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Well, Well... Going to Healthcare Hell
It was Jesus Christ who is credited with saying, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." We'll see about that really soon. Our elected officials aren't really too partial to that comment by J.C.
Here are some truths we've learned:
Those who are protecting the profit-takers in healthcare will say or do anything. You know, the old saw, "Don't let the government get between you and your healthcare," they threaten as ammunition to scare you away from progressively financed, guaranteed healthcare for all - like those scary Canadians or Scandinavians have. But do you know what the reality is in Canada and many of the nations where healthcare is actually valued as a human right? In Canada, it is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison for a government bureaucrat to interfere in any way in a patient care issue or decision.
While here in the United States, we let insurance companies not only get in between our doctors and patients but actually block them ever seeing one another. This week we heard testimony in a Congressional committee that the insurance companies our President and Congress want so desperately to protect have no intention of stopping the practice of policy rescissions. Rescissions happen when you get sick, file an insurance claim and then the insurance company searches your records to find reasons they would have denied you coverage before your illness and then retroactively drops your coverage. And their favorite targets? The committee found, according to the Los Angeles Times, "WellPoint's Blue Cross targeted individuals with more than 1,400 conditions, including breast cancer, lymphoma, pregnancy and high blood pressure." Ugly stuff. And talk about getting between you and your doctor...
And while we're looking to enhance these companies by awarding them the business of every American by forcing purchase of their products as mandated in law, take note that women are still targets. Last month in a Senate hearing, the insurance industry said if all of us have to buy insurance they'll stop discriminating against women in the charging of premiums and the determinations of claims payment and pre-existing conditions. Wow. They'll stop killing and injuring women if they get their way and 47 million new customers forced to pay up.
In the bill released by the Senate HELP committee last week, I noted that the Indian Health Service will be exempted from the new law proposed. Really? Guess we just have to make sure those lousy, sickly Native Americans don't actually end up in someone's healthcare insurance pool using benefits to get care for chronic diseases when we can just more easily keep them covered by the seriously underfunded Indian Health Service. Horrible stuff.
And in Senator Baucus' committee, Senate Finance, they'll be OK with it if insurance companies only charge up to five times as much for age-related rating of premiums. Wow. That's shocking, and I'll bet most older people don't even know that their Congressional members are considering allowing that to be done to them. Fives times as much to be paid by older people for health insurance - and no promises about denial of claims or policy rescission. Sweet deals are being made all over the place for everyone but you and me and our neighbors and friends.
It's healthcare, human rights hell, and it going to get worse unless and until we stand up more loudly and clearly for what most of us were taught by our parents about what is decent and what is right. This Congress cannot act on our behalf as decent Americans - apparently - without our righteous demands on behalf of one another.
Step up. Stand up. Speak up. People with cancer, women, and minorities... are you feeling lucky you aren't in one of those groups? Watch out. Tomorrow could be the day you need care and your newly empowered insurance company says, "Go to hell." And your emboldened elected officials who failed to act say, "Sorry, we couldn't pass real reform. Maybe next time."
The time is drawing closer when the Rose Garden ceremony will only feature those who built this purgatory for so many of us and aim to take it a few levels deeper.
- Posted in
66 Comments so far
Show AllOkay, I'm pissed.
Instead of just pissing away here on CD, however, I did one little thing - I signed Bernie Sanders' Single Payer petition (below). And, I will be contacting my con-gress people to demand Single Payer.
Will they be enough? No, they won't be as long as I'm the only one.
To sign the petition: http://tinyurl.com/lfo473
When contacting your electeds, be unequivocval in telling them that this issue is a deal breaker. If they don't support single-payer, they will not get your vote, no matter how many boatloads of pork they bring home.
Congress knows they won't be voted out of office. Take something real away from them - their government-paid health care. If we can't have gov't paid health care, then Congress should not have it.
March on Washington: No More Health Care for Congress until we have Single Payer Health Care for All.
A bas la Bastille!
"Take something real away from them"
Such as their closest ones and hold them up for ransom. Better yet, throw them in JAIL and do to them what Robocop did to criminals.
Ray, this is a smart post, and I agree entirely.
Let's think of how health insurance affects each of us, both positively and negatively. I'm sure we can all come up with a laundry list of problems with the current system, if we're lucky enough to have insurance, that is.
