What part of Insurance Industry Scam has no choice does Obama or anyone else not understand. If your Employer has a health care plan (even if you somehow like it)You still did not choose it and the Employer can choose another the next year and another the year after that. The reasons they choose it has much more to do with their bottom line than with your health.

Even then, even the most expensive plans have a limited "In Network" of doctors for you to chose from and most have massive red tape, to slow down care and increase copays to see any doctor at all and may deny the treatment the doctor proscribes as well.

All this arrives as a plague of Insurance Company Bureaucrats, that take 30%-50% of every health care dollar just to keep you from actual health care. Certainly no way to save money either.

Single payer to competing independent Doctors and "not for profit" Hospitals is all that makes any sense

To paraphrase the "Most Interesting Man In The World" , silver-haired fox of the Heiniken commercials:
"Stay Healthy My Friends"

Thanks, Helen.
For those calling for Medicare for all - that's not good enough. What about dental, vision, and long term care!

The current health insurance debate is the perfect example of what happens when one frames the issue the wrong way. Obama and the rest of the Washington elite would like us to thin that the issue is "people without health insurance" rather than "people without access to affordable and effective healthcare." Frame it one way and you get what we're getting: blather about insurance schemes, all preserving the industry profit margin. Frame it the other way and you get what we'll never get: universal health care (not insurance), probably on a single-payer model. Unfortunately, letting people with no health care worries make decisions about the health care of the rest of us is the perfect way to preserve the status quo and its bought-and-paid congressional hacks.

Most countries with universal health care or national health care function under a parliamentary system that functions as a representational democracy.

The most representational part of the US Government, the House, however, is barely under control, only because they have elections every two years and are more representaional than the Senate.

The Senate is the cluster fuck, with rotating elections every six years and stewide representation. Only one third of the Senate is uop for re-election in 2010. By 2012 and 2014, Universla health care will no longer be an issue.

Notice the log jam in the Senate where the health care indsutry can concentrate its funds to buy a majority. It's much easier to buy 50 or sixty votes than to buy 300 votes.

Obama fears the Congress, since he has been there and is well aware of the corruption and influence that controls it.

He does not have the balls of Roosevelt who had money and power before coming to the White House - or Johnson who was a hardass who was not afraid to grab Congress by the balls.

Obama is afraid of being a failure - not only the first African American president - the first African American failure as president.

His power resides more in the House, where there is more of a minority representation - more like a parliament.

Perhaps the US System is broken and beyond repair.

We are no longer a representatie democracy when 72% of Americans want Single Payer and Congress offers us Twinkes

I just listened to some of the testimony to the House on C-Span of Christina Romer, one of Obama's economics advisors. In a sing song voice, she (inadvertantly, I would hope) made a total mockery of the health system proposals of the Obama administration. Over and over, she states that the number one goal is to slow the growth rate of the cost of health insurance.

I'm sorry, but she is at least 35 years too late. It's no longer enough to slow the growth rate; costs are already more than double what they are in the reputable countries that have single payer. One specific example is that an MRI in Japan costs only about 10% of what it costs in the US. Anything less than about a 35% reduction of costs (and that's being kind) means a failure, meaning that the health care costs will continue to eat alive the health and economics welfare of individuals and of the economy as a whole.

It is especially obnoxious that even lower income people are being threatened with being forced to buy into the grossly overpriced private health insurance system, which is an especially fantastical notion. Were many lower income people to start buying it (or a "public option" at, say, 10-20% less than private insurance) many of them would be homeless and/or half starving over the ensuing decade.

Also, millions more jobs would be lost if this crazy idea were adopted, as small employers would not be able to pay for the "shared responsibility" of paying for the grossly overpriced private insurance (or for the almost as overpriced "public option").

Obama, you are a total failure on health reform.

It's about time for Axledick, "The Nation", Move-On, and the rest of the phony neo-liberal Obama crowd to bring back the admonition that, "even FDR wanted the people to push him to do the right thing".

This is BS.

Obama ain't going to push universal health care.

