abiding true stakeholders - not liars and cheats and gamers who would pretend they have conservative values at their core and as their reasons for opposing a single payer system.
Look at all the truths. Look at the evidence not the scare tactics. Listen to economic and social policy experts and clinical professionals and patients. But for God's sake, stop taking testimony from solely the big-money interests - else you'll get just the long-term results people like Scott would embrace.
72 Comments so far
Show AllQuite simply; we all need to send our Representatives and Senators a note saying " vote for HR676 or I vote you out. And mean it!
It's simple people. Quit listening to all the BS from all sides, even your friends, some of whom work for these companies. It's all BS. A government run healthcare system would save money and also create jobs. Maybe not as lucrative as they once had. But hey, it's a job.
The current epidemic is one more issue under all of our noses of the critical need for a national health care system for every American citizen. We are part of the fabric of this nation and the world and our welfare and survival depends on our national policies that protect our citizens and provide the basics for survival: food, water, air, universal health care and work for every American. Time to revisit FDR's policies which put Americans to work on public projects and gave hope to a depressed America. A house united will not fall!
Just reading through all the comments on this thread in addition to the article, I notice that the fear of money triumphs our collective abilities to fight for the much needed health care reforms that are very badly needed already. I'm not even 30 or close but having seen the debating going on, all I see is nothing but more money talk. Until we the people stop falling for the money frame trap, we will be stuck with more talk about fear about our opponents having more money to defeat us. This is exactly the reason why we're ready to accept mediocre pols into office. If he or she lacks enough money, then they not "viable", "electable", "able to govern from the center", and all that typical nonsense.
Watching the recent activities in congress reminds me of an old movie "Born Yesterday" in which a US congressman was slapped around by a rich junk dealer . In this case it's the bankers and the health care insurance corporations doing the slapping . The TARP money is being used to ship out more jobs to other countries which is why the bankers are saying this will be a long recession . It should be very embarrassing to be a member of the US congress these days because the whole world saw the flogging .
Guys...we lost our shot at universal health care when Obama stole the nomination. :(
Where was everyone when Dennis Kucinich was running? Democrats had a real chance to vote for reform in the primaries, but instead they chose glitter and hype over justice and substance.
Oh well, I guess we have to wait for the next election.
Don't just wait and watch from on high. Or else next presidential election it will be the same thing. You'll be asking "where is everyone?" Organize for what you believe. If everyone does a little something to build for alternative candidates, the electorate may develop more connections and consciousness. Pick a local race and organize to run someone who is really good. Get people involved.
Joe
Ms Smith, our Jeffersonian Republic, even in its death throes owes you a debt of gratitude.
Some people have said it better than I, "We are a better people than this."
Crooks, the corrupt, and the greedy should not be allowed to prevail. And we should throw the corrupt scum out of office by publishing and dissiminating these pieces at election time.
The American people vote for what they feel and know is right, but they are kept in a servitude of ignorance by the Scotts and Limbaughs and O'Reillys and Hannitys and Savages of the planet.
It is not that voters are "stupid." Voters are _intentionally_ kept in the dark by the media monopolies and oligarchs. Well, we have our internet and this 21st century tool will set us all free.
It is about time we joined the rest of the industrialized world with regard to universal, guaranteed health care to every man, woman, and child on demand!
Yes we can have single payer health coverage in this country. Do not underestimate the power of mass consciousness. DEmocracy for America and MoveOn.org have joined together around this issue. There is a discussion at Democracy for America tomorrow night at 9:00pm eastern. There will be infomercials telling the american people just what the insurance and hmo's are doing to stop progress. Remember that your congressman works for you. Do not hesitate to call you representative and voice your opinion. Apathy has no place in this movement so i urge all people reading this to pitch in and help us.
In America, if this little piggy gets the flu, there is a vaccine for it at no cost to the pig.
In America, if this little child gets the flu, we can pay a fortune to buy false hope.
Toxic Congress!
Universal single-payer healthcare DOES NOT COST MORE. IT COSTS LESS. Yes, even if we cover the 47,000,000 who currently have nothing, IT COSTS LESS. That is because the current system we have is such a bureaucratic nightmare, that it costs us at least $250 billion more every year, administratively-alone. I am not talking about cutting back on services or wages, just administratively. More could also be saved by charging what other countries charge for pharmacueticals.
There is a very good reason why no other developed country in the world has our system and none want it. And they do not have the deductibles and co-pays that we do and they have dental, optometric, and behavioral.