Health care and insurance are the issues of the day. If we ignore this, we will pay dearly and personally and financially. Think of the many ways we are held hostage by our health insurance system, the many ways that it keeps us locked into a dying model. It's bad. It's worse than bad, it's suicidal.
I am willing to tell my electeds that I will not vote for them unless they support single-payer universal health insurance. If they don't, then they are working against me. I don't need that!
Let's focus for once! Think of the reforms that people in Iran and Argentina have forced their "leaders" to take up. This should be a piece of cake for us. Are we citizens or just a little whipped cream on top of the cake?
I let the folks at whitehouse.gov know how ineffective their reform plans are.
I just sent a reply to an e-mail from David Plouffe.
I wrote:
I support ONLY Single-Payer Health Care.
It is the ONLY type of Health Care that has been proven to work. It saves lives and money. It creates jobs.
Health Care MUST be taken out of the hands of the Insurance Industry.
Members of Congress who accept funding from Health Insurance & Pharmaceutical Companies have a Conflict of Interest. They refuse to do what is BEST for ALL Americans. Corporate America is not what the people want. Those writing the legislation have their hands in the Corporate Cookie Jar, and the people know it. Insurance companies have been screwing up Health Care Reform for over 50 years. Their motivation is nothing but GREED.
I support HR 676.
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I send daily e-mails to the White House demanding Single-Payer.
Other Industrialized Countries have adopted Single-Payer BECAUSE IT WORKS!
What is more pathetic--the lies told by those who want to protect private insurers or the public that is so confused, misinformed that it is willing to believe the lies. For months I wore a Single Payer button only to be subjected to insulting jabs by those who knew what it meant and by inquiries from others who had no idea of what it meant. The American public- frozen in its ignorance and prejudice. It's not surprising that private health care insurers prey on them. I'm out of compassion or empathy--the brain dead American public-- you deserve what you get.
I understand your frustration, but unless you live in another country you're getting it too. Do you deserve it?
Don't give up. There is more you can do. Sign the petition above and write, write, write to everyone, including the "brain dead American public." Maybe your letter to them will wake a few of them up.
I agree with you totally, tammons. Because Americans are too busy with the necessity to make money and to be entertained, they have failed to notice that their country is the most corrupt empire on the face of the planet. This willful ignorance of the facts can only lead to their enslavement.
On another post I pointed out that the executive branch could call for a state of emergency and take whatever they like from us the people, and relocate us to work camps. It seems to me that fascism didn't die, it just moved to America after WWII.
If these bastards in Washington get their way, we the people are going to be FORCED to buy health care insurance from private corporations. If we let this happen, what are they going to FORCE us to buy next?
This is not the America we grew up in. What happened to the land of the free and home of the brave? We seem to be severely lacking in those qualities today. We should be tarring and feathering our representatives for even thinking about writing these obscenities into law. But with this latest boondoggle, the consumers will be forced to directly subsidized sections(those favored by the powers that be)of the economy that are not doing well. This disgusting mix of socialism and capitalism marries the worst aspects of these economic systems into one hellish form of government.
If there is a God I hope he will be merciful and deliver us from this horror the government is creating. Obama seems to be giving W a run for the worst president ever.
When I think of Obama and his approach to health care, I'm reminded of Pontius Pilate and his handwashing ceremony.
One of the first things we need to do is stop the train- wreck that Congress will be foisting on us.
Why do we need legislation by the end of summer?
One of the tenets of the "shock doctrine' is to strike while the people are confused and disorganized. Obama and Congress are moving as fast as possible - Why??
EVERY American should be involved in the process. There should be education and discussion in every community. All representatives of the people should be at these meetings where they should clearly explain their position.
Legislation should be moved to next year - just prior to elections. Representatives who do not respond to the people should be voted out of office.
The American Public should also be educated to the PNHP proposals - HR 676 is an admirable political solution but leaves too much power in the hands of the President, the Secretary of Health and directors and committees that are appointed by the POTUS or his appointees.
The PNHP Plan is run by the people - not by politicans. The administrative aspects of Single Payer must be made crystal clear - as with Canada - political interference whould be a felony crime..
