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TechnoratiSpinning Healthcare: A Bad Case of Vertigo
The same conventional wisdom keeping single payer off Washington's table has been spinning for various "reform" plans with such accelerated RPMs that at this point the nation's "healthcare debate" is suffering from a severe case of vertigo.
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want healthcare, but millions of them can't afford it," Obama told the assembled journalists. "So the plan that has been -- that I've put forward and that -- what we're seeing in Congress would cover, the estimates are, at least 97 to 98 percent of Americans. There might still be people left out there who, even though there's an individual mandate, even though they are required to purchase health insurance, might still not get it, or despite a lot of subsidies, are still in such dire straits that it's still hard for them to afford it. And we may end up giving them some sort of hardship exemption."
That may sound good. But it's in the service of an agenda for "healthcare reform" that's seriously flawed.
Days ago, buried in a chart under the headline "How the Health Care Bills Compare," the New York Times provided some cogent yet cryptic information in the category of "Public Plan."
A key Senate committee had just approved a bill with a public plan that would "compete with private insurers," the Times chart explained on July 18. The public plan "would provide ‘only the essential health benefits,' as defined by the bill, ‘except in states that offer additional benefits.'"
Meanwhile, the newspaper noted, "Democrats from three House committees are working on a single plan." Under that plan, "Different levels of coverage -- ‘basic, enhanced and premium' -- can be offered through the public option."
Those few grainy sentences, quickly swept beneath the waves from oceans of media, referred to a disturbing aspect of "public plan" scenarios. If the ostensible goal is healthcare for all, then -- at best -- some of the "all" would end up being much more equal than others.
The Republican Party is coming from such a right-wing place that any government action to improve healthcare access is ideologically unacceptable. In contrast, the broad outlines of a Democratic "public plan" at least embrace the precept that the not-so-tender-mercies of the market are insufficient to fully provide for the population's medical needs.
But as a practical matter, a "public plan" coexisting with the private health insurance system -- generally touted by U.S. media as the pole of real options farthest from the Republican "free market" fixation -- is inherently reconciled to major inequality in access to healthcare.
Even while straining to put forward a "public option" as some sort of stunning government intervention to level the healthcare playing field, media coverage rarely comes to terms with the situation that would actually remain under such a scenario.
How does "healthcare apartheid" strike you?
For the government to offer the public a multi-tier set of options for health insurance -- in the words of the New York Times, "different levels of coverage" such as "basic, enhanced and premium" -- is to imitate the approach of the corporate healthcare establishment.
After all, isn't it implicit that the government plan's "different levels of coverage," offered to the public, would be based on ability to pay?
Missing from the dominant healthcare debate -- not only along Pennsylvania Avenue but also along media row -- is a principle that could be debated and should be debated.
In a few words: Healthcare is a human right.
And a human right should not be contingent on ability to pay. Nor should it be divided into "basic, enhanced and premium."
Media accounts keep telling us that the current political debate on healthcare is unprecedented and groundbreaking. But an article in the latest edition of the Columbia Journalism Review, by seasoned healthcare reporter Trudy Lieberman, makes a convincing case that little has changed within the frames of media parameters.
The press "has mostly passed along the pronouncements of politicians and the major stakeholders who have the most to lose from wholesale reform," Lieberman writes. "By not challenging the status quo, the press has so far foreclosed a vibrant discussion of the full range of options, and also has not dug deeply into the few that are being discussed, thereby leaving citizens largely uninformed about an issue that will affect us all."
What we're seeing now is a slightly freshened version of a timeworn tap dance that ranges across a constricted media stage. As Lieberman notes: "Absent from the debate are not only single-payer systems like the ones in England and Canada, but other systems with multiple payers, like ones in Germany and Japan -- or, for that matter, any discussion of why a system that relies on competition among private insurers in The Netherlands hasn't resulted in lower prices for consumers, as advocates claimed."
The variety of healthcare delivery systems abroad, in industrialized countries, spans a common assumption -- healthcare as a human right -- an assumption that doesn't cut the mass-media mustard in the United States. "What's common to all these systems," Lieberman points out, "is that everyone is entitled to healthcare and pays taxes to support the system, and medical costs are controlled by limits on spending. The specter of a system that takes a significant bite out of stakeholder profits in the U.S. is the real reason the debate is so restricted."
As Trudy Lieberman puts it, "Reform efforts have danced around this impasse for decades."
That helps to explain why so much media coverage of healthcare reform proposals is apt to be so baffling to most readers, listeners and viewers. When the big elephant (or, if you will, donkey) in the national newsroom is dependent on the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries for financing, there's a distinct shortage of candor about the consequences of such ongoing intrusions. Newsgathering, media debate -- and, of course, healthcare -- suffer the consequences.
In the mid-1960s, Medicare became law with the stroke of a presidential pen. Lyndon Johnson was able to sign the measure despite a huge onslaught of opposition from right-wing politicians, their corporate backers and professional groups like the American Medical Association.
These days, the AMA may be somewhat more circumspect in its continuing opposition to progressive measures, but the overall balance of political power remains heavily tilted against healthcare for all.
"In the Senate," columnist Gail Collins noted in the July 23 New York Times, "everyone is waiting on Max Baucus of Montana. Nothing is going to happen on health care without the approval of Baucus," the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. As the Washington Post reported days ago, he "has emerged as a leading recipient of Senate campaign contributions from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage. Health-related companies and their employees gave Baucus's political committees nearly $1.5 million in 2007 and 2008."
Today, the kind of arguments heard during the early '60s against guaranteed healthcare for the elderly can now be heard against establishing a comprehensive single-payer system -- also known as Medicare for all. But now, the healthcare debate is trapped between a political establishment that doesn't want a single-payer system and news media that insist on ignoring its real potential.
120 Comments so far
Show AllI’m beginning to suspect we’ll never fix our badly broken health care system because rich Congressmen feel no need. Why should they? They already gifted themselves the finest, most complete, socialized medical care imaginable.
Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]
OK, Paleomarc ... your Chris Rock reference was old the first time you used it. Now it's become just a way for you to scream 'NIGGA' in public.
PALEOMORON, PLEASE ... JUST SHUT UP!
NIGGA, PLEASE!
The greed and power of the insurance company big guns is staggering in its immensity and cruelty. Their sponsors, the GOP and its minions, control the MSM with a grip of death. Those executives bring home billions in bonuses collectively and have the highest standard of living, light years beyond the average working stiff. Their power and glory is dependent not on providing health care, but by denying it to those who need it most. Until these evil monsters are flushed down the toilet of history, meaningful change isn't coming to Amerika. I'm not sure congress has it in them to bite that hand.
