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TechnoratiRx and the Single Payer
In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told an AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program."
Single payer. Universal. That's health coverage, like Medicare, but for everyone who wants it. Single payer eliminates insurance companies as pricey middlemen. The government pays care providers directly. It's a system that polls consistently have shown the American people favoring by as much as two-to-one.
There was only one thing standing in the way, Obama said six years ago: "All of you know we might not get there immediately because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we have to take back the House."
Fast forward six years. President Obama has everything he said was needed -- Democrats in control of the executive branch and both chambers of Congress. So what's happened to single payer?
A woman at his town hall meeting in New Mexico last week asked him exactly that. "If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense," the President replied. "That's the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.
"The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based health care. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their health care, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get health care from their employers and you've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy."
So the banks were too big to fail and now, apparently, health care is too big to fix, at least the way a majority of people indicate they would like it to be fixed, with a single payer option. President Obama favors a public health plan competing with the medical cartel that he hopes will create a real market that would bring down costs. But single payer has vanished from his radar.
Nor is single payer getting much coverage in the mainstream media. Barely a mention was given to the hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who came to Washington last week to protest the absence of official debate over single payer.
Is it the proverbial tree falling in the forest, making a noise that journalists can't or won't hear? Could the indifference of the press be because both the President of the United States and Congress have been avoiding single payer like, well, like the plague? As we see so often, government officials set the agenda by what they do and don't talk about.
Instead, President Obama is looking for consensus, seeking peace among all the parties involved. Except for single payer advocates. At that big White House powwow in Washington last week, the President asked representatives of the health care business to reason together with him. "What's brought us all together today is a recognition that we can't continue down the same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many years," he said, "that costs are out of control; and that reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait."
They came, listened, made nice for the photo op. and while they failed to participate in a hearty chorus of "Kumbaya," they did promise to cut health care costs voluntarily over the next ten years. The press ate it up -- and Mr. Obama was a happy man.
Meanwhile, some of us looking on -- those of us who've been around a long time -- were scratching our heads. Hadn't we heard this before?
Way, way back in the 1970's Americans were riled up over the rising costs of health care. As a presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter started talking about the government clamping down. When he got to the White House, drug makers, insurance companies, hospitals and doctors -- the very people who only a decade earlier had done everything they could to strangle Medicare in the cradle -- seemed uncharacteristically humble and cooperative. "You don't have to make us cut costs," they promised. "We'll do it voluntarily."
So Uncle Sam backed down, and you guessed it. Pretty soon medical costs were soaring higher than ever.
By the early '90s, the public was once again hurting in the pocketbook. Feeling our pain, Bill and Hillary Clinton tried again, coming up with a plan only slightly more complicated than the schematics for an F-18 fighter jet.
This time the health industry acted more like Tony Soprano than Mother Teresa. It bludgeoned the Clinton reforms with one of the most expensive and deceitful public relations and advertising campaigns ever conceived -- paid for, of course, from the industry's swollen profits.
As the drug and insurance companies, hospitals and doctors dumped the mangled carcass of reform into the Potomac, securely encased in concrete, once again they said don't worry; they would cut costs voluntarily.
If you believed that, we've got a toll-free bridge to the Mayo Clinic we'd like to sell you.
So anyone with any memory left could be excused for raising their eyebrows at the health care industry's latest promises. As if on cue, hardly had their pledge of volunteerism rung out across the land than Jay Gellert, chief executive of Health Net Inc. and chair of the lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans, assured his pals not to worry abut the voluntary reductions. "We believe that we can do it without undermining the viability of companies," he said, "and in effect enhancing the payment to physicians and hospitals." In other words, their so-called voluntary "reforms" will in no way interfere with maximizing profits.
Also last week, John Lechleiter, the chief executive of drug giant Eli Lilly, blasted universal health care in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "I do not believe that policymakers have yet arrived at a full and complete diagnosis of what's wrong and what's right with U.S. health care," he declared. "And I am very concerned that some of the proposed policies -- the treatments, to continue my metaphor -- will have unintended side-effects that make our situation worse."
So why bother with the charm offensive on Pennsylvania Avenue? Could it be, as some critics suggest, a Trojan horse, getting the health industry a place at the table so they can leap up at the right moment and again kill any real reform?
Wheelers and dealers from the health sector aren't waiting for that moment. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, they've spent more than $134 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009 alone. And some already are shelling out big bucks for a publicity blitz and ads attacking any health care reform that threatens to reduce the profits from sickness and disease.
The Washington Post's health care reform blog reported Monday that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina has hired an outside PR firm to put together a video campaign assaulting Obama's public plan. And this month alone, the group Conservatives for Patients' Rights is spending more than a million dollars for attack ads. They've hired a public relations firm called CRC -- Creative Response Concepts. You remember them -- the same high-minded folks who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the gang who savaged John Kerry's service record in Vietnam.
The ads feature the chairman of Conservatives for Patients' Rights, Rick Scott. Who's he? As a former deputy inspector general from the Department of Health and Human Services told The New York Times, "He hopes people don't Google his name."
Scott's not a doctor; he just acts like one on TV. He's an entrepreneur who took two hospitals in Texas and built them into the largest health care chain in the world, Columbia/HCA. In 1997, he was fired by the board of directors after Columbia/HCA was caught in a scheme that ripped off the Feds and state governments for hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus Medicare and Medicaid payments, the largest such fraud in history. The company had to cough up $1.7 billion dollars to get out of the mess.
Rick Scott got off, you should excuse the expression, scot-free. Better than, in fact. According to published reports, he waltzed away with a $10 million severance deal and $300 million worth of stock. So much for voluntarily lowering overhead.