So how do we slow down the train wreck-
Ask you Congress Critter why the hurry?
ducksawce: "Why the hurry?": Your own post answers your question; and most succintly: because the "shock doctrine" mandates the hurry, get em while they're confused. By design or not, Americans are about as confused as people could get about "health care reform" as the words are mouthed by those prepared to rape us once again. Some here have blamed opposition to single payer on a "brain dead" public, but look at who have murdered their brains in the interest of neo-liberalism's relentless agenda of wealth transfer to the wealthy. The only antidote I see to this, as I think you would agree, is an agenda composed of three items: educate, educate and educate! I think your idea of delaying health care legislation is a great one, but only if we're willing and able to undertake the project of "education and discussion" about which you are talking.
I think everyone should commit to memory the following extracts from the Bernie Sander's petition
"The United States spends $2.3 trillion each year on health care, 16 percent of its Gross Domestic Product"
"Americans spend $7,129 per person on health care, 50 percent more than other industrialized countries, including those with universal care"
He's right. And if anyone thinks single payer will fix that, I have a bridge to sell.
In 2000, probably the truest words ever spoken by a politician were from John McCain. To paraphrase, he said we could never even start to fix any of our problems including Social Security and health care, until we resolved the systemic problems. He was talking about campaign finance but that was insufficient and probably unnecessary. The real campaign finance reform is far more extensive and probably involves a constitutional amendment, just in case the "corporate personhood" case does not reverse precedent.
But single payer HAS fixed that--in all the other industrialized nations of the world, all of which have HALF the per capita health care costs of the U.S. because they employ variations on nonprofit, single-payer systems.
There's all manner of obfuscation and diversion abroad on this subject, and cassandra's post is a sterling example of both.
No. Other systems were established before the medical monopoly had the kind of control it does now. It is also doing its best to undermine the systems that exist. Recently in Germany they confdiscated a shipment of garlic capsules at the border and arrested the driver for smuggling drugs. The courts threw it out but this is where they are taking it. Want to try lowering your cholesterol with garlic? You are not a doctor, you can't do that. You must go to a doctor.
This is coming from the World Health Organization which is controlled by the monopoly.
Seen all the news about the evils of nutritional supplements. This is all orchestrated. My Congressman wrote me that we can't let people treat themselves or words to that effect.
Health Care reform is analogous to the history of slavery in
in the USA.
Slaves were first imported in the early 1700's. It took 160 years, plus a Civil War, to to eliminate legalized slavery. It took another century for blacks to gain civil rights.
Universal health care was first proposed by Theodore Roosevelt in the 1900's. Then it was introduced by FDR in 1934 and was not implemented. Then by Truman, LBJ, Clinton, and now Obama.
The point is that you must take the long view in attempting to obtain a universal, equitable, health care program. Health care for your great grandchildren might be possible. Health care now?-no way! A 150 year time line is apprpriate. Patience, folks, patience. Think 2150.
I hope this comment is satire, DD. This isn't like slavery. Why should it take 150 years to achieve what the rest of the developed world already has? Write, call, take it to the streets!
I agree, GreenDragon. I am in my late 40s and have no children or grandchildren. While I'm not so selfish as not to wish good things for future generations, why should I have to wait another 18-20 years (if I live that long, and Medicare is still around) for coverage?
I don't WANT health insurance. I'm getting tired of people saying I should find a job with health coverage (as if they're so easy to find, and health insurance is the answer). Short of moving to Canada, I'm not sure what else to do. I've already written and spoken to my Congressmen and did not feel any better. They will NOT support Single Payer.
Exactly GD.
There is no need to re-invent the wheel.
What a bunch of scared rabbits!
Get off the potty & get Single-Payer done.
Ob's only proposing a public option, and only kinda-sorta.
A law proposing that people be required to purchase provides not care nor insurance but a fresh tax.
Ob's only proposing a public option, and only kinda-sorta.
A law proposing that people be required to purchase provides not care nor insurance but a fresh tax.
Wellpoint, the company with 1400 ways to dump their customer, is an "independent licensee of BCBSA." who has the contract for federal employee's care with "premium income exceeding $18 billion..." I pass this along, in solidarity with the caller in to C-Span this morning who had the $5000 deductible each for herself and her husband. I had to give up my "insurance" even with my $7500 deductible after the recession dropped my income. Like me, she said SHE COULDN'T AFFORD TO USE HER "INSURANCE." And, if I had ever become sick or seriously injured, they would have dropped me anyway. 1400 ways!