Good article that tells it the way it is. The whole bushel is rotten, not just a few apples.
Single Payer!! I notice lots of local and state organizations advocating single payer. It is absolutely essential that they form some kind of a national confederation or umbrella to fight the very wealthy medical insurance forces, their phony bought and paid for buffoons in Congress, and our President who has folded on this issue.
Joe
Great article. Right on target.
I do take regretful exception to this statement: "We are better people than this."
Obviously, we are not.
"call for our best experts, our finest minds and not simply the most well-connected ones"
O'Bamba supporters, are we ready yet to give up crony connections in favor of egalitarian principles? Are we ready yet to take a walk on the far left side? We on the far left told you at the start of O'Bamba's campaign that the choice is YOURS to make. When you decide to walk on over here, then we'll have our revolution. We're waiting on you... tick tock... Meanwhile, we're shifting our exchange/association away from the power centers and toward our local communities, to bring the economic/political power back home, where it belongs.
Didn't the quest for health care in America begin with Truman? I hate to be a pessimist, but we're not going to get what we want. America would rather see 18,000 people a year die needlessly rather than hurt the health insurance industry.
It's simple: write your reps--all 3--and tell them a vote against single payer means no vote for them come their next election. And you can do this now from your computer.
Well, OK-- but in Pennsylvania, that's a sure way to get a scripted response in the mail explaining politely that the politician appreciated hearing from you, but has his or her own good reasons for not being able AT THIS TIME to support the position you're espousing.
But it was great hearing from you! And keep those cards and letters coming in!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obedient Servant, you're right. But if they hear from enough people, they may rethink their position if a Single Payer challenger shows up in the primary. In my opinion, if they wait until the primary, they need to go anyway. Time to plow!
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
True enough.
· Yr Obd't Servant
"The finance aristocracy, in its mode of acquisition as well as in its
pleasures, is nothing but the rebirth of the lumpen proletariat on
the heights of bourgeois society." from The Class Struggles in France
by Karl Marx
"Take a piece of tweaker trash, put it in a thousand-dollar suit, and
guess what." from Wake Up! By Tom Paine
Okay, I'll take a shot at rush limbaughs taint. First, he needs to put an apostrophe between the "h" and the "s" of "limbaughs." Then he needs to ask himself if all questions are good. Because his question contains faulty assumptions and therefore is one of the few I've ever seen that is NOT good.
We pay for food and we would pay for single-payer health care: end of argument. But shouldn't this fellow's name be changed to Rush Limbaugh's Taunt? For isn't he just another dreary mind____ who ought to be fired in a rocket along with our torturers to the Andromeda Galaxy?
as for the lack of apostrophe in my username, you can thank the designer's of CD for that one.
clearly it was beyond you that i was trying to get people to think about SOCIALISM.
and, despite the overwhelming clarity and penetrating insight of your intelligence (some questions shouldn't be asked? wtf is that?), no one has provided an answer to my basic question:
why do you want to eliminate the profit motive from health care but accept the profit motive in things that are more basic to human well-being than health care, like food & shelter?
why should you have health care when millions of americans are homeless and/or food insecure?
of course these are all related issues, but on a scale of values & needs, which is more important? not only does US society not provide health care for its citizens, it refuses to provide basic food, shelter & clothing.
you "progressives" jump on these hobby horses w/o thinking about the implications of what you are advocating.
so, you know, forgive me, bottle, for pointing out your ignorance.
(moreover, "health" & "health care" are not remotely the same thing, but i won't even begin to tax your little mind w/that fact. more health care will not make americans hardly any more healthy, for a lot of reasons. but back to your hobbyhorse and puerile beliefs.)
Bottle May, you have good aim. Your solution sounds interesting, if a bit extreme.
Kathy
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Thank you DONNA SMITH for writing this brief expose. Great comments by most of you, but unless people get physically active, and I don't mean lamenting to each other on CD and other websites, nothing will change. Obama follows the money, the Bush girlfriend, "impeachment's off the table" Pelosi, said "no way on single payer," and Harry Reid, another sorry excuse for Majority Leader," are going to do zilch for the common majority of citizens.
Single Payer (health care for all) should have been implemented long ago. The insurance lobby, and the AMA fought it for years, going as far back as A-bomb Harry.
How many of you think that part of "national security" is, besides keeping an armed force to protect the public from the bogeyman, is keeping it's citizens healthy by providing them with health care with our tax dollars. That is money WELL SPENT!