With medical costs rising six percent per year, that's who's offering himself as a spokesman for the health care industry. Speaking up for single payer is Geri Jenkins, a president of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee -- a registered nurse with literal hands-on experience.
"We're there around the clock," she told our colleague Jessica Wang. "So we feel a real sense of obligation to advocate for the best interests of our patients and the public. Now, you can talk about policy but when you're staring at a human face it's a whole different story."
164 Comments so far
Show AllThere'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 of the people, 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 of the elite, 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, most especially the healthcare industry). 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 of the people, 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!” with the lobbies!!!)
Corporations control a predominant portion of all financial and legal resources in the U.S., including the medical industry... and government.
By Supreme Court decree, corporations have "personhood" and all the rights accruing to citizens.
The character of these corporate "persons" is defined by their charters which are limited to descriptions of their components, objectives, structure and planned operations. Unlike real persons, these legal entities require no light, feel no pain, have no conscience. The only real people to whom corporations bear even a remote resemblance are sociopaths. Very cunning sociopaths.
The corporate charter (granted by government) also shields executives and shareholders from certain legal liabilities and consequences.
Corporations make profits by utilizing & exploiting resources. The most exploitable resource in the U.S. is its workers who provide both the production and the market that generate corporate revenue. Thus, controlling the perceptions, beliefs and behavior of the workers is the paramount concern of the corporate community.
The ultimate gauge of corporate success can be measured in the concentration of wealth and power within our society. This concentration has been increasing at an accelerated rate for the past 30+ years. The corollary to this gauge is the inevitable expansion of human suffering.
Corporations currently control a predominant portion of all financial and legal resources in the U.S., including the medical industry... and government. The problem they face is that as human suffering and discontent increase, people become immune to the distractions and diversions (glitz, gadgets, fear, war, bigotry, demagoguery, etc.) that are used to manipulate them.
Historically, this dynamic reaches a critical intensity and the people revolt. In a democracy, the revolution is political and fairly orderly. In a non-democratic society, it can become bloody.
Currently, political change in the U.S. appears to be limited to cosmetics and rhetoric even as the populace faces declining financial prospects. Add to this the bounty of the Second Amendment and we could be cooking off some serious chemistry.
Our government's opposition to a single payer system has to do with Capitalism's fear of the one good example. The one good example, that is, of a collective effort that outperforms its capitalist counterpart. Which, of course, single payer surely does when compared to privatized health care systems. Whatever his reasons or opposing single payer, President Obama must know that the American people favor a single payer system. This, even though he told us repeatedly during the campaign that change has to come to, not from Washington. So it looks like we can't count on him, which means it's up to us. How? We rise up en masse, that's how. Only not just for a single payer system, for troops out now, for free public education pre-school through graduate school, for a peaceful and just world. What's more we have to begin right away because time's running out, what with perpetual war + global warming + economic collapse = doomsday.
Bullies will always fear collective responsibility and collective victory because they will fear that they cannot own any of it for their own pride. Capitalism didn't always go so far to the point of rewarding bullying. In Europe, there's some quasi-capitalism and yet single payer is out there so I would hold off on blaming capitalism entirely.
ATTENTION "Nebraska Nathan" and I wished I was free on Friday to nail you but here goes:
Hello there big bad brother. I know who you are and you're not untracable. However, because I'm nice enough, I will not reveal your name even though I'm happy to reveal mine. You think you can have fun badmouthing your ex-wife now my wife so easy? You may have had all your fun bullying me ever since we were born and you may have gotten away with framing me for the crime that YOU committed against my wife. But you know that I have come fighting back and counter kicking your ass no matter how many times you tried to sabotage our business. I have already cracked down on your fraudulent sales and I will not allow you to get away with allowing the agri-corps to take over our inherited farm as you are trying to do. Our parents made the biggest mistake of giving you all the inheritance while unfairly disowning me for being nice but unable to get married simply because of your badmouthing my record despite the fact that I was cleared of wrongdoing after my lawyer proved my innocence. And you can keep having fun talking about the way you had fun hitting my wife when she was then yours but I shot you twice in the back before you could successfully beat my wife to death in front of everyone. It's time for you to stop bullying others and you and me to have a real man to man talk, bad brother ! I know who you are and I may not have won according to you but I'm going to see to it that you don't get away with your scams. I have already busted 3 of your business partners and put them behind bars and don't expect me to bail your sorry ass out this time. I only bailed you out for your then wife but now that she's mine, your days of bullying our numbered and are about to be terminated. I'll be watching you !
All reasonable solutions involve single-payer. Obama's not backing it, presumably because he wants insurance $$$ for the 2012 campaign. By and large, the Democrats in the legislature are not backing it, and we needn't ask after the Republicans.
A bad federal system might be worse that our present quagmire: a requirement to buy insurance from private companies without guaranteeing health care to anyone. Policy holders will pay for ads, competing managerial hierarchies and legal teams, and the teams of experts who go to work each day to deny the public as much as possible of the coverage that they purchase.
Does anyone imagine that if employers are not required to provide insurance, employees will get the money that was formerly paid to the insurance companies?
Does anyone imagine that if individuals must pay insurance from private companies, the price of insurance will not go up?
Getting single payer will require action outside the legislature. For the present, I have canceled all health policies to deny the lobbyists money. If a public option comes in to being, I may purchase the public option.
If we are faced with a law that requires payment of health insurance to private companies, I will need a fair percentage of people willing to avoid paying it to make a similar commitment.
At the end of his PBS-TV program on single payer, Bill Moyers showed video footage from the Baucus/Senate hearings.
A woman in the audience, who's not a protester - possibly a reporter, somehow manages to ask Baucus directly: Senator, with so many people wanting to testify in support of a single payer system, why are you not letting them?
