Sioux Rose

KATHY: Sometimes I find it rather glib, this "everyone is where he/she needs to be." Like my sister a wealthy Californian thinks the basis of Buddhist philosophy is "to be happy." She has NO concept of the far-more demanding tenets of Buddhism! I have another friend I see as quite spiritual but also incredibly selfish. Her view of the Iraqi debacle, "It's JUST some karma playing out." She could care less. We have to watch how spiritual principles have been watered down and co-opted by this extremely materialistic, instant-gratification time & cultural milieu.

If "everyone is where he/she needs to be" was TRULY the case, we would not have the MIC as the chief employer in this nation, with war our most reliable product. Those words sound empty in the face of so much brutality being done unto others. To me it's an oxymoron to suggest a band of "progessives FOR the DOD or MIC." I think conscious souls must draw the line, and while human needs are basic, there are many ways to satisfy them. I do agree that we all evolve at different paces.

Thank you again BeForKids. The more details that get uncovered about the rot in the system, the better our chances will be towards better cures. I like what you wrote and I strongly commend you. God bless you.

Yeah, kindness like Obama is advocating for like covert air strikes on non combatants resulting in massive killing of children?

Go right ahead and be mean all you want. You're only insulting yourself. You don't know what you're really talking about anyway. There are some people on this forum who understand and show tolerance. Because I work for a defense contractor, to you I'm automatically "guilty". I didn't know that you progressives really believed in the French system of justice, guilty until proven innocent. I thought only rightwingers engaged in such hate mongering. If you would stick to discussing the issue instead of joining some who are engaging in pure hate talk, then maybe you'd be helpful in passing single payer healthcare. Insult all you want but you're going nowhere with it.

The best way for this private health care for all to work is: Just simply put a law in the bill making all health insurance companies not for profit. Their shares would instantly tank. Which would then make them crying for a .... bailout! That way they can't say no! We got the bastards between a rock and a hard place. Either go out of business(no CEO $50 million paycheck, the horror) or play ball and become a not for profit insurer. Other countries have not for profits running their health insurance. They still compete over the quality they provide. Any large organization wants to grow so they will compete.

There are usually 3rd party candidates in most Congressional midterm elections to choose from although they can be tough to spot until close to election day. If you want a candidate who best supports single payer and it happens to be independent, then just vote independent and at least give yourself credit for trying. Better yet, why not reach out to traditionally Republican, Democratic, or even swing voters and get the word out on the otherwise unknown candidate. At least you'll be one representative closer to single payer. And the more districts that go in that direction the better. Of course there can be uncontested seats too but if you can find someone to bring in the competition. No need to coin toss, wouldn't you say?

"As max points out, nowadays, we need technology. People who have an attraction to doing that work, as Max has, ought to be allowed to do the work and in exchange for that work, they ought to have enough. But what is enough?"

Thank you for finally understanding my side of the story. I don't want to get into personal arguments but I just wanted to find a better way to help reframe the issue of single payer healthcare. As a matter of fact, we need to get into the practice of reframing every issue so that we can reach out to various people. Yes, I do love computers and programming but I also know that with the current economic situation, the choices aren't very many. I've read some of the choices that have been pointed out and I respectfully disagree with them because in my case, those are extreme solutions. They can show their personal hatred against me and I'm fine with that and understand their anger and frustrations. However, if they don't want to understand that even us defense contractors and soldiers are also calling for better ideas such as single payer healthcare and not want to forge new allies, I offer my condolences to the demise of single payer healthcare legislation. Yes, soldiers do have great healthcare too but even that has its limits which I shall not discuss here. It does not matter who we are or what we work for. When more of us call for single payer healthcare, then it is time to lay aside our differences and unite like soldiers and march forward. Martin Luther King Jr. would be advocating the same thing on single payer healthcare were he alive today. Good luck.

"At some point, ideals bend; but at some point, practicalities cease to be practical."

Or maybe practicality becomes an ideal in and of itself. It is a tightrope act, to be sure. I personally can't judge anyone too harshly for the most part. We're not all marching at the same pace and the same distance. I do still think there is a scale of complicity and that this scale matters a great deal. We're all complicit, but we're not all guilty (if that makes any sense).

Agreed, never have I've sen so much totally off-topic bickering in my life - why isn't the webmaster deleting this stuff?

Oh, but criticize ___ 's banning of critcs of Obama, and your post is gone and you have an IP address ban slapped on you.

But back to the topic. Assuming this healthcare plan is the one that goes forward, there will be resistance of it from the right - who will not tolerate the government telling them what to do. I find it repugnant, but are we going to have to join the right in opposing it?