When the misfits in Congress can waste trillions of our tax dollars for inflicting death, destruction, misery and suffering on weaker nations, they can provide EVERY American with health care. It is much cheaper than private insurance and it WORKS!
It is a moral issue, and for those of you who may be unfamiliar with Single Payer, look up HR 676, print it out, and tell as many people as you can about it, and for my fellow Californians, also support state senator Mark Leno's SB 810, for single payer.
Hold meetings, rallys, whatever it takes to send the message to the politicians.
A great article. The entire hearings on health care reform appear to be little more the a fraud and a mass conspiracy to enrich the very Corporations that are driving up costs.
These are not hearings on health Care reform. They are hearings On enhancing the profitability of the Corporations.
What they want to do is end any Corporation having to pay for employee health Care (As in the GMS the Chryslers and the like) and shift that burden entirely to the taxpayer with mandatory insurance.
There is no conceivable way this can cut costs or make it more "affordable".
They are fattening up the Middle man who has absolutely NOTHING to do with the delivery of health care other then getting a CUT.
Those that cannot afford healthcare will die because of the CUTS the insurance industry is demanding.
This gives death by a thousand cuts an entirely new meaning.
I am not hopeful this can be turned around in the USA. Given the massive support for single payer and couple that with the shamelessness of those being promoted as experts on the matter, the media collusion in this fiasco suggests the fix is in.
GwNorth, you got that right. The fix is in. Unless the public gets off it's ass, we're screwed. And I don't see that happening.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Bring America Back !!!!......They are much more than Rotten Apples, liars and cheaters.....they are two-legged Rats: Big HMOs; Big AMA; Big Pharma;
****I sure hope Donna Smith has lots of extra copies of the DVD "Sicko",
by Michael Moore...given out free to anyone really wanting the Truth of
Healthcare in America !!!!
****Healthcare will NEVER be "Affordable" in capitalist America !!!
***Team Obama MUST use his political capital to win legislation for
Single Payer Medical Care===Free to all Americans because we are human beings!
WJM, it seems to me that we need to keep changing our elected officials so they can't sit there getting rich. I think Obama should have vetoed that bill with 8,000 earmarks to send a message he meant what he said. I understand his dilemma, he's working with a very corrupt Congress. When he was in the Senate he tried to pass a lobbying ban. They not only turned it down, but as he said, he was extremely unpopular after that. Don't touch their money.
They're all a bunch of crooks, stealing us blind. Throw them out. We need to clean house and keep doing it. I don't think anything else will work. I know why Obama turned down the public funding. The Republican PACs would have swamped him with vitriolic commercials and his hands would have been tied. My oldest son pointed out that there will always be loopholes to be found when you try to pass bills on election funding.. If we had an informed and attentive electorate, we wouldn't need term limits. But we don't. We've got a zonked out public that's never heard of EFCA and thinks Single Payer will have the govt deciding what health care we get. The propaganda mouthpiece (AKA corrupt media) is leading them around by the nose.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
You're missing the point. If we have a system that allows NO private money in elections, then it's not a matter of anyone turning down the public funds so they can make more election money. There would be NO more election money, no other sources allowed.
What we have now is a system that allows the rich and corporations to make the decision of who even gets to run. If you can't sell your ass to big money, then you won't get a chance to be elected to anything. It doesn't matter how many times you elect someone new, they have ALL been up for election by some big money group or corporation. And that is why they continue to do the WRONG thing for the majority of us.
I honestly believe that unless we make using private money, even your own, to fund a campaign illegal, we will just continue to have the same kind of representation for the wealthy that we have now, and nothing more. Without changing that system, nothing else will EVER change.
I'm not missing the point. We have a little problem with something called "free speech". Do you think the SCOTUS will agree that no one can buy time on TV to express their point of view? They don't have to fund a campaign, all they have to do is say nasty things about the opponent of their choice. It's been shown that if you say something often enough, enough people start believing it.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I have read a lot of blogs and seen many programs denigrating single payer national health care systems. They seem to come from people that have no personal experience with such systems or a vested interest in the current system. Numerous studies have established that single payer national health care systems cost about half of our system while providing better health care as measured by outcome such as infant mortality, longevity, hospital mistakes etc. My family has personal experience with health care systems in England, Germany, Norway and USA from living in those countries. I would not hesitate one moment to choose any of their systems over ours (USA). It is difficult to understand why systems demonstrated to be better than ours, no matter which criteria you use to compare them, are not seriously considered here in the USA. Are we that misinformed, brainwashed, uneducated, dogmatically tied to capitalist philosophy (that in this case is failing), not as smart as citizens in other countries, or is it that it was not invented by the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth. Most likely it is that our politicians are bought off by the corporate beneficiaries of the current system.