"Those who hunt monsters need to be very careful that they do not become monsters themselves. The view into the abyss can be horrifying" - Nietzsche
I am not surprised at what the Republican Party stands for on health care and I don't expect them or their fundie supporters to listen to rhyme or reason. I posted a reply to Jennifer's post detailing a similar conversation I had with a rightwing dud and he was very aggressive about it too so I will not post it here. It's pathetic enough that the Democrats are acting so lame in response.
I do not doubt what you say, but all the rightwingers that I often have arguments with are actually for a single-payer healthcare system paid for by the federal government. Polls show that so many Americans want single-payer, because some "rightwingers" want it too. Perhaps we should be telling the Blue Dogs that conservative rightwingers want Medicare for All. Because they do.
It is true that some rightwingers support single payer while others don't as some have pointed out earlier. The Blue Dogs are completely divorced from reality.
no
dont rush things,
stories like this,
are just beginning to surface:
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/some-companies-getting-bailed-out-hav
because some companies doing business outside the US,
dont pay into the system, I believe you call it tax shelters?
Hey guys, the House Energy and Commerce Committee may vote for Rep. Anthony Weiner's amendment for HR 676 tomorrow.
Check the list for your Reps (or close enough) and give them a call...I already put this on my Facebook to get my friends from school to call our Congresswoman.
http://www.democrats.com/
weiner-single-payer-vote-today
And don't let the "democrats.com" thing fool you, the people on the website are far more to the left than the Democratic Party.
Thanks for the link,
I sent the letter (which was actually an appeal for more HR676 co-sponsors) a note to my My Rep Tim Murphy (R). he s unlikely to co-sponsor HR676, but my neighboring reps, Doyle and Murtha are already co-sponsors.
Murphy is also on the Energy and Commerce subcomittee. What is Weiners amendment? To move HR676 to the floor?
It would replace the current shitty House healthcare bill with HR 676. Legislative tricks can sometimes be helpful.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/44638
Thanks zmann. My Congressman is Republican since I live in the outer suburbs but it can't hurt to ask him to reconsider.
The site democrats.com sounds interesting. If the Democrats in Washington would bother showing up there instead of on huffpost.com, they might think differently. I feel tempted to go there just to see what happens if I mention that I proudly voted thrice for Nader. :)
Insurance executives a fully geared up for this fight to keep their G-V's and Citations, their gold plates and tableware, their agents' conventions in 5-star resorts. So we are drowning in their purposefully confusing words "single-payer," "public option," and others whose psychological spin makes us forget what the issues are.
We are being hypnotized by the wealthy insurance companies to maintain the status quo that keeps them stupendously wealthy. It is they who purposefully deflected Mr. Obama's July 22 presentation onto the racial themes associated with Professor Gates' arrest. Single payer insurance is very like Medicare. I get Medicare A because this year I'm 66. But I had to choose and sign up for Medicare B and pay a nearly $100/ month premium to cover doctors' charges. It's much less expensive than my company's option to continue their coverage at over $7,500 per year or over $600 per month.
Does better care come with more premium money? Not at all. Same doctor, same pharmacy, same hospital. Medicare pays better than the huge deductibles that come with my company's extended retirement coverage.
So single payer means Medicare-like insurance for everyone. See the movie _Sicko_ ignoring the insurance executives' slam on the "entertainer" Michael Moore. Listen to _Democracy Now_'s interview titled "Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry." We're being duped (AGAIN)!
Medicare A and B isn't much different than the article's three increments of coverage. It gives some choice to everyone.
Fair enough, so long as it is clearly understood that "choice" really means the continuation of a multi-tiered health care system based on societal class as defined by the ability to pay. Either health care is a human right or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
As I've said before, the creation of a truly level playing field (whether in health care or any other area of the allegedly "classless" U.S. society) is what the defenders of the establishment's "American traditions" fear most. Nor are they entirely wrong to label it as a step in the direction of socialism. The question is whether ordinary Americans are actually ready to ignore the labels and take such a step anyway. Frankly, I'm doubtful.
The "public option", as I'm seeing it come out of the committees, is crap. It should be voted down on the floor of the House and Senate. Why? Because it isn't going to change anything. Mandatory insurance doesn't help the millions who can't afford to buy it now. Mandatory insurance is NOT going to lower costs. It didn't when car insurance became mandatory, so what makes them think we're stupid enough to believe it will lower health care costs ... oh, that's right, nearly 50% of those who bothered to vote were stupid enough to vote for George Bush ... so maybe we _are_ gullible enough to believe that the mandatory "public option" will lower costs.
Truly Universal Single-payer Health CARE can provide FULL Medical, Dental, Vision AND Mental Health care for ALL Americans, at a cost far below what we're currently WASTING on insurance company greed. Why will the Congressional Budget Office not do a cost analysis of Single-payer? Because they already KNOW it will prove that the insurance industry has been ripping us off for decades, and they are afraid of the backlash it will create.
I think we might have another shot at bugging Congress to bring up HR676 and Sanders's senate version too since healthcare reform is being postponed until fall. Something about a recess break in Congres.
The "public option", as I'm seeing it come out of the committees, is crap. It should be voted down on the floor of the House and Senate. Why? Because it isn't going to change anything. Mandatory insurance doesn't help the millions who can't afford to buy it now. Mandatory insurance is NOT going to lower costs. It didn't when car insurance became mandatory, so what makes them think we're stupid enough to believe it will lower health care costs ... oh, that's right, nearly 50% of those who bothered to vote were stupid enough to vote for George Bush ... so maybe we _are_ gullible enough to believe that the mandatory "public option" will lower costs.
Truly Universal Single-payer Health CARE can provide FULL Medical, Dental, Vision AND Mental Health care for ALL Americans, at a cost far below what we're currently WASTING on insurance company greed. Why will the Congressional Budget Office not do a cost analysis of Single-payer? Because they already KNOW it will prove that the insurance industry has been ripping us off for decades, and they are afraid of the backlash it will create.
"Mandatory insurance doesn't help the millions who can't afford to buy it now."
Don't worry Obama intends for there to be different levels of care. Too bad if your "public option" only includes rudementary services when the upper class can "choose" to afford the gold plated option
Until we get money is out of politics, look for cosmetic changes only.
"But now, the healthcare debate is trapped between a political establishment that doesn't want a single-payer system and news media that insist on ignoring its real potential."
A "political establishment" and a "news media" that are bought and paid for. One arm executes and the other arm sells.
"But now, the healthcare debate is trapped between a political establishment that doesn't want a single-payer system and news media that insist on ignoring its real potential."
A "political establishment" and a "news media" that are bought and paid for. One arm executes and the other arm sells.
Good news, I suppose. Healthcare reform is delayed until Fall.
http://www.reuters.com/article/
politicsNews/idUSTRE56M52G20090723
zmann,
Thanks for the links. It would be a heck of a lot better if we started all over. Will this be enough time to get HR676 back on the table? If so, I say let's get back at it. I also plan to write a letter to Congressman Ron Paul asking him about his take on alternative practitioners (thanks again cassandra) and what he plans on doing to help them out in this midst of all this corporate sludge.