Obama doesn't have the guts to fight for anti-war sanity.

And Obama won't even mention the fact that our government is controlled by a ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire'.

Face it, Obama is no Senator Bulworth, speaking truth and taking-on the insurance industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ag_2dg8nI

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

Geeeze, you people just love Obama, don't you? Hey, I'd be running scared too if I was being guarded by the CIA and the Secret Service!

From a consumer perspective, anyone who buys US private health insurance would be regarded as insane by most people in the countries that have single payer, countries which constitute the complete list of reputable countries in the world. Aside from the way overpriced problem, no one in those countries would buy insurance not knowing, for example, whether they would really get a nickle of benefits when they were needed.

Obama running scared? Certainly not of the electorate. Remember when the F.I.S.A. makeover allowing retroactive immunity to the telecoms was in the House and Senate? When 90% of the faxes and phone calls comming in from the electorate were AGAINST this? Where was Obama? Cheerleading the Senate in favor of the telecoms and against the wishes of the population in general. This was IMMEDIATELY PRIOR to a presidential election!!!

Obama is a fraud, always has been. Accept it and remember it next election (that isn't meant to imply support for the republoonies.) Time for a new party folks!!! The other two have already been up for sale, bought, and paid for in full.

Thanks to Helen Thomas for, once again, being one of the few journalists doing her job.

A so-called liberal friend of mine argued with me about this when I asked, if the Dems are in control and the majority of Americans support Single Payer, why can't we get Single Payer? I was told it's too "radical." I mentioned opposition to forcing all Americans to buy health insurance and was asked, "But what if the government subsidizes it and makes it affordable for you to have?" My friend (self-employed and paying thousands for insurance, with ever rising premiums, copays, and deductibles) said that the health insurance industry is putting up a fight to anything Obama is pushing, so they must stand to lose money. I said I was opposed to the government forcing all Americans to buy insurance and subsidizing the industry (if they give money/incentives to people to help them purchase insurance, isn't that subsidizing the industry?). I told him I objected to all of this, because the insurance companies would still hold the power, deciding who gets coverage and what they will cover- what treatments, procedures, and medications doctors can prescribe. I asked why isn't Congress doing what the majority of the people want? and he said that they don't represent all of the people-- and seemed fine with that. Did I miss something, or does this sound screwy to you, too??

Helen Thomas ,thanks for your input it looks like you have got the CDers riled up nicely,speaking truth to power again.I like that you mentioned FDR and LBJ as pols with balls.Hey I agree, if you don't need the opposition to get things done screw em! And if Blue dogs are worried about dialing for dollars during thier next campaign,screw them too.If the guys that that "brung ya to the dance are just trying to screw ya" catch a ride home with someone else .Just because those lobbies helped pay to elect the President doesn't mean he has to do thier bidding, screw them too, he should do whats right for his country and his place in history will be secured.I think you are right about fear but the real victim of the fear factor is Barack Obama he is afraid of Single Payer private health care administered publicly to remove the greedy insurance companies from the equasion.Why does he fear success?Economically it is the only plan that will work,it's the politics he fears, but he will be known as being as impotent on this issue as Hilary Clinton if he doesn't acknowlege it soon.Thankyou Ms. Thomas peace

As a longtime advocate for single-payer health care, I am grateful to Helen Thomas for telling the blunt truth.

Single payer is being actively suppressed by the administration. We're arrested for requesting a seat at the bargaining table. Once, we were actually allowed in a meeting, but not allowed to speak - our representative had to sit quietly like a good child - seen perhaps, but certainly not heard.

There are plans being made for a rally on July 30th in D.C., for Medicare's birthday. The single-payer web sites will have up to date information as plans are made.

How can an administration that purports to care about the people contemplate foisting upon them insurance companies which refuse to give up their practice of rescinding, at whim, coverage to the sick?

We need to take our government back - hitting the streets, visiting Congressperson's offices, writing, phoning, faxing, e-mailing - we have got to get it through their boneheads that we're serious, and won't go away. We're going to be both seen and heard.

And yet, so easy to do.