"Every single one of us could opt out of the system and it wouldn't make a scrap of difference. We're such a small minority that the Masters of the Universe could care less. What they do care about is the majority. And they keep a close eye on how restless they are getting. If needed, they throw some scraps. Their greed will eventually take them down, and us with it, since there won't be anything left to steal from us."

At least you understand the problem unlike some of the others on this thread.

"It's like we're trying to tow a boat and we're out there swimming pulling on our ropes, and all going in our own directions. And the boat sits there, not moving. But each of us is trying to survive as best we can. Let's be tolerant of each other and focus on creating solutions."

We can all agree to that fact that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Four years ago I asked the same questions about discipline in the Democrats, progressives, and liberals and yet I could never get an answer let alone a good one. I always thought that the issues actually have to do with each other. For example, how can we even imagine having a single payer healthcare system when we're the only developed and industrialized nation with the largest in defense spending and just about all of our economy is a war economy? To create the right solutions, I believe that more people need to come clean and really admit who they are and what makes them what they are today as others have pointed out. We can only come up with the correct solution when we have more information on the problem deep down inside. Thank you for your understanding and your cooperation.

that's a really good point and I hope it doesn't get lost. you're right that the costs of subsidizing those of us who can't afford a mandatory plan is going to hit the tax bills of others. i'm not sure if that's what they're ultimately going to do, although I still want to not be so cynical to think that the Dems would continue to criminalize poverty in such an obvious, unmasked direction. They're usually more subtle than that.

The problem is that I don't see how a collective effort like the CNAs typically heroic effort is going to derail what looks from my position to be a fait accompli. I'm hoping Obama grows a sack and decides the latest insult from the insurance moguls is the last straw and really, really goes on the offensive. I just don't see that as part of his personality, and apparently, neither do they. It's a shame.

On the other hand, we probably need to start conjurring up some nice direct action spectacles to applied to the halls of industrial health. they could use a jolt to the nervous system.

Oregon Charles--
On nearly every thread you take the opportunity to throw in a plug for the Green Party. Nothing wrong with this--the country would be better off, on the whole, if people were voting Green rather than Democrat or Republican.

But I hope that you are fighting to push the Greens to clarify their political direction. In the past two presidential elections, they have essentially run left cover for the Democrats--running a cipher so as not to compete with Kerry inm 2004--the so-called "safe states" fiasco that led to a sharp decline in Green enrollments and registrations around the country--and in 2008 with Cynthia McKinney's de facto endorsement of Obama, as evidenced in the following:

Here is McKinney's semi-endorsement--more like a full endorsement--of Obama:

"On Saturday, June 7, 2008, Hillary Clinton announced that her 2008 presidential
bid is over, making Barack Obama the first-ever Black presidential nominee of a
major party in the history of the United States.

Congratulations to Senator Obama for achieving such a feat! . . .

Coming from Barack Obama, the word 'change' did not appear as just
another empty campaign slogan. It galvanized millions of people - mostly
young people - to register to vote and to get active in the political
system. The U.S. political system needs the energy and vision of all is
citizens participating in the political process. Citizen participation is
always the answer."

For the whole abysmal, obsequious, illusion-sowing speech (not a single sentence warning people of Obama's neoliberal tropisms or exposing his center-right record), go to the following link:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=node/10657

I love the Green Party but man, it needs infrastructure, organization, and unity.

David--
You state that the plans that mandate the purchase of private insurance require everyone to be in the same risk pool. As I understand it, the problem with such plans is that everyone is NOT in the same risk pool, as they would be in single payer. In a "pub-op" plan, the oldest, sickest, and poorest would end up in the public plan--the youngest and healthiest cohort would aggressively marketed by the private HMOs, because that's where the profits are. Hence the whole advantage of single-payer risk pooling: combining EVERYONE's resources (through taxation rather than private premiums) so that the healthy 80 percent pay for the unhealthy 20 percent and thus achieve overall cost efficiences not obtainable if these two groups are in separate pools. In a pub-op plan, the public sector, saddled with the sickest and oldest 20 percent, will incur unmanageable per capita costs and will be made to look unworkable. This is the sham in the making that is the Stark-Hacker plan: game the system so that the public sector founders, thus discrediting the idea of publicly funded health care for another generation.

A publicly funded plan can achieve real cost efficiencies ONLY through true risk pooling--that means EVERYONE IN--everyone in the same pool.

Donna--if you're still out there reading comments, I'd be interested in your comments on this as well.

The good Doctor's position is to be commended. It is an awkward sense of mis-timing, we think we are in this together. Then the negativity of the 'controllers' stretches human thinking into hateful self orientation or some damnable thinking process that divides us. Especially on this issue.