A viable health care system must also be decoupled from ones place of work like the rest of the world. This will help make our industry be more competitive, and encourage employee mobility into new economic activities to help spawn and expand new businesses.
The bottom line, born out by facts and not emotions or dogma, is that single payer national health care systems work better for more people at lower cost than our for profit system.
USans exhaust all possibilities before doing the right thing as Churchill said. But he didn't say why/how this cultural dysfunction. The mechanism is media propaganda promoting material consumption and inflaming nationalist pride, the goal is maximum economic growth, and the perpetrators are greed-stricken elites. The heavy resource consumption enables USans to operate inefficiently, repeat mistakes over and over, and pretend it's all ok. But if we cut the resource gluttony then USans will shape up right quick. USans may also voluntarily get off the gravy train. Free will is much preferred. We have an opportunity to build a conscious society where the people are in control of markets through ownership of small independent production units and through conscious market demands to extract best value. Demand single payer healthcare in a way that ties it into the people's universalist vision. Tell the congress chimps and all the rest something like: Look, we gotta have the government regulate the monetary exchange in healthcare so the people can actually get healthcare, as a step toward the ultimate goal: The people's civic training to extract best value in healthcare as well as all sectors.
You want to change the corruption and the greed only system that we have now? There is only ONE way to do so: public financing of ALL elections. NO private money allowed at all, under penalty of jail time and elimination from the possibility of ever holding public office. If you can't live within the limits of what you are given, then we don't want you for public office anyway.
This will not only give us the possibility of honest elections, but it will save us untold billions of dollars during elections. It will eliminate the possibility of money being the be all and end all of American politics, and will make it far more likely that Americans will be the ones represented, not the corporations. As things are now, WE are the LAST people that are considered. We are seen as nothing but a bottomless pocket to be picked by every corporation as well as every politician out there.
Regardless of what the SCOTUS says, money and speech are NOT the same things, and it's time to alter our system of gov't to be what it was supposed to be, not just a system of official graft and corruption. THEN we can talk about the possibility of something other than corporate corruption being the thing that congress is run by.
someone please explain to me why health care should be free when food isn't.
Use your brains, rush limbaughs taint. No one is suggesting that health care should be free. We are suggesting however, that health insurance as a business be banned as it has been in other countries when it deals with basic health care needs. We already have single payer health insurance but it is confined to those over 65 and does not cover enough. It is called Medicare. It should cover everyone and it should pay for all health needs including dental. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. There are four kinds of people who don't want single pay: 1) those who own health insurance companies 2) those who work for or are being paid by health insurance (that would include most of our government) 3) those who are ideologically inclined to go along with neo-cons and other ultra conservatives 4) and idiots like you. These are the rotten apples the article refers to.
Talk about hypocrisy. The Same Congresskritters that will whine and wail about Single payer being Socialism have absolutely no problem taking the very best health care tax dollars can buy as part of their compensation. They pay nothing for the very finest health care we can buy them. Then these same pricks and douche bags turn around and tell us we can't afford to provide the rest of you losers the same care, because that would in essence hurt the Private Enterprise sector. HYPOCRITES! It's ok for it to be Socialism when it's them and their families, but not ok for the rest of us! I will NEVER ever vote for anyone who votes for a health bill without a PUBLIC Health plan option. if the Dems. try to slide some stupid ass shit past us that comes ready made from the same BIG CORP HEALTH VAMPIRES that are raping us now , they can go to hell to. Obama , listen up dude if you think many of us won't walk away in 2012 and stay home if you fuck us over on this, think again Bro. Were getting tired of Lying pols that talk the talk and then take a walk ( back over to the Corp. table for more Champagne and Caviar).
For a starter, how about the fact that food is alot more affordable?
Well, my own belief on the matter is that health care, food, water and shelter should be "free" to all.
Now obviously at some point it has to be paid for and this is why we have taxation.
I just do not believe that any country should have a system where people either have to PAY money or die.
This does not mean we can all line up for steak dinners at will. I am talking the basic requirments of life.
The point is that we pay MORE, and get poorer healthcare outcomes, than any other industrialized country. The point of single-payer system is to cut costs (30% of what we pay now to insurance companies goes to their profits) and expand care to everyone in the U.S.