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BCBSA is made up of 39 independent, community-based and locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies collectively providing healthcare coverage to more than 99 million people - nearly one in three of all Americans.
Senior Vice President, National Programs
Steve Gammarino is Senior Vice President, National Programs for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), a national federation of 39 independent, community-based and locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies collectively providing healthcare coverage for more than 99 million people - nearly one-in-three of all Americans.
Gammarino oversees BCBSA's Federal Employee Program (FEP), which administers the largest privately underwritten health insurance contract in the world - serving more than 4.5 million active and retired federal employees, and with premium income exceeding $18 billion. Under Gammarino's leadership, FEP has gained more than 1 million members since 1995, and now has more than 55 percent of the Federal market.
http://www.insuranceusa.com/directorymanagement.php?id=Blue_Cross_Blue_Shield
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*&%^$ Baucus and every other member of congress who cannot hear what we are saying because they've got checks stuffed in their ears. Shame on congress!
Actually, we're already in the middle of healthcare hell. I'll tell you one thing though. Out here in Witchita, KS gun sales and gun training are booming. What does this have to do with healthcare you ask? If we had a government that actually cared for its people and would stop bullying its citizens or making it too easy for big corporations to do so, there'd be far fewer vigilantes having to do the counter bullying. The Democrats in Washington have been learning lessons from DLC hacks on state and local levels. Believe it or not, Obama is like Kathleen Sebelius but with an even more conservative streak. If Sebelius were governor today instead of HHS, she would no doubt be competing with Obama to out-rightwing him. If anyone wants to march to Capitol Hill and put single payer on the table, I suggest being armed to counter-bully the MFers.
Kyle, although you are evidently more cultured than your mentally disturbed brother NebraskaNathan1, it would be foolish to believe packing to a DC Rally will end in any way other than tragically. And if a bunch of well trained yellers and angry packers arrives in DC to show the MFers they ain't gonna take no more shit... They'll be quickly reduced to dead bodies and prisoners.
Come on man, rise up. Our revolution is not a violent one. Democracy doesn't come from the barrel of a gun, but by people banding together peacefully and constructively. And it can be a lot of fun too, working together like that for a common dream. But violence only leads to more violence. It actually makes change harder to come by. It only makes the government respond in kind.
So, put your gun down and unload it, take it apart, put it back in it's case and stow it in the top shelf of your closet. Or better yet, in a locked safe. Put the key in a pair of socks in your sock drawer. There ya go. Now, go back outside and enjoy the fresh breezes coming across the fields. Look how everything is growing so nicely. It's going to be a good harvest this year. I can feel it in my bones.
Yeah, I was a bit too pissed off to see the way health care reform had to go down in smoke like this and yet this same Congress has the nerve to vote for more war funding. And then there's Obama planning to enlarge big government on federal reserve and more spying powers. With reference to your last paragraph, this is why I believe we need to counter bully. We can't take anything for granted. If you don't think that government ain't gonna support privatizing every thing critical to our lives including the air we breathe, guess again. There's too much at stake and having putting up with the worst bullies in life, I don't feel like taking chances too easy. I had to ward off a couple of bandits last night who almost kidnapped my wife and I couldn't count on the cops to come in real time but the cops are a long distance away and there's no telling how professionally killer the bandits are. I didn't kill anyone but they were scared as soon as I chased and hunted them down before they got away. Likewise, our government is the worst form of banditry and I don't think we can afford to ignore that fact. Even as we speak, they're still working on dozens of bills to kill what's left of us small farmers out there while continuing to maintain the agri-business bullies. I apologize for my paranoia but please bear with me while I get through all this. Thanks though.
P.S.: I might not have been so paranoid in life if I hadn't been bullied too often and punished for being nice. However, that's not to say that I necessarily endorse violence first. I'll only do it as the very last resort. Looking at the way the advocates of single payer were bullied into arrest by our reckless lawmakers, they reminded me of not only my bullying brother but similar and even tougher bullies I had encountered in life.
Well, in that case, keep it under your pillow. But make sure the chamber is empty before you go to bed. Good luck.
Thanks for your continued work Donna Smith. I hope we can all get on board and support your efforts on behalf of all of us.