I salute the writer, a nurse, on her stand. I support the Doctor here, Sioux Rose, the poor guy who was victimized, verbally, by a red neck and even Mr. More in his defense against rather narrow view of 'Kharmic intervention.'

Peace, good people, I hope we overcome this 12 years of inhuman policy making.

What? You thought you were getting a change?

The challenge for all of us who believe healthcare is a human right is to engage those who sit by not acknowledging the damage that may come if our national leaders move even more deeply into protecting for-profit interests rather than the people they elected -- from all economic levels of this society.

It is not going to work to have some who retain their jobs and their benefits in this economic downturn simply feel lucky they have weathered the storm while others are drowning and then have those feeling lucky just bury their heads in the sand and wait for brighter days. To bust through that mentality, people have to know that what is being proposed will not keep them safe nor will it leave them undamaged.

Donna Smith, American SiCKO

Sioux Rose

DAVID: Good post. As a related side note, I have no insurance so when I go for a periodic gynecological exam, I am told I MUST get a mammogram. My own research indicates that there are many false positives, and early detection in my view does not guarantee any real longevity. In any event, I got all kinds of warning letters for not getting a mammogram. (I do the self-exam.) Same thing recently with a dental problem. Every time something happens with a tooth I know I'm looking at $1000 or more, so the dentist recently INSISTED on a full mouth Xray. I just wanted her to deal with the tooth problem I had. She insisted that for LEGAL purposes she had to see and study my whole mouth (presumably so she wouldn't get sued if something originated later). I told her I don't want any more bad news. As I shared after this event, she knew I was paying out of pocket but didn't cut me any slack financially, instead she told me to pray to God to take care of it.

I just wonder if this model of FORCED insurance is mandated and backed by legal muscle if we will all be forced into medical treatment programs and protocols that we don't agree with. This brings to mind how I feel about law, in general, in a nation that in my view has NO lawful bearings and champions force, killing, and all kinds of legalized business theft. What is legal--smoking, alcohol, guns, genetically modified unlabeled food, etc. all test the limits of health; but things one might prefer to do are often illegal or off-limits. In other words, given our society's morals and mores it is in NO position to dictate what health even means to many of us!

The whole thing disgusts me (forcing insurance), but then I am at a disgust threshold as wars are escalated, crooked bankers/loansharks/hustlers/Wall St salesmen are given boat loads of money, and all agencies of accountability are closed for a long out-to-lunch break. Are these signs evidence of a dying republic? I'd say so. And I tend to be an optimist!

And one more point: forced immunizations! The holistic health side of the equation regards these little potients with due disgust. Taking healthy babies and putting these concoctions into their immature systems, whoa! And who wants to explain the potential link with rising autism rates that are about 600% of what they had been prior to these delightful "health" programs. Anyone remember the 17 year old boy whose family were Christian Scientists and did not want him to be forced into a very intrusive medical procedure that would not necessarily save his life? It's the Terry Shiavo thing applied to all of our bodies! Pretty soon they'll decide which organs THEY wish to harvest since not having let the EPA or FDA do the jobs they were programmed to do, we are all exposed to countless toxic chemicals on a fairly routine basis. That means a lot of organ failure, or lots of mutations in generations born from a weakened gene pool. All this poisoning of Mother Nature will have consequences, and medicine has (with the help of its "Better living through chemistry" scientist cousins) caused a lot of it.

"The public isn't very attentive but I think they will realize mandated insurance isn't in their interest. Hopefully there will be a reaction to that."

Some of the public is what I'd call brainwashed and misinformed into opposing single payer and even mistaking it as mandated insurance or even socialized medicine. I wrote a post earlier on this thread describing my experience as a result of my wife creating her own colorful bumper sticker calling for supporting single payer.

On Obama, I know what you mean. I wrote a response to your post on Friday's article. I love a lot of what 3rd parties have to offer but have often been hesitant to vote for them. I came close last year but on Nov 1, 2008, my wife and I suddenly went back from Nader to Obama. I explained the reasons there. Don't take the voting too hard on yourself. You're definitely not alone. The only trouble is that when it comes to electing pols on the federal level, once voted in we have no control over them until next election day.

Thank you, BeForKids. Thank you for thanking me. I am quite frustrated and discouraged by this thread. I thought it was a great piece by Donna.

Thomas More, I went to the sites you referenced. Not overly impressed. The Dallas News story was interesting, but discredited themselves referring to a study showing private insurance costs at 7.5%. Even though it said an expert considered that estimate too low, the reality is close to 30% when you add the financial burden of providers dealing with insurers and that didn't even come up. As far as I'm concerned, that's slanting. I doubt Europeans are as unhappy with their health care as the story intimated.