Rep. Conyer's bill, HR 676, establishes an American-styled national health insurance program. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care program that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving it to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans, guaranteed by law, will have access to the highest quality and cost effective health care services regardless of ones employment, income, or health care status.
With over 45-75 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are under insured, it is time to change our inefficient and costly fragmented health care system.
Physicians For A National Health Program reports that under a Medicare For All plan, we could SAVE over $286 billion dollars a year in total health care costs.
We would move away from our present system where annual family premiums have increased upwards to $9,068 this year.
Under HR 676, a family of three making $40,000 per year would spend approximately $1600 per year for health care coverage.
Medicare for All would allow the United States to REDUCE its almost $2 trillion health care expenditure per year while covering all of the uninsured and everybody else for better coverage than they are getting under their current health care plans.
(The above is from guaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of, among others, the Californian Nurses Association.)
Check out http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/your_story to learn why even if you have health insurance through a private company, as you may have now, it is no guarantee of anything, as so many Americans have discovered.
petrkrop, the CNA/NNOC also authorized a study showing that Single Payer would immediately provide 2.6 million new jobs and millions of $ into our economy. So what's the problem here??
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
rush limbaughs taint, sure. Because we're not talking free health care. We're talking about HR 676. Obviously you don't know how HR 676 works. We all pay in a % of our income (3.5% for 95% of us, 10% for the top 1% of earners), including businesses (those providing health insurance at all would pay less than they do now). Close a few corporate tax loopholes, add a 0.5% transaction fee on stock exchanges, and everyone is covered by single payer for everything, including dental, prescription, mental health, and long term care. You choose your health provider, medical decisions are made by medical professionals, not corporate bean counters, and the bill is paid by the govt. Privately run, publicly paid. Everyone in, no one out. Nothing else makes any sense whatsoever, unless you're a lobbyist, Congressperson or insurance executive.
Any questions?
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
i'll rephrase the question:
why is health care more important than food?
rush limbaughs taint, we can grow our own food. We have to pay for health care - one way or another. Either we can pol our resources and have Single Payer or we can be fleeced by the insurance industry while they deny care and don't give a shit while we die. After all, they never signed any Hippocratic oath. Their primary purpose is to make as much money as they can, whatever it takes.
What's your problem here? Are you still trying to equate Single Payer with "free"?
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
i have no problem w/single payer; au contraire, i'm 100% for it.
but why demand a not-for-profit system in health care and accept that food, housing, education, etc., etc. are "for profit"? much less "for profit" warfare (which i know no one at CD is "for" and most of us realize is about making money, not safety, terrorism or any of that other BS we are constantly fed). for that matter, why is even banking "for profit"?
it just bewilders me that progressives get all worked up about not for profit medicine, but accept the for profit principle in almost all other areas of life.
Rush, I can't speak for anyone else, but here are my reasons for choosing health care to focus on:
I want to DO SOMETHING. But I know I can't do everything, and spreading myself too thin gets nothing done. What can a busy, stressed-out, fixed-income American citizen do? That's when I came up with the "Get Well Soon America" card-sending idea.
I feel that the health care issue is one of basic human decency, something that surely has been forgotten by so many. If we could extend basic human decency to each other, could the rest of the world be far behind? I'm not just trying to get Health care, I'm trying to get people to care.
I believe that if we can change the American mindset from a winner-gets-the-spoils, tough-luck-losers philosophy to one of compassion and care for all, thereafter we may not want to bomb, torture, invade and occupy.
For a long time I worked to get local organizations to protest the invasion of Iraq. Big Zero; from churches, city council, neighbors. Well, no wonder, we see many enemies among us: the welfare mamas, the illegal immigrants, all those shitty people who just don't deserve what we've got. As Sioux Rose would put it, "the Others". If we are inclusive of the others within our own borders perhaps we will begin to respect the others all over the world as we slowly realize that we are them.
Also, let me point out that we don't have a for-profit health care system, we have a for-profit health INSURANCE system. The actual care-givers, the hospitals and doctors and nurses, are hurting, too, under this system.
What if we paid for food insurance, then had to give up a co-pay for the food again at the time we needed it, and could arbitrarily be denied the fruit, vegetables or particular cut of meat we would like?
Of course you are right that many of the for-profit systems in America are totally corrupt and need to be changed. Right now, profit comes before people and we need to reverse that thinking, no doubt.