Right away, Baucus's face flushes and contorts upward in surprise and fear -- he's not expecting the question and it clearly throws him off-guard.
Intensely embarrassed and at a loss for words, he stammers the beginning of a response --unable at first to get a sentence going....Well. uh..uh..uh
His face gets redder and more contorted -- embarrassed at his own embarrassment apparently.
Finally, Baucus declares something to the effect: ... we just can't afford to waste our [political] capital on something that's not gonna pass.......and this [single payer] is JUST -- NOT -- GONNA -- PASS...
Baucus' disgusting committee performances aren't going unnoticed at home. They're being broadcast around Montana, and angry op-ed letters condemning him are in the local newspapers every day.
My suspicion is that none of the pro single payer protests will make any difference. The insurance industry will get what it wants.
But for me to believe that too cynically ahead of time........ wouldn't that be just like what Baucus is doing?
Medicare for everyone is the solution. Those now covered by and contributing to employer plans could share the medicare premium with their employers. This may require an increase in medicare premiums but would still be much less than private insurance plans. Canada's prescription drug plan if emulated would save a tremendous amount of money. The president and congress have to have the guts to face up to the medical institution/insurance/pharma complex. Indigent
and non-working poor people would be subsidized by the government.
Several groups are trying to show Obama how desperately we need single payer. One group is health-care now. This is their web site:
http://www.healthcare-now.org/
I hope some of you will consider going to these rallies being held throughout the nation May 30th.
I will be at the one in Pittsburgh on Friday, May 29th 11:30 - starting at the ugly Highmark HQ Building, marching to to the US Steel building - now called the UPMC Building and topped with the ugly logo** of the UPMC sick-person-extortion monopoly.
It is this awful corporate insurance-hospital empire that need to go, and single payer is the only thing that will bring them down.
**Mayor "Steelerstahl" needs to learn that classy cities don't allow big corporate logos to deface their downtown architecture. It is also a sad statement that the building that showcased the days when we actually made things at good union wages is now occupied by a firm who's purpose is to extort money for what, in the rest of the world, is a human right, and who's employees are nonunion, overworked and appallingly low-paid.
Oh my Barack, the sheer impossibility of it all.
We did it over here in the UK relatively quickly, easily and painlessly. But not without considerable resistance from the British Medical Association whose members had, up until then, been paid privately for their services.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Health_Service_(England)
Oh sorry I forgot, silly me, we didn't have a financial crisis to deal with did we?
No Barack, all we had was a country that had had most of it's major cities and industrial infrastructure half blown to pieces by the Luftwaffe; a population who were still subject to rationing of essential items like food and a huge number of ex-servicemen and servicewomen returning from a little conflict called WW II. You'll find that one in the history books Barack.
We also had a government of the left i.e. the Labour party who had a majority in Parliament.
But WE did it.
What's your REAL excuse Barack?
Thanks, Enemy of Empire, for the reminder about Britain. I have friends who insist it's not happening in America because we are in a recession. This is not a good time, we can't have Single Payer now.
But non of us are pushing for a completely "socialized" British NHS-type system - although I would certainly support it!
We are only pushing for a Canada style system.
Nathan reminds me of one of those who says quit ya whining, until he runs into trouble and whines louder than anyone else. Remember too, that you become whatever you compromise with. Compromise goes hand in hand with corruption.
My view on astrology is that there are definitely 'planetary influences' (just look at how a change of seasons on this planet affects you inwardly), but that only awareness can fully apprehend the meaning of their affects as a whole. All attempts to come to an understanding of planetary influence by way of the intellect alone without this 'greater' awareness are of limited value at best.
6%???? Mine - Anthem of Indiana (aka Blue Cross) - just went up 20%. I retired early - at 62 - and so that makes my insurance one-third of my social security income. And, I might add, that is with a $5,000 deductible and virtually no coverage for lab work.
Looking at TV or listening to the radio, you would think that single payer didn't exist. But out on the streets and sidewalks and in conversations and debates around the dinner table and on the internet, single payer is not only very evident, but very approved of. The issue of single payer health insurance shows for all to see how little the citizens of this land count. Mr. Obama has said that he needs support from below to be an effective president. But he needs to listen to those below. I'm coming to believe that Obama is just a big fat opportunistic liar, in other words, a politician.
Yes, we DO count very little - especially when we limit our expressions of discontent to grumbling on the internet, polite pleadings to our politicians, occasional polite, permitted demonstrations.
Should we be surprised by this? They are only going to yield when we put a real cost - in money, reputation, and their power to NOT acceding to our demands.
And I'm not talking about politicians and elections either, I'm talking about those who really runs the country.
This is done by engaging in disruptive activity in strong numbers. Yes, it can be nonviolent - as long as it is understood that "non-violent" means we can still shout angry obscenities and smash and burn the inanimate, nonliving property of the powerful.
Sorry yunz, smashing the property of the rich is more violent in their eyes than us killing each other.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I suggest that you study the recent case of the cop who killed Oscar Grant - peaceful rallies got nowhere. Only when the people rioted did Oakland arrest the cop.
It has always been this way. Study your labor history.
The time is now.time for change.
Teodoro801
go get im sioux rose! lot of plants and imposters here trying to drop the neo con bs here.
obama should give you a job pulling the weeds out of the grass so to speak. save him
some time to plant his own weeds. swanee nmlib know what your referring to.
perhaps when single payer comes along we can get our relatives brain transplants!
I don't think Nebraska Nathan is any kind of plant. He has described himself as a farmer. Probably out on those depressingly barren, undulating, treeless plains or one of those desolate small towns made entirely from sheet-metal Butler-buildings. Times are tough and he is taking his frustrations out here. He isn't ready to admit the awful truth about Obama that many of us cynical city slickers already knew. So he lashed out at those of us who criticise Obama.