The Cato story was full of vague accusations. I'm unimpressed by vague accusations not bolstered by any facts. Sometimes the right wing has good points to make. But not when they avoid discussing facts.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

The French system is awesome. But then again, they riot for their rewards. We simply hold out the alms bowl and ask nicely.

You want a good system, you're going to have to get dirty to get it.

Everyone on this list--please ignore this loon Eric Patton, who constantly counterposes the maximalist demand for a perfect society to any concrete struggle that can actually help people.

This stubborn ignoramus fails to realize that hundreds of millions of people in Europe and Canada benefit from guaranteed national single-payer health care even though they are not yet "parecon" paradises--they also enjoy many other tangible social-economic benefits that are denied Americans: paid maternity leave, a month's paid vacation, secure retirement, etc., etc., all well short of parecon!

Michael Albert, the founder of the parecon movement, does not indulge in this parochial, sectarian, counterposition of paradise to concrete gains for working people. In fact, Albert supported Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008. Now that's going TOO FAR in a reformist direction for my taste--but he understands that you cannot traverse the entire distance between point A (the status quo) and point Z (parecon) without moving forward on at least a few of the points in between. You win a victory, it emboldens the confidence of the working class, and they move on to the next battle, and so on.

Undermining concrete, winnable battles by counterposing the demand for paradise now, all-or-nothing ideologues like Patton prevent us from even getting as far as point B, much less point Z.

The Donna Smiths of this world, with their feirce, uncompromising activism around important, winnable battles like single-payer, are doing more to advance the cause of real oppressed people than all the pie-in-the-sky whiners like Patton, who fail to grasp the difference between short-term and long-term strategic goals, and the need to use victories in the former as a platform for victories in the latter.

Two of the chief proponents and architects of parecon--Michael Albert and Noam Chomsky--understand this. They support the fight for single payer and other concrete political/social advances without constantly counterposing maximalist demands for paradise now.

I'm sure Albert is embarrassed to have this crank traducing a great idea with his simpleton's black-and-white caricatures of reality.

Everyone on this list--please ignore this loon Eric Patton, who constantly counterposes the maximalist demand for a perfect society to any concrete struggle that can actually help people.

This stubborn ignoramus fails to realize that hundreds of millions of people in Europe and Canada benefit from guaranteed national single-payer health care even though they are not yet "parecon" paradises--they also enjoy many other tangible social-economic benefits that are denied Americans: paid maternity leave, a month's paid vacation, secure retirement, etc., etc., all well short of parecon!

Michael Albert, the founder of the parecon movement, does not indulge in this parochial, sectarian, counterposition of paradise to concrete gains for working people. In fact, Albert supported Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008. Now that's going TOO FAR in a reformist direction for my taste--but he understands that you cannot traverse the entire distance between point A (the status quo) and point Z (parecon) without moving forward on at least a few of the points in between. You win a victory, it emboldens the confidence of the working class, and they move on to the next battle, and so on.

Undermining concrete, winnable battles by counterposing the demand for paradise now, all-or-nothing ideologues like Patton prevent us from even getting as far as point B, much less point Z.

The Donna Smiths of this world, with their feirce, uncompromising activism around important, winnable battles like single-payer, are doing more to advance the cause of real oppressed people than all the pie-in-the-sky whiners like Patton, who fail to grasp the difference between short-term and long-term strategic goals, and the need to use victories in the former as a platform for victories in the latter.

Two of the chief proponents and architects of parecon--Michael Albert and Noam Chomsky--understand this. They support the fight for single payer and other concrete political/social advances without constantly counterposing maximalist demands for paradise now.

I'm sure Albert is embarrassed to have this crank traducing a great idea with his simpleton's black-and-white caricatures of reality.

Just FYI, I lost everything -- home and all -- to medical debt and bankruptcy. The only thing that qualifies me now as a member of any middle range group is that I have a decent job with benefits. I'll never be a homeowner again -- not enough working years left to repair the credit damage.

And, I will keep my income to pay my husband's medical care and keep him alive. And maybe I'll get cancer check-ups along the way. I'll work as hard as I can work to keep us afloat.

I believe everyone should have the basic human right of healthcare when they are sick. It shouldn't matter what their position or status in life is now or was before they got sick.

No bronze, silver or gold level human rights. No tiered human rights. Publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare for all is what I want and what would best serve the nation. And I'll keep working to make that a reality.

Donna Smith, American SiCKO

Ha! If you're keeping a body count score at home, I think we're kicking their commie tails! What, we nail 18K a year for lack of care! Let's see the pussy Europeans top that!

I'm surprised the GOP hasn't rolled out a "Health Care: It's for Pussies!" campaign yet. Or "Real Men Don't Need No Stinkin' Medicine!".

Come on, evolution. Do your thang!!