Starting tomorrow, ALL citizens and 5 year legal residents are are enrolled in Medicare. Picture ID is the only 'proof of insurance' anyone needs.

If one doesn't care to partake, no problem - go buy as much insurance as you want.

Add a .50 tax to smoke and drink again, a special Thieves tax on the financial sector, and annual 'fees' for all US monies parked off-shore.

Meanwhile, everyone is covered right away, no new agency/paperwork required. Just more Fed staff to process, AKA, job creation...

In LBJ's time the people still had power. We had protections on free speech and laws to further truth like the Fairness Doctrine. We had no imbedded journalists, spying on citizens was verboten and punished, we never heard of rendition, high tech police surveillance of citizens, we had no No-fly lists, airport screenings and other government sponsored paranoia.

Reagan conservatives saw that to fleece the sheeple, they simply had to scare them. Zionists helped him, realizing that "never again" can be very profitable. Our Christian Taliban came on board to whip women into submission. Our business class joined the fray to better compete in the global economy by exporting jobs, eliminating taxes, health and environmental restrictions and by removing most regulations. The MSM helped their affiliates by forming public opinion to their advantage and to public detriment. And the working poor voted Republican, against their interests, by way of Rush, Clear Channel, the flag, beer and Jesus.

9/11 gave the oligarchs our rights and treasure. In this Shock Doctrine environment, pols who depend on corporate bribes for financing over 95% of their billion dollar campaigns can't do much on health care or anything else. We can:

http://www.ni4d.us/

Speaking of Obama running scared, check this out.

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-22-obama-white-house-coal-energy/

Is that what Obama meant by change and transparency ?

Oregoncharles

Thank you Helen Thomas for your insights throughout the years, your capacity for understanding the mechanisms of power, your straight arrow style, and your obvious love of human kind. Your legacy: Your ability and choice to speak truth to power.

I'd just like to commend Black Anarch on using a Biblical quote to make his point: I am also an Anarchist, but don't shy away from classic literature, holy books, opposing political systems/parties, where there is a truth to be acknowledged...

Having said that, Helen Thomas has made a blunt point in her article, and one that the American people need to sharpen with direct action. We have been decrying the lack of health care in this country while waiting for Congress to do something about it. It is grievously indicative of who truly governs our democracy; when the citizens wait...and wait...and wait.

I do believe it will take violence to make serious change in America: unfortunately, as our obesity problem shows, we cannot even get our citizens to walk a mile, never mind march one! (sigh)As our economic crisis gets bigger and bigger and with speed enough to shock us all into coma, I fear we will do nothing long enough to have no choice but to DO ANYTHING...

The American people will lose their freakin' minds before long, which is not the organized, progressive action that we need to turn this country around. Single-payer health care is not even an option to our government at this declining stage: Capitol Hill is empty, couldn't provide health care now even if they wanted to, and they don't.

Perhaps it is farfetched, but the only way to provide health care for Americans now is to simply nationalize the health care and pharmaceutical corporations, and hospitals. I know: crazy. However, that's where the resources are to do it, in terms of finance, resources, and skills.

Oh, I know: it's complicated. That is what Capitol Hill always tells us when they are taking a very, very, very long time and trying very, very, very hard to get around doing the right thing...

Helen Thomas is a valuable source because she has witnessed enough of history:

1. that she can tell you (based on her considerable background of knowledge of what has been)where things are going because even though personalities change, their basic human nature does not.

and

2. that she has so far refused to compromise the wisdom of her age with either the desire to be liked (the Patty Duke Oscar winning speech sydrome) or to be part of the recognized establishment (the Evan Thomas, Katie Couric, Kelly O'Donnell, David Broder school of "professional" journalism).

Her putting this current debate in historic context (the mentioning of both FDR's and LBJ's efforts) as well as a current world context, ("All around the world, governments have long made medical care available for their citizens. Why not us?") is what a responsible journalist should be doing and too few "journalists" can even conceive of doing, let alone be allowed to attempt.