I hope he isn't taking his frustrations out on his wife.
yunz, NN has never hit any wife. If he ever was married, she is either long gone, or lays into him w/ an axe-handle if he gets out of line. She shuts him up with a look.
NN is someone who tries to pull people's tails as another called it.
It is impossible to relate to-a sad, sweating little man hunched over a key-board reading other's posts not to learn, but to glean how to anger them, hurt them a little bit.
Tonight this man chose a woman. He fears women. Their inuition and strength. In the case of SR, knowing she cares about women's rights, is sensitive to these truths, he came up with the beating and burying his wife Fiction.
If NN still has a wife, he quivers in her presence, wets himself when she barks at him, and howls like a terrified infant when she picks up the belt.
Even farmers don't have to be this disgruntled to the point of even wanting to abuse or even kill their own spouses. I wish Nebraska Nathan's wife the best of luck whatever he does to his wife.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Just 4 months and Obama has the nerve to screw up like this? What's next in 4 months I don't feel like wanting to know. The worse Obama is doing the more haunted I feel that my vote for Obama is now a wasted one and that I should have listened to my wife and voted Nader like she did. Now I feel more rotten and stupid for blowing it. :(
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
I appreciate your honesty.
As a long time Nader supporter, I harbor no schadenfreude about how things are turning out.
- USAn, PJD and other nicks
It is truly amazing just how much fear Big Insurance/Pharma can have at losing any of its money and yet they waste millions and billions on misleading advertisements and lobbying. The corporate giants have really gone out of sync in misplacing their fears. For those of us who take healthcare seriously and I'll bet that it's going up in numbers at increasing rates, Obama had better watch himself because we will find out just what a liar he is turning out to be as president. We could easily call for impeaching Obama now that he has clearly lied to the public.
Everyone needs to tap into the OFA meetings Obama's organizers have going through the DNC. They've been getting quite an earful from the California meetings so far. Everyone here is telling them SINGLE PAYER.
Now that Bill Moyers has illuminated things from a leftist perspective, surely everyone feels much better. So can everyone please put away this distraction and re-learn to just go with the flow? Just winnow yourself back into the herd. If you demand that healthcare costs be cut by a factor of 2 or 3, that spells trouble, and you may find yourself without a job. Much better that you learn to accept the status quo like everyone else does, like your peers, your boss, your community "leaders", your "honorable" federal reps, and the latest "American Idol" and sports stars! Who's your favorite?
Bring America Back !!!!......Say rtdrury, your theory would work if everything happening in the last 5 months did not point to our Am Idol being a guy named George W. Bush. Not my Idol !
****Also, you've been in here long enuff to know "just going along with everybody else" is a REGRESSIVE philosophy not a Progressive one....
Anyway, just like Kim Kardashian says in her post below, you are just
being a Sarcastic !!!! Right ! ?
Uh, I am going to assume that this is just sarcasm, right? You're not buying into Nebraska Nathan's phrma bs are you?
Bring America Back !!!!............Moyers and Winship surely know by now our favorite girl Pelosi has said we will not get single payer ! Obama has renounced it by caving in to Big Pharma--Big AMA, Big HMO. Moyers and Winship need to be referring their listeners to the DVD=="Sicko" by Michael Moore, which tells the EXACT state of Healthcare in USA, and the reasons for it !!!! $$$$
***We need to nickname the Prez as Cave-in Obama, for he has already caved in to Big Telecons, Big Military-Industry, Big Oil (notice the price again lately ? ); and Big Neocon.
***Obama's DOJ obstructs each and every inquiry, investigation, and ongoing lawsuit focused on making Team Bush pay for 8 years of corruption and crime.
====So it was only a matter of time until we see how badly Cave-in Obama sells our Healthcare down the river !
In a very short period of Service , Cave-in Obama has shown he deserves only 4 Years at the Helm. It is being speculated that Obama has made the Neocons so happy that the Repubbies may vote to give him 4 more Years, after these.
Cave-In Obama is a one term wonder !!! A good Liar to boot !
I sure as hell wished we could recall our presidents and members of congress any time just like in CA where they can recall at least the governor at any time if not the legislature. At least I wouldn't have to worry about his next moves.
I do agree that Congress and WH are pathetic even on this issue of healthcare reform but recalling them so often might not always work out well. Sometimes the results can be far worse.
"I am a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program."
I surely will not vote for either Democratic or Republican candidates until we have it. Boycotts of their supporting corporations is assured.
I wouldn't vote for either one of them even if we did get it because it would take a 3rd party that's not Libertarian, to pass it and the Democrats and Republicans are beholden to the monied interests ready to tear it down were it to pass.
After reading this article and all the comments, all I can say here is what a day ! I'd like to thank all of you for nailing that SOB Nebraska Nathan1. His wife had better be on the lookout given his threatening to kill her.
Nebraska Nathan1, I'd be pounding you today but since the others have helped me out here while I finally had a chance to rejoice at watching Philadelphia, MS, once a racist place and the same place where Ronnie started his "welfare queen" bullshit that marked the day to economically destroying this nation, finally came to its senses and put their racism in the trash can and voted a black mayor in, I think I'll take a pass. Oh, and Thomas More was a little upset that I was getting out of hand swearing at you so I decided to ease my anger a little even if I still feel sad at yesterday's news. To make this short, you sound no different from Joe the Plumber. I'm getting too old to be keeping up with Joe the Plumbers such as you anyway.
You're quite welcome.