I hope so. What I think is funniest about how these bills are being debated in the media is that they're bitching that all the bills are so gigantic (over 1,000 pages) that things are being hidden in them, and they delight in "revealing" things that convince them shine light on the Dems' and Obama's "true" agenda.
HR 676 is less than 30 pages. Nuff said.
Obviously, you're not satisfied with just putting all those insurance industry executives out of a job. You also want to deprive all the lawyers of their right to make a living by creating and "interpreting" legal complexities. Shame on you.
The Canada Health Act still has you beat for brevity BTW. But HR 676 is a hell of a good effort to keep it simple.
(un?)Fortunately, HR 676 provides for 2 years of unemployment benefits for anyone who loses a job as a result of its implementation.
HR 676 is a gem.
It is inexpensive and simple to administer. Yep, 30 pages of pure GOLD and it covers 100% of the people.
HR does what is right & fair.
On another note, DCostello on Alternet (thank you DCostello) brought up an article by Bruce Dixon on the issue of whether Obama's health care plan is actually worse than nothing
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-health-care-plan-really-better-nothing
P.S.: DCostello, I've heard the reports of the healthcare mess already going from bad to worse in MA as a couple of my friends who moved to Boston are already regretting it and considering moving back to St Louis and the healthcare mess is one of the major reasons. If this goes nationwide, it will be too easy for the conservatives in Washington to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid.
Someone from the Roosevelt Institute also said it was worse than nothing.
http://www.newdeal20.org/?p=3356
Wish you could all be gloriously Canadian like me! I've always had top-notch medical care and I've never worried about the bill.
It's so Amerikan to make 'not hurting' a product and then jack up the price.
It is profoundly different to live in a society where you feel that people take care of each other. It humanizes every interaction. Canadians have to buy special insurance to go down into Gunland, a dangerous uncaring swamp of medieval brutality.
Big portions though!
You said it all Maplefudge.
I also think it is a huge part of why we Canucks are so damn mellow. (That & the fact that we have great beer.)
It does humanize us. We take good care of each other. We are less litigious and a whole lot less angry.
It doesn't matter who has the most stuff when you die. You can't take it with you anyway.
The smaller the cup of need, the greater the abundance of gratitude.
I agree that the portions are big...maybe too big. Brrrp!
Maybe Canada and the U.S. could agree on a free exchange of "prisoners." Those Canadians who prefer the U.S. system (including Canada's current PM) could move south of the border and Americans who prefer the Canadian system could move north. That way, each country could pursue its own inclinations with a more politically homogeneous populace. :^)
Don't for one minute think that the Canadian Prime Minister speaks for the Canadian people. Less than 33% of Canadians voted for him. Watch for Canada to have another federal election this fall. Our PM is what we call a "Bush-baby".
If only 33% of the people voted for him, how the hell did he get elected? Don't tell me voter fraud got imported to Canada.
Canada is a parliamentary democracy where the Prime Mininster is not elected as an individual, but is (usually) the leader in the House of Commons of whichever political party wins the most electoral ridings.
More than two parties, voter distribution factors and a "first past the post" election system are all involved -- but that doesn't entirely rule out some possible fraud as well, of course.
Understood. I'm not entirely sure, however, that the Liberal alternative will prove to be a vast improvment unless others hold the balance and force them to move in the right (i.e., leftward) direction. Canada's political scene is looking more like the U.S. all the time.
"...a distinct shortage of candor". Nicely understated, Norman.
From Obama: "There might still be people left out there who... are still in such dire straits that it's still hard for them to afford it. And we may end up giving them some sort of hardship exemption." Or not. And from past experience, "not" being more likely. How can he possibly say with a straight face that single payer might not reach everyone?! Oh, it's the word "might" that lets him keep his face straight. Although from all the lies he's told, I think it's more a matter of practice than word choice.
The sad part is that Americans don't even realize how uninformed they are. In the USSR, at least the Soviet people knew they were being lied to.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Any plan that would consider a 'hardship' threshold or use the word 'affordable' is just another form of apartheid. The "Great Decider/Plantation Owner" will decide for the ignorant masses.
[The sad part is that Americans don't even realize how uninformed they are. In the USSR, at least the Soviet people knew they were being lied to.]
Yes, but the yank 'aristocracy' learned from their soviet counterparts mistake and didn't let their schoolkids learn to think for themselves. In the ussr they always had what was called the living room truth and kitchen truth. The living room truth was what the gov't wanted to hear from you, the kitchen was a place where you could speak freely protected by the big bottle of vodka. The talk of drunks could be dismissed much like the talk of potheads can be dismissed in the west. (my source for this was a former ussr citizen)
"The sad part is that Americans don't even realize how uninformed they are."
I'm not completely sure about that. There are those who are misinformed or uninformed but will vehemently deny that truth. There are others who will rely on corporate spin to tell them what to think which explains why some are so fearful of single payer and get it all wrong. See my reply to Space Cadet.
"some of the 'all' would end up being much more equal than others."
But that is precisely the "American tradition" that Obama and his USA Incorporated backers are so anxious about preserving. Of course they're very careful not to identify it as such, but their fear of the single-payer option reflects exactly its potential for reducing class privileges in the health care field -- and its potential for prompting the re-examination of others as well.
I've always been amused by the whole range of U.S. pretensions, but its claims to be a "classless society" and its alleged superiority over traditionally British/European class distinctions must be very near the top of the list. Leaving aside the issue of "noble" titular ranks, perhaps the most interesting aspect is the number of Americans who imagine themselves as beneficiaries (either actual or potential) of the U.S. class system and who therefore resist any change that might actually level the playing field.
RV, what do you expect? A Time opinion poll revealed that "19% of American taxpayers believed themselves to be in the top 1% of earners, and another 20% expected to be there within their lifetimes." We're talking about almost 40% of the country. These are people who pay their taxes and don't even realize what tax bracket they're in?? Nothing works like some serious brainwashing.
When I was a kid back in the 1950s, my mother had a very poor friend, a divorced single mother, an anomaly at that time. She was a staunch Republican because, as my mother explained it, she always believed she would get her feet in the trough, and wanted to be sure it would still be full when she did.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Yeah I mean some folks in the US seem to be concerened that those making hundreds of thousands a year won't be able to pay for a tax to support healthcare, what is with that?
Sioux Rose
I was a single Mom in a different era, and I tell you, if anything it should raise empathy levels! I remember one time we waited over 3 hours for a scheduled dental appointment at a subsidized clinic. The two children were so antsy by the time they were seen. I saw the director walking the halls and I asked to speak with him. I said that while I was low income and appreciated the help, I didn't understand why an appointment scheduled took over 3 hours to honor. From that time on, he made sure we were treated more efficiently.