Poet

Helen Thomas, one of the few lights in the gloom that currently surrounds us.

jlocke123 writes:
" . . . Nevertheless 3/4 of you want a public plan and I can't blame you.

The thing is, Dem-dat-dare, if it is the same plan for everyone "single payer", then it has to be good, or there will be hell to pay. The pols get away with your medicaid nightmare because you are ghettoized. Auto workers have better plans, so do congresspeople, why should they care?

That is why single payer is the choice of the democratic countries of this world, everyone is treated equal according to their needs."
=====
The only "public plan" 75% want -- though the "press" is busy jiggering it around into being about "support" for the treacherous Obaama organization -- is EXACTLY what the Congress has: if Teddy Kennedy'd been on Medicaid . . .

"Single Payer or Else."

Thanks Helen. As usual, you're right on the money.

Apparently, Obama is also cool with letting the war criminals fade away in luxury. Well, nothing will change until we remember that Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, et. al. knew that violence gets you rights and benefits. Whining does not. The Declaration of Independence was no whine. Read the second paragraph.

A "mass sit-in" in Wash. DC will do absolutely nothing.
Nothing.

Regular, weekly disruptions of government, sit-ins at Congressmen and women´s offices, mass arrests in Senators committee hearings and a daily presence around the White House will get some attention to this issue as it did during the Vietnam War. Then politicians will know you mean business.

Until then it´s all smoke up your own arseholes.

Every major industrialized nation has a form of single-payer and their people are in general healthier and far more satisfied than USAmericans.

You had the chance to fight for EFCA which would have made you all eligible for the union of your choice and you didn´t put pressure on the Dems to come through, so now you will get nothing.

You had the chance to push BO to bring our troops home from Iraq as he promised and to end the warmongering which has gotten us into a quagmire in Afghanistan and has destabilized Pakistan in just a few months. You didn´t, so watch as the body bags pile up. Blame yourselves.

You had the chance to make BO and Congress make our banking and regulatory system responsive to the actual needs of working people and since you didn´t, the same banksters who fucked up the US financial system got a ton of money and you got nothing. Blame yourselves.

Health care is no different. USAmericans are lazy whiners and will do nothing, expecting politicians to give them things while they pine away for some nebulous "better"--all the while the US economy tanks, the rich are getting richer, and all around the world people are surpassing you in terms of health, community safety, and general quality of life.

Blame yourselves.

Tho only reason Obama would be fearful is if he or his supporters face a serious electoral challenge. Primary challenges for those who oppose Single Payer in 2010 and serious electoral challenge for Obama in 2012 primary. Or perhps the birth of a true progressive party to bring him down then. We have to be in this for the long run--Yes we can hae rallies--but from what I have seen from responses by my Senators and Congressman-- that doesn't scare them-- they see us as too weak to affect an election. Let's teach them a lesson.

Thank you, Helen Thomas. As always, a great article.

Two points I would like to make. Minimum wage workers also cannot afford insurance and still put food on the table. One of the crimes of this industry is that most people who are happy with their insurance haven't needed it for a really expensive health problem. They would then find that the treatment they need is considered "experimental" or the insurer has discovered an undeclared preexisting condition (even a yeast infection) that invalidates their policy. Claim denial is the busiest part of the insurance industry's job (and the reason that insurance industry employment has increased by 37% since 2000), marketing being the next. I think we should stop calling it the insurance industry and properly label it the bankruptcy and death industry. After all, by denying health care to almost 50 million Americans, it can be held responsible for 22,000 deaths a year. Who knows how many more die because of denial of claims? 40% of US bankruptcies are due to medical costs for people who had health insurance. Now that's insanity.

The second point is that the reference to "moderate" Democrats is a misnomer. They are plain out conservatives. They vote with the Republicans. They are more conservative than the moderate Republicans, of which I believe we are down to two in the Senate.

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

"A single-payer system, such as Medicare for everyone, would provide health care for all."

Medicare itself has some limitations that need 'supplemental' insurance which should feed legitimate insurance companies. Medicare part D also feeds premiums to insurance companies.
For example, I pay Humana a premium each month and they let me buy my meds at their cost.