Actually, I did my bit on the Andy Worthington article; NN1 was also carrying on in his bombastic, bullying, overbearing, simple-minded, passive-aggressive way. Which prompted this:
_____________________________________
Your rhetorical style is remarkably similar to that of fellow demagogue Bill O'Reilly.
I guess you deserve credit for not writing, "My fingers are in my ears! I can't HEAR you! LA-LA-LA-LA...! Goddamn it, cut their mikes!"
· Yr Obd't Servant
NN1 does this all the time when he does show up that is. Once I made him apologize and even Thomas More felt that NN1 owed an apology to Red Rick and JenniferBedingfield for harassing them, god bless their souls and hope they can come back. NN1 gave an empty apology but still continues to beat on them even when they're no longer around. I can't stand it when good people such as RR and JB have to be harassed at when they already have enough hell to suffer in life.
I don't think I'll live longer enough to see us purging the world of cornfed retards such as NN1 but I'm passing the torch to the younger ones and letting them know of what to be wary of and my own mistakes in my younger days.
The biggest problem that I see is the fact that we do not have a "Health Care System" in the US. We have a health insurance system.
Health Care says that a person's health is taken care of and that includes preventative care. With the health insurance system currently in place, and likely to stay there, we have a system where insurance companies can deny care to anyone they deem to be too expensive to treat while denying coverage for the preventative care that would have taken care of the patient so they would not get sick in the first place.
I have called both of my senators, one of whom seems to think he has it all figured out, and my representative (he is new and not too corrupted yet) and the Rep's aides seem more amenable to listening to me.
Whatever they come up with in Congress, believe me it will not put their election funding in danger.
I agree - and though my representatives seem better than many - they have sponsored or co-sponsored more bills honoring industries and special interest groups than they have dealing with actual issues!
Insurance provides no Health Care and should be removed from the equation - health care costs have risen under insurance systems. "Cheating the system" is inherent in their set up. Both the individual and the doctor are clients to insurance companies - and neither is well served... while we worry about our health care costs, I know service oriented family care physicians who, after a decade or more of being physicians, have still not paid off student loans! It is costing prospective medical students upwards of $38-58, 0000 per year for each of the 8 to 12 years they must study to become physicians... often putting in 24- 36 hour shifts at little to no pay as they train... The people actually providing health care make less than the middlemen!
The Insurance industry exists for profit.
Health Care should never be about PROFIT.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
Have you called your Congresspeople? There are SP bills in the House and Senate. My Congressman has signed on to the House bill. My Senators (Kerry and Kennedy) are not supporting the Senate bill (sponsored by Bernie Sanders). I had interesting conversations with their aides, who were squirming and dodging and almost apologizing for their bosses, because they KNOW that Single Payer is the only answer to this mess. One of them said his boss really does support Single Payer, sort of, but the practical realities dictate a compromise. Practical realities being, I assume, the zillions of $$ the insurance companies are pouring into Congress to buy their compliance.
Oh, and Sioux Rose, thanks for being you.
My rep. won't sign on to HR 676; I asked about it and was given an evasive answer about how there wouldn't be any single payer "this time around" but maybe in the future it could be considered.
One of my Senators sits on the Finance Committee and totally ignored requests to include SP advocates.
Both Dems.
Sioux Rose
Thanks Opal. I'd do a poor job of being anyone else. (Thanks for the validation.)
I had already seen this coming last year when I campaigned for Nader despite the lack of support. Obama and his devils did one hell of a job hypnotizing 69 million. Notice how Congress and Obama eagerly pass bills on more war spending without any debate or negotiation, not that it would likely change the outcome, and yet when it comes to repairing our healthcare system which is sorely needed, Congress pretends "compromise" and yet panders to Big Insurance and Big Pharma who also stand to benefit from Big Military. Even on the issue of healthcare, it's all about appeasing the healthcare killers just as it is about feeding the peace killers when it comes to the issue of war vs peace. When in God's tarnation will the public wake the heck up and send both the Democrats and Republicans packing ?
As my good old friend Nannie, who I sorely miss, would say
We needed Nader in 2000
We needed Nader in 2004
We needed Nader in 2008
And we will need Nader in 2012
or close to something like that. I hope Nader or someone just like him runs in 2012. I can't stand Obama copying that spoiled brat Baby Bush.
And to the idiot Nebraska Nathan1, who the hell are you, a Big Pharma plant or something? Sioux Rose is correct to bring up astrology and if you even read your bloody history, you would have realized that she was correct all along as was Ralph Nader. Your wife should divorce you for the mean shit you said against her despite her kind help to wasteful scumbags such as yourself. Maybe then you'd see just how far your pathetic greed could really take you. Your macho egotistical bullshit will know no bounds until it hits the wall with a splat !
We especially needed Nader in 1996, when I first voted for him.
I didn't quite know Nader back then. I was still too much into Ross Perot. I proudly voted for Perot twice and Nader thrice after that. It sucks that when it comes to running as a 3rd party candidate, even a billionaire doesn't get very far. There needs to be some way of changing that.
Sioux Rose
FREDERICK: Thank you for the heroic defense! I would love to see Ross Perot buy some TV time to show the public with those elaborate graphs he used to illustrate where Arkansas stood (#49 in the nation on literacy and things like that) what's happening to the public's money NOW! Someone made threats on that guy's family that he's been so quiet lately.
As for the astrology, I am not always right, no one is... but the topic can sometimes lift vision and broaden our bases for debate. It is a profound field of inquiry that always keeps me in awe. Ultimately in my view it is a reflection of the Divine order, that same order that has water freeze at 32 degrees, and nightfall come at the predicted hour. There are very powerful rhythms to life that we have adapted to and evolved along with over many millennia. Any who think their being is only the separate entity the ego likes to defend in my view misses a great deal of the miraculous connections all around us. We are made of star stuff, and are all dancing in a celestial sea. Granted, some have better dance moves than others (LOL).