It's been said there are 2 types of persons, givers and takers. To give is to care about the other person, and I relate this to the premise of Venus, the feminine deity associated with LOVE. Her cosmic counterbalance, Mars, signifies the ego and its raw self-interest, i.e. grounds for selfishness.
Every human being is intended to wrestle between these internal pulls, as are societies. Unfortunately in a place like America that has fallen under thrall to Mars, the premise of giving and caring for other is remote. Plus the worship of brute force is so off the Richter Scale these days that those who destroy others in climbing to the top of the heap are rewarded, rather than held in contempt (or incarcerated).
A similar dichotomy was explored by George Lakoff in relating progressive thinkers to those raised in nurturant families, as opposed to fundamentalist/republicans, a/k/a authoritarians, raised in strict homes with top-down, father-as-head of family models.
There are many more nuances than these polarized examples suggest; and yet these dual "portals" definitely impact values, consciousness, behavior, and policies in our society.
Perhaps popular attitudes will continue to shift and intensify as the real and ever-widening "classless" gaps become more obvious, but whether the intensity of popular demands will ever be sufficient to overcome the built-in systemic resistance seems doubtful so long as the corporatist system itself remains essentially unaltered.
Sadly, although we live in hope, any change to the latter appears almost unthinkable except through total collapse which would be extremely unpleasant for everyone involved -- and I don't mean Americans only.
I think this argument gets off track the moment we advance the false postulate that everyone has a "right" to health care. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever the level of waste in our current health care system, it is indisputable that the delivery of ANY level of care costs money. All Americans today can buy whatever level of care we wish to purchase, so the argument about the "right" to health care is actually a clever spin on the desire to have universally subsidised health care, which is another matter entirely. If one argues that we should have free access to a service or commodity in which cost is inherent, the reality of that position is the advocacy of the shifting of those costs to someone else.
For example, if we were to argue that Doctors, Nurses, pharmaceutical stockholders, manufacturers of MRIs, etc were excessively compensated (whatever that means) for providing these essential products and services and legislated to cut their salaries and ROI by say, 75%, there would still remain cost in the system beyond the ability of some consumers to pay. To claim those consumers have a right to those services makes the simultaneous claim that their right justifies mandating some other consumer to PAY for it.
We can discuss whether it is desirable and/or affordable to provide for the delivery of healthcare to all Americans, but to claim it as a right is simply false.
Re: arguing that we should have free access to a service or commodity in which cost is inherent. Do you mean things like fire departments, police departments, street cleaning, court systems, etc, etc? You can create and pay for your own fire fighters, policemen, roads, electric plants, etc. if you like, but, as for the rest of us, we realize that we are all in this world together and we look out for each other's well being because that is the only way for all of us to be well.
You seem to confuse whether something is a right with whether or not it costs money.
I have a right to life...and...it costs money to live, see? no contradiction.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I believe that this takes care of the argument whether or not to provide for the population's health.
Now, as far as this being a socialist ideology...perhaps you would also agree that public libraries, schools, police and fire departments, DPW's, the military services, etc should all be directly billed services with different plans based on the ability to pay using underwritten rates (actuarial statistics and experience)?
Wonderful statement, dmnalven. If I'd sat thinking for ten days, I couldn't have said it better.
And thanks to Norm Solomon for saying it, "health care is a human right".
I think that, like so many people, Contrarian confuses insurance with health care. I'm beginning to think that from the time Hillary Clinton first said the words "health care" when her husband was president, to last night when Obama said them, it's been an insurance company plan, a health care inquisition of sorts.
"All Americans today can buy whatever level of care we wish to purchase"
Uh...NO they cannot. You have not been paying attention.
It is because they cannot, that there is need for reform.
They CAN purchase, for huge premiums, policies that refuse to pay for needed care.
All Americans (USANS) today can buy whatever automobile they wish to purchase.
Re Contrarian July 23rd, 2009 12:39 pm
Just curious: do you feel you have any "rights" that should interest me? Or, put another way, is defending the "rights" of any one person the collective responsibility of all?
..
He's a so-called "libertarian". He doesn't do "collective responsibility".
UN Declaration of Human Rights
Article 25:
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and _medical care_ and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
And you are correct, fulfilling these rights does have a cost, but they are not being shifted to someone else, they are being shifted to EVERYONE in the society- including the person exercising the right, presumably in an equitable manner as dictated by a democratic deliberative processes. For example when someone asks: "why should be forced to pay for the healthcare for a lazy bum", my answer is, why not? Under single payer, the healthcare for that perticular person is only costing me 0.0002 cents per year (assuming flat taxation - do the arithmetic yourself). And my healthcare is costing someone else 0.0002 cents per year.
If you libertarians don't like paying 0.0002 cents per year to pay for someone eles's healthcare - while getting healthcare for yourself too, then, go find an uninhabited island to live alone on.
If it isn't a Right, it should be, because if you go down that slippery slope you can argue that nothing is a Right. Is public education a Right?
Morally, it should be a Right. Financially, it is a cost benefit. It should be a priority unless you want to see a minority reap all the rewards from exploiting others--while the many suffer.
What does a civilization require for it's own to do more than simply struggle to survive? What is the measure of it?
Already covered - back in 1948.
UN Declaration of Human rights - Article 26
1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
[I think this argument gets off track the moment we advance the false postulate that everyone has a "right" to health care. ]
That is not a 'false postulate', everyone does indeed have the right to health care. All they need do is demand it. If you didn't have any right to health care at all then hospitals would never be damned for dumping patients in the ghettos. They'd be able to kick you out of the hospital rather than treat you when you're bleeding over their floors.
It used to be the case that the fire insurance was paid to cover the cost of the fire department putting out a fire at your home. If you had no insurance, the fire dep't would take your property as payment.
The health insurance companies profit by denying people care. They are litteraly making a killing on their 'investments'. If the us congress had any balls whatsoever they'd remove the age restriction on Medicare and really cover everyone in the states. You'd end up saving money, and might be able to rebuild your economy in time to avoid the debt bomb that's been planted by the worshipers of R. Reagan.
Does anyone remember all the "angry liberals" a few years ago, who were furious about Cheney's Energy Task Force, which made energy policy but wouldn't reveal the identities of the Task Force members?
Obama is doing much the same thing about health care -- making policy by consulting only the relevant big business leaders, while refusing to disclose just what he discussed with these leaders. Oddly, I haven't heard many liberals being furious about this.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/23/watchdog_group_sues_for_disclosure_of
I and countless other indies bring this up all over the blogosphere only to get burned and persecuted. The so-called "liberals" you're referring to aren't real. The GE koolaid in the Obamabots does not allow them to compute !