With Congress on the hook for at least a good part of Medicare they should pay closer attention to health hazards such as WR Grace poisoning the entire population of Libby, MT and Big Gagrabusiness giving the entire nation type 2 diabetes. Some common sense prevention and maintenance and effective regulations through the FDA and EPA should go a long way toward avoiding health problems in the first place. Fewer problems means fewer dollars - hint, hint congress! It has been my experience that my early and middle years very seldom needed any sort of health care and only after retirement have I been seeing a doctor for the normal wearout problems. With Medicare for all we need not worry about losing employer provided health insurance or being 'dropped' for any reason.

jlocke123 writes:
"Let's just lower the age of Medicare Coverage eligibility from age 65 to age 55. This is a brilliant idea, it has been out there but it is still a brilliant idea."

--> This would be a good thing, which Oblabla could accomplish by Executive Order before the week is out.

What nearly no one, it seems, is aware of (apparently, since they don't talk about it at ALL, this includes most politicians) is that people 55 and over who are forced to accept MediCAID -- rather than MediCARE -- "coverage" are in line for having whatever they own seized, when they die (like as not, they will die early of crappy Medicaid "care" in non-profit clinics whose reason for incorporation is to churn through as many patients-per-minute as possible, many forbidden procedures and prescription drugs, no seond opinions, etc.) to satisfy the Estate Benefits Recovery Act (by which, with "welfare reform", the supposed Bill Clinton Democrats "balanced the budget").

NOTE: it seems undeniable that Medicaid strictures are targeted specifically to females -- for whom medical issues associated with the menopause are most likely to occur between 55 and 65. (All over the country, women AND men are being given pain pills and psycho-meds in lieu of actual diagnosis and early treatment for cancer and other serious conditions. Think on this: it is deliberate.)

Add to this that Medicaid captives can't find out what the charges are for ANY "care", and can't -- if they should ... win the lottery, or whatever -- repay the unknown amount charged against them, and it is a dirty business indeed, killing off the poor and profiting corporate "providers".

NOTE that Oblabla's shape-shifting "public option" razzmatazz seems to include a lot of conFLICTing blabla about Medicaid -- variously cutting it and/or compelling a lot of people to enter into it.

Beware Medicaid.

Remember...anyone who is against single-payer healthcare, is an enemy of America. Health insurance companies are responsible for far more deaths that all of the world's terrorists put together. Kim Jong Il, Osama and Ahmadinejad all clumped together don't equal the threat posed to everyday Americans that Humana and Columbia pose.
Tell your elected officials that all other issues are minor compared to the necessity of bringing in single-payer and eliminating the cruel and inherently evil health insurance industry. Your life depends on it. This is the greatest challenge of our generation. Either corporate America or average Americans will win. So far we have been losing miserably.

Since Obama and the Congress seem incapable of carrying out major health care system reform in a single bite, why not consider cutting it up in smaller pieces to chew on? By doing it bit-by-bit, eventually the whole enchilada could be swallowed.

Instead of trying for something "universal" in a form which preserves the domination of the Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries, let's just extend what they DON'T control.

Let's just lower the age of Medicare Coverage eligibility from age 65 to age 55.

Once we have time to see how well that works, we can consider lowering it even further.

To avoid employment discrimination against younger people, businesses who employ people people older than 55 covered by the new plan, would have to "pay" into a fund that would help support the cost of the new plan.

Nothing could be simpler and easier to explain to the voters.

moonpie writes:
"A mass sit-in in D.C. is in order and way overdue."

DC demonstrations -- not only for Single Payer, but anti-war -- are scheduled for Thursday, 25 June.

Is anybody else just a teeny bit suspicious that the train collision in DC might serve to complicate attendance?

--> As for Obaama, his function seems to be approximately that of the scantily-clad magician's assistant -- to distract the audience from the sleight of hand taking place before their very eyes.