Single payer is the best solution -- but we've never had a strategy to win it. We certainly don't have a strategy to win it this year. Ask Bernie Sanders, the sole supporter of the single-payer bill in the Senate:
"The American people have got to weigh in on this debate--get involved in this struggle -- to say at the very least we want a strong public plan option." interview in The Nation 6/4/09
"I am sure that there are some single payer advocates who think the only thing worth fighting for is single payer. What I have also introduced, which we will be fighting for, is a five-state option. That would mean five states would have the option of running pilot programs in universal health care but one would have to be single payer .... In my view, if you had a level playing field and a public program and a private insurance program providing the same level of benefits, people would come into the public program because the public program would be substantially more efficient. I think we can make that case, and I will advocate for it in the legislation." interview in the Washington Post 6/5/09
Fear is a powerful tool in the hands of health reform opponents like the giant insurance and drug companies. Single payer allows them to claim that something bad and unknown is going to happen to your health care.
Here's a way to think of the public option. Imagine the US Postal Service just served government offices -- municipal, state, federal. The rest of us get our mail through UPS, FedEx, Mailboxes Etc. and others -- and we have a lot of complaints about their prices and service. We see the government getting good service at good rates, on our dime. We want in -- we want the public to have the option to use the USPS, with all its benefits of greater scale. UPS, FedEx etc fight it of course, but they don't get a lot of sympathy from their home or business customers -- people are tired of their high prices and lousy service and look forward to having a choice -- and if they don't improve service and cut costs, that's their problem and they'll go out of business over time. We win! We finally get good postal service like the rest of the world. That's the public option.
Now imagine that we try to replace UPS, FedEx etc with the USPS. It's the most efficient, cost-effective way to deliver the mail, after all, and we have all the evidence and statistics we could ever want. But the private companies this would put out of business are desperate, they call it a "Washington takeover of your private mail." They sow fear and doubt in the customers who like them, temporarily cut their rates, put out feel-good ads, raise fears of higher taxes, and enlist the support of everyone who's anti-government anyway. We lose -- again -- and are stuck with lousy private mail for another couple of decades. That's the single payer challenge.
For the first time ever, the public option gives us a strategy to, in the unique and messed-up world of US health care, actually win quality affordable health care for all. It's being attacked day in and day out by right-wing nutcases, Republicans eager to bring down our President, and chicken Democrats -- and right now the momentum is with THEM, not US.
The least we can do is give the public option a fair hearing, starting with the assumption that the people proposing it, many of whom have spent decades fighting for single payer, are not naive and see the public option as the first potential strategy to win we've ever had. Don't we owe it to all the people who don't have quality affordable health care (most of us) to fight hard for a strong public option?
The public option is being attacked by "chicken Democrats" because of the ample record that this entire reform is being managed for the profit of the industries who write campaign checks. In other words, chickens like myself believe that your faith is misplaced. It is not that I am too stoopid to understand the theory of the public option, it is that I have no confidence that the dems, even after having taken back the WH, the Senate and the House, have any intention of upsetting the industry applecart. I think the only public option the industry envisions is as a dumping ground for those unprofitable to insure. I think it is a trillion dollar increase in corporate subsidies. I think that Obama's duplicity and his appointment of people like Nancy-Ann deParle, who was on the boards of Cerner, Boston Science, Medco Health Solutions, DiVita, Caremore Health Plans and Legacy Hospital Partners, makes those of us who have not been at his table skeptical. Her obvious conflicts of interest are solved by a two-year abstinence from direct work on behalf of any of those interests. Not. Has it not been the single payer movement that has forced them to even pretend that they might deliver anything for the benefit of us?
No. We owe them nothing.
The Public Option is merely a "different" insurance product.
The problem is the word "affordable".
Who determines what I can afford?
An insurance company?
The government?
The old woman next door?
What if I can't afford to pay for a Public Option at all?
That leaves me still without health care.
Lily_otv , don't forget the big fat FINE. And if they can't collect, then is debtors' prison for you. Look at the bright side, at least you'll have health care then, and it will only cost you your freedom.
Notice how many people advocate a "public option" without having any idea about what it might entail. Hence "public option" becomes a vague, amorphous signifier of good intentions, so championing it is pretty much like advocating "peace and love."