While continuing to clamor for single payer, we will also have to assume that the a force-everyone-to-buy-corporate insurance-or face-financial-ruin (Obamacare) Bill will be what ends up in front of the House and Senate sometime before the '10 election. What should we do about it?
More importantly, how will the vast Limbaugh-right react to Obamacare? Will they raise hell, in this case justifiably, over "big government telling them what they can do" as they did with Hillarycare? Or, will they, under Rush's and corporate machine's orders, oddly fall silent and quietly suppport Obamacare?
If it is the former, we need to be willing, distasteful as it is, to make common cause with the flying-monkey-right and defeat this bad legislation. If the latter, then we still oppose it, but our job will be impossibly hard.
It may already be too late for free healthcare for all - look at how the Medicare alphabet soup has already been privatized. But, if Obamacare passes in it's likely form, it will be the final blow to our chances for ever seeing free healthcare for all, short of a mass popular overthrow of the state and the institution of a people's social democracy.
Is there something bout my writing that makes it hard to follow?
I think everyone must have gotten tired of Nebraska Nathan1's trolling posts. I understand your writing clearly. :)
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
"Instead, President Obama is looking for consensus, seeking peace among all the parties involved. Except for single payer advocates. At that big White House powwow in Washington last week, the President asked representatives of the health care business to reason together with him. 'What's brought us all together today is a recognition that we can't continue down the same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many years,' he said."
I liked the use of the term "powwow." Obama reminds me of the peacemakers who would sit down with the Native American Indian tribes to convince them to accept "just one more treaty concession" and "everyone would be happy" and we would have "peace." The problem is that the insurance companies (and the rest of the corporate oligarchs, especially the banksters) are in the role of the 19th Century US government and settlers and the rest of us are playing the role of the tribes. I can see where this is headed.
There is perhaps no clearer symbol of the absence of true democracy in our supposed Democratic Republic than the disparity between the documented public preference for a single payer system and the executive and legislative branches of the federal govenment's refusal to even allow legitimate advocates (including many medical professionals) for that system a seat at the discussion table concerning "healthcare reform". It would be refreshing to hear Senator Baucus and his ilk just outright admit that they will not consider single payer because the insurance, phama, etc. industries just give them too much damn money that they are not willing to give up, which they would certainly be doing if they would come out in support of government-FUNDED (NOT government-run. Even if the government did run the system and did as bad a job of it as the "private" sector has, at least they could do it cheaper!) system.
At the same time perhaps there is no clearer focal point for unity in confronting the de-democratitization of America than the issue at hand. People who are affected by the ruthless, shameless profiteering of the medical-industrial complex cross all demographic lines. If we could unify our message and channel our resources and emotion, we would easily overwhelm all the billions of dollars in deceptive advertising and intensified lobbying that the industry could throw at us. If I knew how to do that I would say so right now. I don't, but I am ready and willing to show up and with similarly inspired citizens take a stand that might begin turn the tide back towards America as actual democracy rather than the pathetically crumbling empire that we are in our current state of affairs. Sadly, the hope promised by a "democratic" president and congress was false, and genuine change will not happen until We the People DEMAND IT!
Another opportunity to mention http://ni4d.us/ as a potential game-changer if enough people get riled.
Excellent points.
Demand it here. Demand it at home, at work, at the mall. Demand it everywhere.
What's moveon.org or George Soros doing?
"What's moveon.org or George Soros doing?"
All they appear to care about is raising money and just electing Democrats. I doubt that either one of them is taking this issue seriously. They're probably very well insured to care at all.
Obama is going to have to drop the MOAH (Mother Of All Healthcare) on us americans. Perfect antidote to Bush.
You can find Obama Central on the main line News Wire. This forum is for progressive. I see you are lost again. Do I hear an amen from your alter ego? Bush=Obama two peas in the same filthy system.
And just what exactly is the MOAH all about? I can't tell if it's really a perfect antidote to Bush unless I know more about it.
When I read about the tragedies of some of the people posting on this article and on yesterday's article, all I can say is our Congress and the White House have gone way too far in making government completely amoral and immoral. I was already dissatisfied with Obama changing his mind on every position before the election but like the rest of us 69 million, voted for him and allowed him to sucker punch him. I don't like to prejudge a president too soon but now that Obama has gone along with his party gang members to shut off any ideas on single payer, I shall make an exception. We need to find a third party other than libertarian if we're going to have a prayer at getting single payer healthcare passed.
I just got good news that the results of a recent biopsy were benign. I'm uninsured and was able to have a screening mammogram, diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound, and a biopsy all paid for by a free program for uninsured/poor women. After giving me the results, the doctor asked if I would be getting a job that provided insurance because now I should get this screening every year-- and the free screening program only covers mammograms every 2 years. If you do research about breast cancer, even though most tend to be slow growing, much can happen in 2 years. The research will also show that the women who are dying tend to be poor, African American women. I guess America's attitude is too bad, they were probably on public assistance anyway, not exactly contributing much to society.
I can't understand how we can allow 20,000 Americans to die every year. I can't understand why we should be expected to pay taxes to pay for Congresspeople, military members, retirees, government employees, etc. to have health care, when thousands of us remain uncovered. I can't understand how so many Americans don't seem to have a problem with a health care system that puts profit above humanity.
NMLib,
Just to clarify, the federal employee health benefit program that congresspeople and ordinary employees get, is not free. It is a plan similar to what a private employer provides - so you could also say that the price of your groceries are covering a grocery store employee's health insurance.
But you are correct about the most important thing being that 20,000 die every year.