Hope Helen Thomas doesn't expect anything much from the hothouse hoodlum in the White House, whose half-"black" birthday suit has served, from the primaries to the present, to deflect attention from the fact that there's not -- and has NEVER been -- much "there" there, aside from the rictus grin, the fifties-retro polite-Negro schtick, and an uncanny ability to get into the pocket of corporate sugar daddies.

Obama doesn't sound like he's running scared. In fact, he sounds proud to screw us all as usual. Last year, I had detected early red flags on Obama's campaigning especially on health care. He has made his opposition to single payer health care crystal clear ever since he became a senator so he has probably conditioned himself into accepting such ruthless thinking. Helen Thomas makes valid arguments on what Obama should do but she needs to realize that Obama has no heart for anyone except those with money and/or those who are aggressively social conservative.

P.S.: I have read some articles on Obama's life and often wonder if Obama allowed the Mammon to overtake his thinking because his governing since 2005 in Senate and now as president seem to confirm that and that the worse things economically get, the more fear him being a cultist worshipper of Mammon. I could say the same of most pols as well. Thanks Sioux Rose for bringing up Mammon on another post some articles back. I look forward to studying what makes up the false god of riches as I read more on astrology.

-All around the world, governments have long made medical care available for their citizens. Why not us?

Well the short answer is us "non-yanks" don't allow our reps to take multimillion dollar bribes.

A mass sit-in in D.C. is in order and way overdue.

An interesting study was released in Canada over the weekend. In the 1994-2004 time period the incidents of heart attacks dropped by some 35 percent.

The study concluded this due in part to greater awareness of the Public about their own health, initiatives on the part of Government to better educate the populace and regular check ups and monitoring.

The Government , being the entity that is bearing the costs via taxes and single payer , has the POWER to initiate programs to do the same and much more power then any invidual has.

It is in the best interests of Government (In single payer tax payer funded systems) to have a healthier population.

Contrast that with for profit in the US. Even Insurance companies would not want too healthy a population because if that happened more and more people would OPT OUT of buying insurance.

Now this study warned that a new trend has occurred in Canada and that an increasing rate of obesity. They are calling on Governments and the public to help reduce this trend before it reverses all gains made.

It my opinion that one of the single largest reasons for having Single payer via taxes is that it in the GOVERNMENTS best interests to develop programs to ensure a healthy population and they are much better equipped to implement the same then is an individual.

The mantra in the US is to look after ones own health.

The people in West Virgina are trying that and NO ONE CARES.
If BPAS in plastics lead to poorer health and cancers, only the Government can ban the use.

Governments should be woking with the people to promote better health and not with the Corporation to promote more profits.

Better health will put a serious dent in the Profits of the Insurance industry as it will to the profits of the for profit illness treatment industry.

Obama should tear a page out of LBJ's vote-getting manual and shame the heartless opponents.

He has neither the character nor the courage. His only gift is presentation.

Our Prez has no spine. I've been wondering why the Big O, a black man (or half black), does not embrace reasonable ideas such as single-payer. And after some armchair psychoanalysis I've come to the conclusion it is because of his need to be loved (you know is life-story of the missing father). The Big O (as in zero) wants to please everyone, and so he talks from both sides of this mouth. Of course, I could be wrong, but for the life of me I don't understand why Obama is unable to do the right thing. And he does not push policies that are radically different (think outside the proverbial box), this country will be in even bigger trouble.

Our Prez has no spine. I've been wondering why the Big O, a black man (or half black), does not embrace reasonable ideas such as single-payer. And after some armchair psychoanalysis I've come to the conclusion it is because of his need to be loved (you know is life-story of the missing father). The Big O (as in zero) wants to please everyone, and so he talks from both sides of this mouth. Of course, I could be wrong, but for the life of me I don't understand why Obama is unable to do the right thing. And he does not push policies that are radically different (think outside the proverbial box), this country will be in even bigger trouble.