Unfortunately, and for some reason especially recently, most 'liberals' I know start out each conversation with, "Isn't Obama wonderful?"
To get from "wonderful" to "furious" is a steep climb, brother Rich.
I must move in different circles. I see growing disappointment, if not disgust with Obama. It is even apparent of the Democratic Party websites. I don't think peole are clueless. I think they understand completely what is going on, which is why Jon Stewart is considered the top newscaster. Through his humor he tells the closest thing to the truth that everyone recognizes but for which there are so few voices representing it in our gubbermint or media.
Ah, t'is a steep climb, indeed.
Sometimes, you really must give the devil his due. The Beltway & Wall St kingmakers who correctly anticipated that Obama would be the perfect vehicle for continuing Bush's policies in all their essentials, while defusing 'liberal' resistance (& even putting a 'liberal' gloss on them) -- they were very astute. These people really understood how the game is played.
Sioux Rose
RICH: Several decades of TV and refining the tool of marketing by using buzz words and focus groups have set the stage for the candidate parade, and allowed image to utterly trump content. Thus in putting forward an amiable Black man with considerable credentials, the image thing became a powerful marketing device and many believe in what they see, as opposed to what they hear (policies) or learn (what true news gets through), or feel (that vague sinking feeling when hope no longer floats). And then there's the power of team sports to embed the emotionally charged identifier: one's TEAM!!!! That's the one that has snagged David Michael Green so intensely, along with other "left" writers. One is either a D for life or an R, and pity those poor outcasts, the independents/greens/3rd party non-affiliates, the political equivalent of lepers in an India-like caste society.
When Obama made his one oblique reference to single-payer, it was as if to dismiss it as some abstract or vague idea that exists nowhere and isn't taken seriously by those who understand the complexities of health care.
Maybe he's never heard of Harvard Medical School or the countless thousands of doctors, nurses and medical practitioners who support and are fighting for single-payer.
If it's all up to Max Baucus and Obama we'll NEVER have a single-payer system. And it is all up to them, belying the fact that we have no democracy in this empire of illusions. If it were up to the people, that ethereal entity that also probably doesn't exist, we'd have universal coverage and Obama wouldn't have to waste so much time blathering inanely about how he's committed to changing what he clearly is devoted to maintaining in its present dysfunctional state.
When Obama utters the word "change" he means
"defending the status quo."
The public option could work if it sets the bar with good coverage and lower rates than private insurance. That would attract a lot of people, not just the old and sick, and would create a large enough pool to be sustainable. Once that happened more people would see it working and switch. I would switch to it in a heartbeat, and I'm not old or sick.
"The public option could work if ..."
Let me emphasize the "IF"
If single payer, the system that works fabulously around the world, is "off the table" in your country because "it just is" as the chattering classes say...
What makes you think that the corps that control congress will allow a bill that solves your healthcare problem and causes them to lose profits?
What may happen again is this:
A bill will be passed with a grand sounding name "the healthy america act" maybe
Democrats will sucker you and liberals and progressives and many honest people that want what the rest of the advanced world has, decent healthcare.
The nice sounding bill will in fact offer incremental reorganization of your completely clapped out insurance scheme.
Some people may get temporary relief but when the excitement dies down, the powerfull insurance companies will still be in place with the same motivation as they have now to maximize their profits. What do you think they will get congress to do to the "public option" once the public's gaze turns elsewhere?
The Insurance firms are merging, getting stronger, are they already "too big to fail"? No other country in the world has suceeded with anything remotely resembling what is emerging from congress. Whether "public option" whatever that means passes or not, you are risking the loss of a once in a generation chance to join the rest of the advanced economies with single payer.
It may be theoretically possible to fool corporations into believing that they will actually profit from single payer since they won't have those overhead costs eating into their lovely profits. It amazes me that those same big corporations outside the drug and insurance ones will spend 3-4 times as much money lobbying and bribing Congress while overlooking the money they'd save by putting Big Insurance to tame status.
And that's the problem: Big Insurance doesn't want the public option because they simply can't compete.
Actually, they could compete if they'd eliminate executive salaries and perquisites, CEO bonuses, and marketing and legal budgets.
q
Sometime last week I think, Beck tried to argue that insurance profits were only like .01% of all expenses related to healthcare, to argue insurance profits weren't the problem.
Naturally, he neglected to mention (or perhaps doesn't know) that all those executive salaries, CEO bonuses, and marketing and legal budgets count as expenses, and are thus deducted from revenue and not counted as profits. Am I right?
To outsiders, the battle between corporate interests (against healthcare reform) and the vast majority of Americans who want universal healthcare rages on with the expectation that in the end the corporation always wins. For a German, Englishman or Italian, it appears that the American majority is somehow 'backward' because they're missing the big picture; healthcare for all is a human right. But in reality, sophisticated corporate media frames the debate in such a way as to present corporate opinions as the general opinions of the public. Many poor Americans actually do believe that single-payer healthcare would represent the dawn of a ruthless, communist system complete with Alaskan Gulags and reduced individual freedoms. This is a testament at just how effective the MSM has been in dumbing down the general population. Hate radio programs like Hannity, Limbaugh and other corporate stooges have dominated the air waves for years as millions of commuting Americans listen to their gibberish for hours each day in their cars oblivious to the real agenda of these spin masters.
No alternative media sources for Americans really exist except on the fringes. Until the average American can actually grasp the basic fact that they're being lied to on a regular basis, change won't come.
" Many poor Americans actually do believe that single-payer healthcare would represent the dawn of a ruthless, communist system complete with Alaskan Gulags and reduced individual freedoms."
Right you are. It is absolutely amazing how many people I have seen recently, that have either stated verbally, or as a written response to a news article regarding healthcare reform, who are terrified that if we were to allow a public option (meaning to them a complete government takeover of everything involved with healthcare, including doctors, hospitals, nurses), that all of a suddent they won't have any freedom left. Period. Further, they still, thanks to our RWM (right wing media), believe that we have the absolute best healthcare system in the world, second to none. They believe that most of the uninsured are illegal aliens. Amazing!!!
Sioux Rose
SPACE CADET: Very important points, and well-stated.
Your post explains why the likes of Rupert Murdoch invest in so many forms of media. This control of message has run parallel with more and more wealth being drawn to the top of the fiscal pyramid. And of course the two circumstances reinforce one another. A media big whig won in Italy, in Mexico, and a few have incredible influence in the U.S. These billionaires understand that the one who controls message controls policy, and can mold the public's perception(s) accordingly.