Even if it is true that a majority of USAns are "satisfied" with their current employer-provided insurance as Obama says, (hell, if asked, I'd have to be honest and say I'm happy with my coverage), the presence of this satisfied majority is UTTERLY beside the point! That THOUSANDS DIE every year simply because that don't have the money is BARBARISM. The citizens on NO modern civilized democracy, and many "non-civilized" ones (free health care for the needy is mandatory under Sharia) would put up with this shit. That USANs, including their elected president DO tolerate it, speaks volumes about their vile, capitalist-indoctrinated lack of the most basic sense of DECENCY!
Sorry about for sounding so fucking angry. I am. Right now, I am entertaining a vivid fantasy of wringing Obama's neck with my bare hands.
NMLib, I'm very glad you got good news. I haven't talked about my own health care issues, but it makes quite a horror story. Try ten days at home with a broken hip so the hospital wouldn't take my home for starters.
As to your question, the answer is M-O-N-E-Y. If you watched SiCKO as the CNA/NNOC is urging everyone to do, you would understand why so many Americans are OK with the present system. They have coverage through their jobs. The insurance bean counters know what they're doing. For the most part they pay claims without a fuss, keeping people satisfied. When an extraordinarily expensive claim comes in, they look under every rock and find an excuse to deny it (an unreported yeast infection in the patient history or they consider the procedure experimental). But the press is complicit in their silence and the minority who have been cut adrift are under the radar. Most Americans are so preoccupied with their own lives they aren't paying attention to what is going on around them.
My oldest son pointed out that greed feeds on itself until the system crashes. And that's what's happening in the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) industry which has become the driving force of our economy. The whole house of cards is coming down. And as Sioux Rose predicts, we're headed for hard times.
I finally realized that Obama was offered up by the Masters of the Universe and supported by their media whores as a sedative to the populace which was getting restive. Obviously a temporary solution, so we must consider what is their next step. Well, for one thing, Obama is talking about closing Gitmo and bringing people into our prisons for indefinite detention without trial. Are American citizens next? We have a perfect Supreme Court for that.
Best wishes on your recovery. Monthly self exams are very important. You get very familiar with yourself and will quickly notice any changes. Include the lymph nodes in your armpits. You have to press deeply there.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Sioux Rose
BE FOR KIDS: Thanks for the nod. In really simple terms here is what shows:
Watch September 2009 (especially the 2nd half of the month): real destabilization shows up (some can be hurricane/climate-related)
Watch November: Big losses start to show up (maybe high gas prices again)
May 2010: Destabilization of "the markets"
June 2010: Some new upping of the ante on conflict, war or aggression and this one is "served" with either a new or unexpected twist. I would not rule out martial law HERE around that time or based on June fostering a "triggering" event.
I want to say that EVERY planet has a multiplicity of functions, and therefore when they form hard angles it is VERY difficult to know if the tension will take place on a climate level or specific event enacted among people. It's like "The Cosmic Weather Channel." We can see the approaching "storm systems" but cannot predict all of their effects.
Bfor, thanks for the kind words. And I do know that it's all about money; my questions were mostly rhetorical. It sickens me that our nation is comprised of so many greedy individuals who show such little concern or compassion for anyone outside of their immediate circle.
I'm fortunate that there is no "recovery" involved. Incidentally, BSE would not have helped in my case; the mass was not palpable and found only with imaging and ultrasound I'm back to normal, like most women, advised to have regular screenings. However,last year I had another health concern that, while not life-threatening, required major surgery to treat. Without insurance, I quickly learned how complicated and difficult it is to fund such treatment. Indigent funding does not cover doctors; thus, I was required to pay anesthesiology in advance or they refused to do the surgery. (The condition wasn't life-threatening, or I think they could not have made this such a threat.) Had I not had generous and caring family and friends who came up with the cash, I would still be suffering today from the condition. I am still paying the surgery bill but, thanks to indigent funding, at least I avoided owing the hospital $15,000 for my stay.
I learned during last year's lengthy recovery how selfish and unsympathetic some Americans can be. I actually had acquaintances who, learning I had no health insurance to cover all of my expenses, said, "You need to get a job with health insurance" as if such opportunities exist on every corner. Others, when I made my pitch for Single Payer, would tell me that if I wanted to live in a country that had universal health care, I should move to one.
We are witnessing the health insurance (a contradiction in terms with both words as "practiced" in the USA) & drug businesses desperately trying to maintain their most lucrative market, the USA (a cursory examination of any business publication articles on these enterprises will reveal as much quite clearly). They would loath for this market to go the way of what used to be a lucrative market, Europe, before single payer largely came into effect after WW2 & limited the amount of money they could make to merely just adequate instead of obscene.
My life-long Republican parents are convinced that with all the bail-outs, etc. that the government is "becoming socialist" and taking over the country. They look at me like I'm crazy when I suggest that maybe it's the exact opposite and it's the corporations taking over the government.
I'm guessing your life-long Republican parents voted for Ronald Reagan twice and GW Bush twice. That is, they voted to charge their copious government services to you (plus interest). Government services that include national defense, law n order, clean air and water, infrastructure and education.
Now that you're having some difficulty paying for their lives and would like some help with healthcare, etc, you're a socialist. What THEY did for themselves wasn't socialism, I guess, more like generational warfare.
Swanne, I can sympathize. My entire family is life-long (and rightwing, Rush Limbaugh-listening) Republican, blaming the rising cost of health care on illegals. I can't have an intelligent conversation with any of them.
Yup, same with my family, the exception being my brother Steve - and he has emigrated to Canada.
If your parents had said "becoming corporate socialist and allowing corporations to take over the country" then they would have made a valid point. It's unbelievable that even today, the die-hard Repugs will do almost anything to "clear" the big bad corporations of any wrong doing.