Our Prez has no spine. I've been wondering why the Big O, a black man (or half black), does not embrace reasonable ideas such as single-payer. And after some armchair psychoanalysis I've come to the conclusion it is because of his need to be loved (you know is life-story of the missing father). The Big O (as in zero) wants to please everyone, and so he talks from both sides of this mouth. Of course, I could be wrong, but for the life of me I don't understand why Obama is unable to do the right thing. And he does not push policies that are radically different (think outside the proverbial box), this country will be in even bigger trouble.

Mr. Obama is a weak leader, and as such, he lies, equivocates, and obfuscates.

He will be nothing more than a shill of the ruling Wall Street elite.

What bewilders me is that so few people understood or appreciated that before the election. Yet, the information is available.

But, his campaign did win the Advertising Age award for 2008.

Sioux Rose

Helen Thomas has always used politeness to speak truth to power. The one thing that was left out in this otherwise solid article is that it's not just the poor who don't opt for health insurance. I probably (?) could afford it, but I am too frugal with necessary expenses to spend $500-600 a month and then later be told that "my condition" is not covered. I see insurance as legalized extortion. I remember when my car was hit by flying debris in one of the hurricanes Florida experienced, and my car insurance company would not even pay for the windshield replacement. $66 a month for how many years but they can't even hand over the $200?

So long as the for-profit middle man is kept in the equation, I want NOTHING to do with it. As many have said, including Donna Smith, even if you presumably have insurance, that's not the same thing as a guarantee of acquiring medical CARE. I beef up on vitamins, get exercise, have a good diet, try to ward off stress (harder and harder given the actuality of things in the US today), and then HOPE I can retain my health. Dental costs in the U.S. are a joke. Yesterday I went to pay my car registration because fees are about to double, and I ran into a couple that lives on a sailboat. She's from Hondurus and she told me to fly to Hondurus, for about $350 round trip, and she'd hook me up with her niece, a dentist. She told me that implants there cost so much less than in the U.S. and both told me not to presume America had the highest level of dentistry. In 2002 I had caps done in Mexico, so I am no stranger to "3rd world" medical/dental applications. I am seriously considering the Hondurus option, as it would mean an interesting trip and implants for probably HALF the cost of having it done in my local area.

Helen Thomas tells the truth. Obama,s heart is in the South Chicago projects but much of his governance is influenced by his "pragmatic" politiccs. Those of us in his progressive base wait for more AUDACITY and HOPE.

Helen Thomas tells the truth. Obama,s heart is in the South Chicago projects but much of his governance is influenced by his "pragmatic" politiccs. Those of us in his progressive base wait for more AUDACITY and HOPE.

the buck goes from my ins carrier to the pols who then support my ins carriers profit margin -

its the best gov my ins dollars can buy - if the gov would cut out the middle man my quality of service would not change, but the pol would lose his "taste"

in the end single payer would force pols to work for people not ins companies - but the pols cant stand the pay cut - so we will not see single payer soon, will we?

i propose that pols be forbidden from taking medical industrial complex dollars - this might be a good first step towards fixing the HCS.

Bring America Back !!!!...........Hooray Helen Thomas, I knew she still had it in her !!!

**We really knew Obama would back down to Big AMA, Big Pharma and Big HMO on Healthcare===just as he has caved in to Big Telecons, Big Oil (seen the price of gas lately?),
Big AIPAC, and the almighty DC Military-Industrial Complex.
It was only a question of how badly He would back down !!

**Helen Thomas, please at the first press conference opportunity, ask the Prez from your front row seat, if he has seen the DVD 'Sicko" by MIchael Moore ??? If he has not, please offer him a free copy. We will get Him free ones.

**"Sicko" shows the true state of medical care in the USA and proves beyond question, the only answer is FREE health
care to all Americans because we are human beings.

**Because free healthcare is the human entitlement , Canada, Great Britain, France, Cuba, Norway are the enlightened Nations that can show Team Obama how to install it in the USA !

Medical care in the US will NEVER be Affordable for all Americans unless and until it is a free right. We are in the Era of the HOspital $100 band-aid and patient dumping onto the street if there is no "insurance" !!

Maybe Obama should read a little Moussolini since we seem to be moving into a Fascistic state.

and so it goes

"fear tactics to paint reform as socialized medicine?" Egad!