I believe that changing the way health care is delivered is a good start, a hole in the dam, that will eventually let the flood of change wash over other areas of our lifestyles as well.
(Have I convinced you to write a Card?)
Sioux Rose
ELAINE: Well-written (and conceived) post! Pat on the back, girl, that you found an initiative that speaks to your passion for purpose! Sometimes just the energy of doing, beginning something, opens the door to a cascade of reverberations that were unexpected at the outset. And you're so right! One can become quickly depressed and exhausted with the weight of all the wrongs, all the stupid senseless actions being furthered as models of modern policy today. Often I feel like a citizen of a bona fide MENTAL institution! I just can't believe how off course so many things are!
I sent a copy of my children's book to the Obama children, and did not receive any response. Makes you wonder what, if anything, gets through. Nonetheless, those endowed with Light must find ways to shine, as Light cannot be kept hidden under any bushels, or remnant Bushes... stay true to the Quest!
Thank you. Your support gives me strength.
We are all in a state of "Koyaanisqatsi" - Life out of balance. And it is easy to become overwhelmed and want to give up. It's hard to see any good anywhere.
It's important that when we're down we support one another; through this site, and through simple human interaction, listening, taking time for each other and nature. It's a challenge!
Did you know that Elaine means "light"? (Bet you did.)
Sioux Rose
I like the Lady Elaine from the wonderful book, "The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. That book swept me up so intently I went on strike, that is, I didn't cook for the family or put aside time for my mate until I was done with it! I really "entered" that time period; and I love the film, Excalibur, which brings it all to life so wondrously, too. That's an era I identify with.
Sioux Rose
BE FOR KIDS: You paint the way to a just solution! If only what was just held sway and bearing over policies originating out of DC, today.
No one is insisting health care should be free. However, since it is the one commodity without which any human can survive, it shouldn't be so expensive that only the wealthy can afford it, thanks to the medical, pharmaceutical, and insurance lobbies.
We don't get charged so much for water that only a few can afford it, do we? A single-payer system would cut out a lot of the greedy money-mongering carnivores who have taken a seat at the healthcare banquet table. No life necessity should be beyond the reach of any working American and should be provided without charge to those who can no longer work through no fault of their own.
Rotten apples? Rotten apples? There are no rotten apples here. This is the Roman Slave Republic before Sulla owned by kiddie raping slave holding richfilth blood drinking animals. This country is operating to design specifications. This is exactly what those founding slave holders designed the US to be - a Genocidal (now nuclear) Slave Empire. It will be that way until we ionize the atmo.
Time to face a couple of facts:
1) Richfilth blood drinking animals own our lives, our entire political class, our government, our media, and our courts - by design;
2) The only reason richfilth blood drinking animals exist is to rape us and our children to death;
3) Richfilth blood drinking animals like recidivist kiddie rapers cannot be rehabilitated (they have a taste for it) and they will not change themselves;
4) You have no leaders (with any muscle) who are not owned by richfilth blood drinking animals and of yourselves you are not going to do a damn thing about any of it. You will not join with any others and no others will join with you to resist them (because they've been bought off - you didn't get the memo, there wasn't one).
So, stop bitching and start enjoying your degradation and debasement, the flat earth blood god, the deity of richfilth animals the world over, demands your total surrender...and white America thought "Insulated White Privilege" would save them, that Master's hunger would be satisfied with the bodies of Black, Brown, & poor White and their children. He-he-he-ho-ho-ho-hah-hah-he-he-ho-ho...that was a mistake.
There's only one possible solution to the constant interference in, and buying off of, our government by special interests. LOBBYING our congressional and government personnel in any form from which they gain a personal benefit must be OUTLAWED and made into a CRIMINAL OFFENSE!
It's the only way to return our country to a "government by the people and for the people." Our congressional personnel are currently operating under a distorted belief that they are both the masters and beneficiaries of a "government by the elite and for the elite" (special interests) of which they are, de facto, a part.
Our political leaders are not stupid - "you don't bite the hand that feeds you." And they are constantly being fed plenty (in the form of money, privileges, and notoriety by every special interest imaginable). When are we going to wake up and DEMAND a return to the government that was fashioned by our founding fathers (who were common people) - a government by the people and for the people?????
Creating a third party is NOT the solution. It would be only a matter of time (and probably a very short time) before that third party would be just as dirty as the others.
MAKE LOBBYING A CRIMINAL OFFENSE!!!! (It unfairly robs American Citizens of the right to be treated “equally!”)