Sioux Rose
SWANNE: That's what happens when the 4th estate--the mass media--gets owned by those corporations who will profit greatly from emphases on bank bailouts, EPA requlations gutted, big pharma free to decide its own pricing, insurance ONLY allowed presence at the negotiating table, and of course, never say no to war! Gotta keep the MIC covered in loot! The voices of media (and many have been trained with elaborate PR tactics and all the tools of past expert propagandists) work 24/7 to distort actual policies and gather consent for what the public hardly understands. The best evidence of this point is how many thought (and still do) that Saddam was behind 911. These disinformation campaigns are not accidental, they are deliberate orchestrations of not only dishonest, but lethal impacts.
Yes, The Vampire Health system will not be altered in any way that hurts profits! In fact we are all going to be herded into these fascist TBTF Corps. arms by Obama and company and rates will rise. This failure will destroy Mr. Obama's credibility. he doesn't think so because he thinks Clinton got away with it, so why not me. Things are far worse now then in 1993, that's why.
Employers will love single payer; they no longer have to worry about health insurance for their employees.
Obama is dumping the countries' health care burdon in their lap, they should be furious!
Fix Fraud and abuse! Nobody in D.C. seems to be wanting THAT!
-Fix Fraud and abuse! Nobody in D.C. seems to be wanting THAT!
From the other side of the planet, I can google the US Green Party, among others who are explicitly promoting single payer (something the rest of the western world has had for decades). And yet your compatriots are still confusedly expecting it from the US Democratic Party.
Hey, I don't want some government bureaucrat making my health care choices for me!
What I want is an insurance company bureaucrat making my health care choices where they get a bonus for denying my claim.
Revolution is the only solution...
The bottom line is that insurance companiers are not going to easily give up their vast profits for the sake of putting money in the hands of public.
Our corporate fascist owned media ignores reform and embarks on a campaign of lies and obfuscation in order to discredit single payer. Who could have seen this coming? Rinse and repeat.
All the while, our president of hope and change increasingly appears to be hopeless and spineless.
Excellent synopsis of what's happened so far.
Mr. Moyers, we cannot let this moment pass. Please use your voice and scream these truths.
Challenge other media sources to report the issues.
If the American people favor single payer by as much as two-to-one then American democracy, our freedoms, must be realized.
"If the American people favor single payer by as much as two-to-one then American democracy, our freedoms, must be realized."
Are we really sure that they favor it by that wide a margin? If so, then why did we choose practical over extremes when electing our senators and representatives? While I am in favor of single payer, we have to be practical and realistic and learn to compromise. Relax and be happy. Our freedoms won't go away tomorrow just because we don't get single payer today.
Bill Moyers's piece states Americans favor single payer by as much as two-to-one. If you doubt this I suggest you contact Bill Moyers Journal producer Rebecca Wharton who researched this story.
Barack Obama was a proponent of single payer. I voted for Obama. It was a practical choice.
If you favor single payer then advocate for it.
Two out of every three Americans want single payer. If democracy rules then Americans should have single payer. If Americans don't get single payer then Americans will have lost their freedom, their rights, their power.
The time is now.
I'm sure Obama will get single payer passed. It just takes time and compromise. The silly Naderites on this forum are jumping like monkeys expecting him to pass it so soon.
Obama is now OPPOSED to single payer. He has made that clear in all of his recent public comments.
That you believe that somehow, despite his own explicit public opposition to single payer, Obama remains a supporter of it is a testimony to the stubbornness of your own illusions, to your perverse aversion to the truth that is looming right before your nose.
"Our freedoms won't go away tomorrow just because we don't get single payer today."
Tell that to the 50 million who lack coverage and the 20,000 who are free to die this year because they lack coverage.
Nathan,
The current plan will further entrench the privatized healthcare system and make any future attempt to get single payer far more difficult. So yes, this plan IS robbing us of freedom - now and in the future.
--USAn
50 million people in this country don't have health insurance. Thousands of people are dying because they won't go see a doctor. My retired neighbor had to reverse mortgage his modest home to pay for his wife's cancer treatment. Then she had the nerve to die on him anyway. I can see you hunkered down in your bunker fondling your Glock as you revel in your "freedom". Are feeling relaxed and happy yet?
As for our senators and representatives, it is clear that our two party system is run by people who are beholden to big money interests. The same is true of our media. There really aren't any choices. This is evidenced by our elected candidate of hope and change who now seems to be back pedaling on every issue he stood on. Healthcare reform? Maybe not. Justice department investigation of war crimes? Maybe not. US out of Iraq? Maybe not. The only change we seem to be getting is his political shape shifting.
None of these changes are expected to happen overnight. Obama's only been in office for 4 months so give him a chance to finish getting his job done. All this whining and pouting will only result in mental instability and higher healthcare costs. Relax and be patient. Change is coming. Obama and Congress are working the issues out carefully and pragmatically.
You remind me of the Seinfeld "serenity now" episode. Well adjusted adults don't go through life compromising. They go through life identifying problems and working towards solutions. Perhaps you were too young to remember the Clinton healthcare reform and how that was shit canned in a matter of months. We appear to be heading down the same path and the best you can do is give me a revival tent message of "have faith"? Don't confuse careful contemplation and calls for action with whining.
"They go through life identifying problems and working towards solutions."
And that will often involve making compromises and possible concessions.
"Perhaps you were too young to remember the Clinton healthcare reform and how that was shit canned in a matter of months. "
I was around 40 when that happened. Actually, Clinton tried to run that bill through Congress but it was too descriptive and some of it too liberal and controversial. Even Ted Kennedy and Nancy Kissenbaum tried to work out a compromise after Hillary's plan went down in flames.