Who can possibly be afraid of name calling, especially from the GOP?
Every grown up knows that they need not accept the opinion of others.

We have 'socialized' Big Banking.
We have 'socialized' Big Insurance.
We have 'socialized' Big Auto Making.

Why can't we have 'humanized' medicine? A healthy nation is a happy nation!
Must we emigrate to a kinder, gentler, less corrupt country to survive and raise our children?

Obama underestimated the power of the entrenched interests.

Recall the quote of Rosevelt when someone asked him to do something "make me do it."

Need to generate popular support to force Obama to do things that needed done, like single payer health care.

Powell will make decisions which would be good for America? What, like his speech at the UN about the imaginary threats to us in Iraq? He knew the truth and lied anyway.

Next!

Amazing really - the debate unfolding before our eyes.

Congress is pulling back its sheets and what we see is the health lobby curled up next to it.

Damn the people. The truth is being revealed.

And Obama? Does Pontius Pilate's handwashing ring a bell?

Single payer or Medicare for everyone is the only to provide real health care reform.

The "public option", if passed, will fail. It will cover the older, sickest and poorest (really a subsidy to the private insures who will cover the young, healthy, well-off thus making their business more profitable) making the public option very costly, unable to fund itself, a fiasco (probably the intended outcome).

Helen is correct. It is my responsibility, it should be the President and congress's responsibility "The health of all Americans is our business."

Single payer or Medicare for everyone is the answer.

Barak Obama is triangulating himself into a one term presidency. Can you say President Powel? I'll bet you can four years from now. The hierarchy in the GOP is really not keen on committing political suicide four years from now, and all the Rash Windbags can get damn over themselves. If Colin Powell wants' it he can walk to victory in 2012 easily, with Obama's triangulating himself into a political hangman's noose like crazy and doing so on foreign and domestic policy. Oh, and yes Obama is afraid of something-- all the special interest money of the health insurance industry and otherwise, but he'd better be afraid of the fact that the GOP hierachy wants power back next time and an ideological litimus test isn't gonna be in the picture. Powell's stature as being at a top level in the military does for him what it did Dwight D Eisenhower, and that's that. We could do a lot worse than a black Ike.

Ike cut the Pentagon budget twice in 19555 and 1960 and got away with it. That's not too shabby.

AD

Helen Thomas,

The truth. Your voice of clarity, concern, compassion. We need new ideas, new leaders, a new way of thinking. We don't have them yet. The glimmer, o so small, of hope, comes from people such as yourself. It's not the economy, or anything else, that will carry us forward. It's the truth. The truth. When we no longer have the truth, everything becomes meaningless. The truth has been the greatest casualty in our "war" against everything. Who can you believe? And democracy? What chance of it? Perhaps this could be a turning point. Enough people taking to the streets and effectively working to demand change, justice and representation. It could happen. Where else is there a glimmer of hope? Not in the White House.

Thank You Helen. You have stated the problem simply and eloquently. However I'm sure our Liar/Worm in chief cares not a iota what you or any of us (including me who has cancer with NO COVERAGE)has to say about the issue. I'm sure he sees his doctor at the first sniffel or sneeze, and gets it paid for with our tax dollars.

Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate. But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there is so hard to follow that only a few people find it. Matthew 7:13,14 (CEV)

I'm not particularly religious...okay, I'm an atheist. However, this verse is a truism, no matter your faith. Your President, your Congress and the rest of those who rule you, find it easy as all get out to lead you all to your doom. However, if we really seek the path to a truly better life, we can find it. It's narrow, steep and a struggle to get to the goal but, it's well worth it. All I ask is that we bring along graders, back end loaders, and other equipment to add a few lanes to the narrow road. Black Anarch out.

As long as Obama and his little darlings are covered - along with his corrupt brethren and their families - all is right with the world. They only need the rest of us when the election rolls around which they easily manipulate with a clever marketing schema to persuade the herd. But the herd is being stampeded toward the precipice and will jump off without so much as a whimper.