Your 'only one' solution is not a solution. Making lobbying a criminal offense would be fruitless, as it is too easily avoided.
A true solution is to make lobbying impossible by removing the Congress and allowing the people to make the decisions. The lobbyists would then have nobody they could influence.
That's called democracy; we should try it.
You are right about the third party, but note that democracy also takes care of that problem, as parties would no longer have a reason to exist, and would wither away, to coin a phrase. That follows because parties now function primarily to raise campaign funds, and campaigns to elect delegates would also end.
In a democracy, ballots are used to decide issues, not to choose candidates.
I don't think our founding fathers were common people. They were the landed aristocracy of the new world, they were the educated elite. And of course many of them were slaveholder. There is nothing more furious than a landowner who thinks he is being cheated or taxed out of his wealth.
What you say about special interests and lobbying is absolutely true. It is the way the 'land owners' have always ruled in our 'democracy'.
MAKE LOBBYING A CRIMINAL OFFENSE!!!! - it was and so was taking bribes until this:
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with taxation of railroad properties. The case is most notable for the obiter dictum statement that juristic persons are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. This gave 'personhood' to artifical (corporate) persons.
Third Party? Greens maybe. How about YES WE CAN or YES WECCAN or just Wiccan?
"Creating a third party is NOT the solution. It would be only a matter of time (and probably a very short time) before that third party would be just as dirty as the others" - I totally agree.
"MAKE LOBBYING A CRIMINAL OFFENSE!!!!" - Again I agree. I am reminded of Steve LaTourette from my old district up north. He entered congress in 1994 with a pledge to only serve two terms, yet was shortly sucked into the Washington cesspool, leaving his wife and 3 kids in Madison and marrying (you guessed it) a lobbyist.
Yet he continues to be re-elected, partly because he can bring home a lot of pork, and mostly because the Dems can't find one single candidate strong enough to beat him.
Isn't it interesting that we call the rewards of lobbying "pork?" It's the one animal meat that can both nourish and hurt the body through its fatty content at the same time.
Sioux Rose has hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately health care isn't something we have much choice in. We can take our money from the banks, we can walk or bicycle, and we can grow most of our own food, and buy locally, but what do we do when faced with the option of choosing life or death for ourselves or our loved ones? They know they have us over a barrel.
And, unfortunately, that bloated bottom up pyramid won't crash anytime soon because the bottom one, where all the lower classes are now pretty much equal, is no longer a pyramid, it's become a very large rectangle, getting larger by the day. By the time the top pyramid tips all the way, it'll come to rest very nicely upon that rectangle, and those corporatists and the filthy rich will simply settle into their new, now firm-foundationed places.
Sioux Rose
WILMOOR: What is meant by "soon." The Transition has begun... I give it 11 years, as 2020 looks promising. The end of this year and into next look EXTREMELY difficult. Since the crash is inevitable, find a place as far from the wreckage as you can.
Well done, Donna.
In general, the law has been subverted to reward corporate greed. It's hardly a deterrent to crime when the worst thing that happens is the corporation signs a non-prosecution agreement and pays a fine with money from chumped shareholders.
More specifically, by letting this type of crime be high in profits and low in risk, it has attracted organized crime to it. Now think, if you were running a crime syndicate, would you rather do something illegal like running drugs or run a fraud under the guise of health care? Health care is riddled, and I do mean riddled with fraud and crime. The country would be shocked to know about it, and television certainly won't tell them. It's one of the reasons why health care costs are so out of control, but congress never talks about it.
And as the Frist/HCA example indicates, there's nothing like having a few Senators in your pocket to aid in making legal crime pay more than illegal crime - just ask Wall Street. The deregulation of finance and the corruption of health care are two parts of the same elephant. Or think back to the 2003 Medicare Bill and how the vote was held open while the Republican twisted enough arms to get it passed. Washington's work in 2009 will be of the same caliber.
Will you all join with me in a small but hopefully effective effort? If we all do it I believe it can have a great impact.
I have been sending Get Well cards to the president. They say: "America is sick. We need single payer health care as outlined in HR 676. Please support this bill and help America to Get Well Soon. Love, Elaine"
Write your own words, but keep it simple, make sure to say single payer and mention supporting HR676. With the "swine flu" in the headlines there's a spotlight on health care.
I imagine a White House buried in Get Well cards.
Please take five minutes and 42 cents, right now, and send your own message.