We need to know the details of what you're supporting--would it charge premiums? Would it impose deductibles? Would it have to be self-sustaining, or could it accept government funding? Would it base its fees on Medicare, or would it have to offer higher fees? If you can explain the details of what YOU mean by public option, which variant of it you support and which variants you oppose, and how it would give citizens an advantage over private plans, please do so--in your own words.
If you can't, that means you have no idea what you're supporting, other than a vaguely good intention that means nothing. Public-option plans have been tried in five states, and in every case they have failed to reduce costs or increase coverage. The only PROVEN way of accomplishing both of those goals--based on a half-century of experience in the rest of the industrialized world--is a nonprofit, single-payer approach. For a detailed analysis of the pitfalls of the public options, please see the following:
http://www.commondreams.org/print/43440
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php#public-option
Yes Slavery vis a vis Health Care was mostly satire. Slavery was a moral blight which became intolerable. Universal health care is (or should be) a moral issue as well as a profit maximising "industry".
It would be easier to eliminate the Congress than it is to make them provide single payer.
Congress, to paraphrase RR, is the problem.
No, the problem is the corporate takeover of the Congress, The Courts, and the Presidency. We are in trouble because the relief for the problem is the Congress and they are bought and paid for by the Corporations. If this is not taken care of peacfully we are on track for a revolution. I real revolution. Fuck Ronald Reagan. Whatever that cretin said is BS.
300,000,000 citizen-slaves...550 government-masters...
600,000 to 1...
Exactly.
So, when you write your senators and congressperson to demand their vote for single payer as a condition of your vote for their incumbency, elaborate by telling them what ELSE you're prepared to do if they foist a private health insurance mandate on you.
Tell them that you will refuse to buy a substandard product ... one that, like as not, you will never be able to afford to use because of the outrageous deductible and the risk of claims denial. Tell them that it's tantamount to mandating that everyone own a car, whether or not they can afford the costs of operating it.
Tell them that if they attempt to enforce it with a tax penalty, you will refuse to cooperate with the IRS. After all, inmates get free health care.
"300,000,000 citizen-slaves...550 government-masters...
600,000 to 1..."
"A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves. Slave rebellions have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery, and are amongst the most feared events for slaveholders." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_rebellion
We don't have to use swords or chains or guns, just our whit and anger and computers.
What are we waiting for?
Single payer and it's step child the so called Public Option are dead on arrival. The DINO party isn't going to do anything to hurt it's biggest campaign contributors bottom line. LOL and we all bought the Change we can believe in line didn't we? At least the Iranians have some balls, we're all sheep anymore.
What do we name the new single party system for the United States? The Demobulicans or the Republicrats?
Who needs the anti-christ? We have Obama!
JOIN US IN DC NEXT THURSDAY!
June 25th
National Rally for Health Care for All, NOW
http://www.1payer.net/
No single payer - because (IMO) the lawmakers are beholden to the health insurance conglomerate for helping them attain office. And by the way, since what the congressfolks did is probably illegal, if we were to charge them on any of this they'd come back and put YOU in jail for saying they're criminals
Obama and Congress have now lied to gay people.
They lied about the wars.
They lied about funding science and new technologies.
Now they are lying about the one issue that got them elected.
Time for a March on Washington, but not for a single issue.
Time for a March on Washington to let people in office know that, like Iran, we will not be fooled with their lies.
Single-payer ain't gonna happen. Why? Because this is America and the motto is: I've got mine, screw you.
It surely won't happen if the naysayers carp and moan with self-fulfilling prophecies of doom.
Why not give it a fighting chance by DOING something? There are at least a half dozen first-rate groups out there fighting for single payer and making headway.
Don't mourn--organize!
Here are some options:
www.singlepayeraction.org
http://www.healthcare-now.org
www.pnhp.org
http://www.1payer.net/
http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/
Hope folks will watch this and spread it out and about... it makes the point well too. From Consumer Watchdog:
Pirates of the Health Care-Ibbean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk23AtoTzMM
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Thank you Donna for a very cogent view!
I am very disappointed in most Congress critters and particularly Obama for the sellout job he is doing.
His healthcare proposals are more of the same bs that we've been living with for years. It's more money for the "too big to die" health insurance corporations and far too little for Americans. We deserve all-encompassing healthcare coverage, nothing less.
I'll be damned if I am mandated to purchase something from these robber barons until Medicare kicks in.
These Senators and Congresspeople lie and protect the corporations and give Americans the finger.