Well said, Space Cadet! This is why I feel I am banging my head against a wall when I try to discuss the issues with my mainstream-CNN-MSNBC-friends-family. The talking heads on the TV don't mention or talk about the things I mention, so I am immediately dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist" and whatnot. It's sad -and lonely - being in the minority who sees through the corporate media hologram of bullsh$t. (to paraphrase Joe Bageant)
BTW- Bageant's "Escape from the Zombie Food Court" is an incredible read... http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/04/
escape-from-the-zombie-food-court.html
Quote: "We suffer under a mass national hallucination. Americans, regardless of income or social position, now live in a culture entirely perceived inside a self-referential media hologram of a nation and world that does not exist. Our national reality is staged and held together by media, chiefly movie and television images. We live in a "theater state."
In our theater state, we know the world through media productions which are edited and shaped to instruct us on how to look and behave and view the outside world. As in all staged productions and illusions, everyone we see is an actor. There are the television actors portraying what supposedly represents reality. Non-actors in Congress perform in front of the cameras, as the American empire's cultural machinery weaves and spins out our cultural mythology."
Sioux Rose
MARK: Excellent post. I know exactly what you mean. The guy I date BELIEVES what's on TV presuming that anyone who made it there, either is talented or has unimpeachable credentials! And when I talk politics with my more enlightened friends, as soon as I start connecting "the big dots," they tell me that I am "too negative." It's like "we're all Californians" now. Everyone just wants to believe it'll all work out. The New Age publications have to an extent run parallel with the End Times (fundamentalist Christian) publications, as both fully expect Deliverance from a force outside ourselves. I realize that a great awakening can change mankind's destiny; yet I also see in plain sight the tremendous impediment posed in the form of a media that WANTS persons to stay asleep. Sings them lies and lullabies to keep them in a semi-somnambulistic trance, and when that doesn't work gives them bread, circuses, sporting events (like those of the Roman Arena), and anti-depressant drugs. To foment the massive awakening that is needed is the modern equivalent of one of those tests concocted and delivered by the three fates aimed at a character (of society) from mythology. I hope that we all add to that reckoning in our own small ways... "The Butterfly Effect" style.
"Many poor Americans actually do believe that single-payer healthcare would represent the dawn of a ruthless, communist system complete with Alaskan Gulags and reduced individual freedoms."
I'm afraid you're correct here. Yesterday, I received a stupid email response from a guy who asked us to figure out a solution to saving small businesses. I emailed him back discussing the relationship between insurance companies and small businesses and how single payer would step in and actually help small businesses. Here's his Joe the Plumber response:
"Not if by stepping in it means forcing them to provide cost prohibitive healthcare, and small businesses are not falling by the wayside because of insurance costs, they are failing because of the economy. So why by any sane stretch of the imagination should it make sense to pile any more on them by making them pay even more for health care, especially with unemployment already as high as it is and getting higher by the day!"
I shot back with a response detailing single payer health care and even proved to him that small businesses would actually save. He then gave a lame brained reply:
"Maybe single payer would mathematically save small businesses but what about the 6-9 million people working for the insurance companies. The economy is sputtering and unemployment is still going up ! Single payer still looks like a job killer and it's very unpatriotic to put people out of work. Insurance companies are not to blame and they're doing their job ! You sound like a communist spokeswoman !"
I shot back at him one more time and explained to him how people could easily fight for better jobs and that single payer would make them do it. I even proved to him that most people working in the insurance industries are not happy and doing it just to stay alive. I told him to let Big Insurance fail. He finally replied calling me a "cave lady". I guess that not everyone's capable of learning like even my conservative parents. I swear, maybe our cornfed electorate does not deserve leaders like Nader, Mckinney, Kucinich, Paul, etc ... Better to just keep the nation shackled to corporate sellouts isn't it ?
Jennifer, you wore that guy down until he gave you a desperate argument. Save the jobs of the insurance people, gawd. People must go without healthcare, go blind, lame and die to save the jobs of insurance people, many of which jobs have been outsourced to foreign countries anyway. Any kind of social health care plan will certainly create new jobs. I'll bet that same guy isn't interested in saving the jobs of social security and medicare administrators, clerks, managers, etc. I heard a radio interview a few years ago about how California's unemployment claims jobs were offshored, LOL!
Bliss, I didn't want to wear him down at all and thought that I was actually helping him out. When he got to being desperate and engaging in name-calling, I figured that I might as well leave him to his own devices. He works in another company that's related to the one I work for. If he really goes nuts and tries to make my company throw me out because I tried to be helpful, I'm ready to find another company to work in no matter how long it takes. I checked his company out and through a couple of his co-employees who emailed me an apology letter for his rude behavior, they actually admitted that their insurance provider will have to be let go of to avert a possible bankruptcy ! I hope his manager hears about this and gives him the pink slip. Maybe then he'll learn about single payer the hard way when he finds himself out of work and begging for mercy.
About CA and offshoring, I'll have plenty to say on offshoring and outsourcing later but for all the macho-egotistical "manliness" of Arnold, he sure can't learn to build a strong labor force within the state but will instead choose to pick on someone overseas ready to settle for nearly being a slave laborer. With the way CA and NY are in dire straits, I'm literally afraid to even visit either one of those states let alone live there.
Jennifer, I've come across similar rantings from rightwingers. As others have said, some cannot be reasoned with. I too would like to share a similar conversation with a rightwing dud who complains about taxes and HR 676.
Here's a conversation I had with a dud who obsesses about higher taxes after which he simply left:
Conservative talker:
Who is going to pay for it...or will it be yet another tax added to what is taken out of my paycheck. Another chunk of the money I earned to feed my family and myself will be taken to go to subsidize the healthcare of someone who isn't responsible enough to pay for it themselves. Where will it end, will it be when I am being taxed so much that I can't afford to live and support my wife and daughter.
My response:
First of all, you're paying 4 times as much in taxes to allow Big Pharma and Big Insurance to rip you, me, and everyone off than what you'd pay for single payer. If you had even read the details, single payer actually enforces personal responsibility while Big Insurance and Big Pharma don't. If you cared so much about personal responsibility as you claim, then you should be showing your anger against Big Insurance and Big Pharma who are taking your hard-earned tax dollars to give those people you claim are irresponsible their care. Since single payer would cost far less than the current privatized care, you would actually pay less in taxes as government would have to lower the taxation as a result. Why should we waste more money on wars and Wall Street?
Conservative talker:
HR676 is a huge expansion to Medicare which is already an immensely badly run system, rampant with fraud and mismanagement, and they want to vastly increase it, are you kidding me. Of course the specifics of the bills funding was glossed over quite effectively, especially the part about the sliding scale of costs, that wasn't vague or anything. As it stands right now the states are already forced to pay for a big percentage of Medicare, and they want to increase it...so as I said before where are they going to get the money to pay for it?
My response:
First of all, by eliminating the middle men Big Insurance and Big Pharma, the money to pay for single payer will be there. If you don't want Medicare, you can opt out of it. The same for single payer. Single payer actually gives you a choice. Big Insurance doesn't. FYI, single payer is NOT socialized medicine. In fact, single payer would replace Medicare entirely. A real conservative rather than a typical political one would support single payer. Even Canada and UK conservative leaders aren't this reckless.