Send it to: Pres. Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC, 20500
Sioux Rose
ELAIN: I'll send a PC... if enough got there who knows? It's worth a shot.
Thank you Sioux Rose.
Humbaba you are hard core!
I sent pictures of maimed and murdered children stuffed in a child's shoe.
Sioux Rose
DONNA SMITH: Thank you for your courage, integrity and TIRELESS efforts in support of what is ultimately RIGHT.
Everything you describe about Mr. Scott and his fiscal shenanigans fits the model of so many in the media who helped make a case for war on fixed evidence. It also parallels the same egregious lack of decency seen in the current bailout to those who demanded deregulation, played fast and loose with the nation's money, and now want the everyday workers to pick up the tab.
As others have pointed out, the makings of modern day America have all the indications of a land of serfs and landowners where the serfs must finance through their labors the lavish living of "their betters."
In such a depraved moral clime it's a small wonder that the voices of true consideration, those that have a vision of betterment and uplift for others are being silenced or marginalized, and that's when they're not being disappeared in plane crashes or granted false witness (as in calumny) by the same media that's taken on a sychophantic role to support all these various and sundry ways that wealth is aggregating ONLY upwards.
No pyramid can stand when all its weight is at the top. The disgusting corporatists are hoarding what they can, but the collapse is inevitable. Their souls will have much time(on higher planes) to examine the foul fate they cast others into, while granting themselves so many unnecessary privileges. And what a moral shame that Obama has proven just another graduate of "The Chicago School" where disaster is key to economics, and false profits, all.
Thanks Sioux Rose for putting it so succinctly. I am so outraged, so morally indignant every time I think about it that I can hardly think straight. I hope you are wrong about Obama, but I fear the worst.
Sioux Rose
GEORGE: Once you read Chris Hedge's accurate and astute "warning label" on Brand Obama, I think you'll see that I am probably not wrong about Obama. I certainly was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but decision after decision evidenced the stinking realization that the guy is another sell-out, just when America, being taken to its knees and morally gutted by the Bush Junta, could afford the same medicine least! I suppose when other empowered minds see what many of us in this forum see, the sense of validation (and Truth) helps us to keep on keeping on, doing what we can to stem this dark tide. I fear its momentum is too great at this point to redirect. Thus the calamitous sum total of much karma will wash over our land, and already we see the beginning stages of this event. When the nation began to identify strength with destroying others (and seizing their lands, oh, so violently)... it lost its direction. SO many have suffered. Deconstructing the allegiance to Mars is a key ingredient in the collective healing required, that is, if our land is given another chance. When an entity is brought to its knees, it takes time for it to gain a capacity to walk or run again.
"No pyramid can stand when all its weight is at the top. The disgusting corporatists are hoarding what they can, but the collapse is inevitable."
Siouxrose,
It's just a matter of time before the money-changers' temple collapses before our eyes.
"From the Ruins, a new paradigm will ultimately emerge. This new paradigm will NOT resemble any facsimile of the STATUS CENTRAL BANKS current attempt to resurrect and IMPOSE a super-charged version of the egregiously false paradigm that has created the terminal cancer that presently engulfs the financial sphere......They have clearly and repeatedly failed their mandates OUTRIGHT. It is clearly time for ABSOLUTE and RADICAL change. It is clearly NOT a time for bigger and more powerful versions of delusional inefficiency." –J. Russo
Sioux Rose
GAIL: I follow your postings on the economics of our times, and appreciate your feedback. We certainly see the same diabolical misuse of the public's funds, and share the sense of outrage. Thankfully there are certain universal laws that work towards balance. If I didn't believe in that evidence, I'd probably move to South America and find some tribes to just do psychotropic drugs with... to gradually move my consciousness entirely OFF of this plane. I'd step into another world, with the assistance of shaman who practice and know that art quite well.
It's all about 'protect the corporations', the American citizen be damned. The country needs health insurance companies like it needs a larger hole in its head. We taxpayers aren't willing to keep coughing up $$ for corporate America just
because shareholders want periodic dividends. Let them find other areas of the economy in which to invest. Given time, the insurance industry will find ways to compensate for lost income in the healthcare department; if not, let parts of it fail. Financial Darwinism: survival of the most fit.
Good Article. Pelosi "Single Payer, Single Payer, all I hear is Single Payer, well your not going to get Single Payer". Dump Reid and Pelosi
"Dump Reid and Pelosi."
Won't help until we dump Obama. :(