Conservative talker:
You're sounding too confusing. My insurance company is doing very well and pays for my coverage very well. I'm a very responsible adult and can take care of myself and I don't want government dictating my health care coverage for me. I don't mind government spending what it takes to get rid of those "Islamofacists" so my wife, daughter, and I can feel safe and sound. I'm also enjoying my portfolio getting back to normal and maybe Obama was right to bail out those companies even though I supported Mccain and Palin and will continue to vote Republican. Anyone who wants government to provide them free health care that comes from my taxpayer money should be sent to the gas chambers by GOD !
My response:
Sir, I do not agree with your cruel and gutter talk but I wish you and your family well. Since you are getting too personal about this issue, I will leave it GOD to help you out. Good day.
Well as far as I'm aware you can't opt out of single-payer, it makes it illegal for anyone to sell insurance that covers what the system covers.
But anyway, check out this conversation I had with my aunt no more than 15 minutes ago, who works in the health insurance industry, after she noticed my support for single-payer in my Facebook status:
Zachary
hello
Karen
hello
sorry but cant help with the Healthcare Reform. Working in the industry, we are not too excited about it.
Zachary
hehe
well
i havent been able to see a doctor since i graduated. no money for one
ive been out of my blood pressure meds for a couple months, cant get them refilled
i tried getting an additional part-tme job so id have money to take car eof this and other things, but no luck
so now im buying a suit with my next paycheck so i can try to get a better paying job
Karen
can you qualif for medicaid?
Zachary
so i support single-payer ;-p
maybe
but even that doesnt cover doctor's visits or prescripitons
and it still has a premium, doesnt it?
i have no money to spare for this stuff
Karen
depends on income
Zachary
i gross about 17k a year
Karen
sorry but a better job would give you all that. Once you have it. you won't be happy waiting 3 months for a visit. That is what happens in Canada. I know lots of people who have relatives u there. Good luck with the job. Youre smart, it will work out. love Aunt Karen
About the jobs thing, there are a lot of temporary/contract to permanent positions at large and in most cases, you won't get any health benefits no matter how high the pay unless you get fulltime employment. Even if you do get benefits, it's very limited. I was quite surprised when I once switched jobs to a better paying one only to notice my health benefits significantly smaller.
It's hard to say if your aunt supports single payer. When I first came on to this site, I was grilled when I admitted my current employment position and type of industry and since then I remembered that sooner or later I'd have to answer questions about why I really chose it and what I'm really gaining from it all. I'm guessing that like myself, your aunt is in a dilemma trying to make ends meet and yet is not really comfortable where she's working at. Stuff such as 3 months waiting myth is what they're trained by their companies to say. As the economy gets worse and I don't know how long that will stretch out, there will be a lot of denial expressions implicitly acknowledge that feeling of job insecurity. She will need to be able to fall back on a better job outside the insurance industries at some point as will I outside of DOD.
I've just seen the best movie, 2005 I think, but I wasn't aware of it. "Side Effects" with Kathryn Heigl. The writer and director of it is a former pharmaceutical sales rep, and this movie is a total indictment of the pharma industry.
I read the movie review on Wikipedia. In the real world, being honest would get you fired in sharp contrast to the film. I'll bet this film sure puts the "War on Drugs" to shame.
The pharmaceutical sales rep being honest with the doctors she calls on is part of the comedic element in this movie. She does it because she doesn't give a shit any more, and doesn't care if she gets fired, but it turns out that the physicians are desperate for real information on dangers and side effects because there is no real info available in the pharma spin. Anyway, you have to rent the DVD and watch it. I'd say it is among the best movies of this decade. There is an optional director's commentary which is quite revealing. She had to retain legal advisors for every scene because of the savage power of the pharmaceutical industry.
Your friend sounds like an ex-friend of mine who, in October 2002, told me I was "off the deep end" when I explained that Bush obviously planned to invade Iraq. A few months later, as the drumbeats for invasion become audible even to my ex-friend, I was called "off the deep end" when I said it had nothing to do with liberating Iraq. Now, six years later, with our troops still in "liberated" Iraq and no end in sight, I wonder if my ex-friend still thinks I'm the one off the deep end.
If only we could leave this country to the people who deserve it...
I've had a similar encounter which I describe in my reply to Jennifer's post. Sometimes trying to play it nice with them makes them even more vehement and I have no clue as to why they act crazier and more violent the more I try to reason with them and explain.
Most of the time, their unfounded anger is already in them but you accidentally would have triggered them to release it without knowing it. It happens a lot. Once they start going desperate and even threaten violence, the best thing to do is back away and leave them to fend for themselves. That last part about God and gas chamber was totally way out of line of that conservative speaker.
As I explained in another post on this thread, it's all trial and error. On Iraq and your ex-friends, it all depends. It's all a matter of trying all venues of convincing before giving up. I don't mind and am happy to share the experience I had so that perhaps another idea to convince can be discovered. :)
JenniferBedingfield July 23rd, 2009 11:57 am I have come to believe there is a certain "mindset"...maybe it's bordering on genetic....that were/are totally susceptible to the propaganda this country has been shoveling out since the beginning. You CANNOT get through to them. MANY depend upon and believe TV and the newspapers are the ultimate truth. I do not know, short of neuro-linguistic re-programming, how to reach these individuals. Maybe it's too late for them. They are precisely the type that keeps this government in power and thriving depite the lies and criminal activity committed on a minute to minute basis.
That's true but sometimes you never know. You'd be surprised to hear that some otherwise staunch conservatives such as my parents strongly favor single payer health care but that's probably because of what my cousin and I went through in different cases and times. Additionally, as NMLib has pointed out several times, even some supposedly progressive and/or liberal people will oppose single payer insanely. It's all trial and error and there are those who are too closed minded to reason with. I could care less that he was a liberal, conservative, libertarian, or whatever. He wanted help and I tried to make my idea clear but I had to find out after I exhausted all options to try to help him understand and open his heart. There are different ways to convince different people to agree on an idea as I have learned in life. That's why I try all venues before throwing in the towel.
I am really confused how you can be lumping Paul in with Nader, Kucinich or Mckinney. Paul is the ideological opposite of the others. To say he would never support single payer is an understatement.
I have issues with Paul but he's firmly against these wars, doesn't support "free" trade although for different reasons, opposes bailing out W$, is bringing up legalizing hemp for industrial uses, is pushing to have the Fed audited, supports the idea of natural alternative cures that can also help reduce healthcare costs to name a few. I'm not completely comfortable with him but on some things he puts the Democrats to shame. He's also an independent thinker even if he is a Republican and like the others, he was also persecuted.
Paul also wants to shut down the FED. I'm 60% with him, 40% against him. But a big plus for him in my eyes is his integrity. A quality in extremely short supply on Capitol Hill (and the White House, although I had erroneously thought that wouldn't be the case this time around - I had expected Obama to be more conservative than I would prefer, but I did believe he would be honest. Boy was I wrong on that).
Paul however, has a long track record for standing for what he believes. Like him or not, you have to give him that. On the other had, he wants to end Social Security and Medicare. What he would do so the elderly wouldn't return to living on dog food again as they did before food stamps I'm not sure. Maybe nothing. I will never forget that old couple next door to me starving to death living on cheap dry dog food when I was very young. I had just moved in (summer 1963) when an ambulance showed up next door. I was so shocked and horrified. Nobody helped them, they were just left to die. It was after that when CBS ran the Hunger in America series and we got the Food Stamp Act of 1965. And 15 years later we got Reagan who labeled catsup a vegetable so he could take food from hungry children. Republican pigs.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Blessed are those without living parents or grandparents for they are not supporting Social Security queens. In a Libertarian Utopia there is no place for old folks.
Paul would also abolish all environmental, consumer, and workplace health and safety regulation and do away with all wage and hour laws.
USan,
Thank you for clarifying that because though Pat is right about something, he is so wrong about so much. I think there might be some who are attracted by the appearance that he might be the reincarnation of Pat Paulson.
Thanks for the reminder on Social Security. Someone gave me two articles on what Social Security really is and it did not start out with money. In fact, the very concept of Social Security is tied to having the utmost respect for the elderly, something that was supposed to make this country better than the rest. The same I would say with Medicare.
Here are the two articles you might find interesting:
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v3i6democrats.htm
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v3i1ss.htm
Based on those two articles, your guess about Ron Paul doing nothing for the elderly would sadly be correct and I would never forgive him for doing that. I will have to take this issue into account when writing him a letter asking him for his take on alternative practioners. It's already bad enough that a lot of today's young are being brainwashed into believing in "personal accounts" as somehow the best way to save Social Security. Some of them are even getting into arguments with their own elderly who actually know better that putting SS into the stock market is totally foolhardy. As for Obama and SS, like joining the Blue Dogs on health care I believe he's subtly open to slowly privatizing SS since nobody's discussing SS these days.
If by "some things" you mean his capitalist market-extremist philosophy toward society and economics, then you are correct. But that is a pretty big "some thing".
And Paul is not opposed to war, he is opposed to governments prosecuting war. If a corporation purchases or hires a mercenary army on it's own to defend it's percieved right make a profit, Paul would support that in a minute.
"And Paul is not opposed to war, he is opposed to governments prosecuting war. If a corporation purchases or hires a mercenary army on it's own to defend it's percieved right make a profit, Paul would support that in a minute."
I thought Paul at one point said that he also opposed mercenaries but I'll be glad to look into it. Mercenaries are even worse than U.S. soldiers themselves. Paul would have to be absolutely nuts to prefer mercenaries to troops. He's more of a Libertarian than a conservative Republican. Libertarians can sometimes get slick and tricky.
Don't remember his suggestion that we deal with the Somali pirates by issuing Letters of Marque? He was laughed out of the national debate for weeks because of that.
I need to be reminded more on that. I'm limited on foreign policy understanding as there's enough to take care of inside the USA as it is. I apologize for my weakness on foreign policy.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
archives/2009/04/man_this_is_just_getting.php
And don't apologize for not knowing something. Where I work I get to find out what's going on around the world pretty much all 8 hours I'm there.
Besides, aren't I asking questions almost every day on here? I have a ton to catch up on, having only become really politically aware in 2008.
Exactly correct analysis. Thanks.
A more complete analysis would include why Americans have chosen to be so provincial in terms of global awareness. I wouldn't be so quick to lay the blame completely with MSM. Rather than being the causal element, hate radio has merely found fertile ground in which to grow. Shallow, self-involved, adolescent behavior is partially what characterizes that fertile ground. MSM just mirrors and reinforces that behavior. Where else in the world does this narcissistic behavior exist? If the opportunity exists, MSM wouldn't hesitate to exploit it. But as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.
No, you're essentially blaming the victims of this process, rather than looking at the forces responsible for it. What comes first -- the culture, or the individuals shaped by that culture? Obviously what happens is that the culture shapes most of the incoming (ie, young) individuals, who then go on to be life-long carriers of the prevailing cultural values, & pass the values on to their kids.
Americans didn't "choose" to be provincial. They were raised to be provincial without even being aware of it.
It's not just the MSM. It's also the schools, & the entire Disney version of history that's transmitted to the young. And parents try to raise their kids so that the kids will "succeed" in society AS IT IS. Parents want to make sure the kids will "fit in." This means ridding them of any radical notions. This produces conformity with prevailing cultural values -- which, by no coincidence, are entirely in line with big-business values.
The answer to both questions is public school. Government funded and required by law for all children to attend unless their parents are smart enough to keep them out. Or not lazy enough, like the smart parents that don't want to do all the paperwork.
Children don't need school. Children need to learn.
Textbooks are doctored, incorrect, and time consuming. Schools are only based upon one factor of intelligence, that is memorise-regurgitate-repeat-forget. Not only that, but they have rules. Conformity is a virtue. Stand in this line. (Even if, but especially if, it makes no sense) No talking without raising your hand. No, you can't go to the bathroom.
Naturally, those who conform the best are the ones that are rewarded. Those that can memorise and repeat information (even if false) are the ones that are rewarded.
Those that think for themselves, spot the contradictions, call out the lies will never be rewarded.
Cogently put.
And maybe this is the reason we will get either half-measures, or no measures at all.
As I understand this insurance plan it would create insurance pools within the industry that allows the industry to tap into the IRS to find out your tax contribution and income level that would locate you into the proper pool, a different level of care.
Having no insurance I went to the emergency room with a softball sized lump of pain on my shoulder. My "room" was a bed in a supply closet. One side had shelves filled with plaster casting materials and gauze wrapping material. The other shelves had plastic models of human joints, a disassembled human head and plastic charts of all systems of the body. After an x-ray and 10 hours a person in blue scrubs who might have been from the cleaning staff told me that nothing was broken and I should see a doctor.
I guess the ER had no doctors that day. Thank god for the medical charts that gave me the idea that maybe my bursus had burst.
I guess this is what they mean about insurance pools and different levels of care.
Meanwhile, the newspaper noted, "Democrats from three House committees are working on a single plan." Under that plan, "Different levels of coverage -- ‘basic, enhanced and premium' -- can be offered through the public option."
-----------------
I've been urging the use of the term "Pure Public Option" because it became obvious congress would scheme to bastardize the plan.
By the way, isn't the term "Enhanced" the exclusive domain of a set of harsh interrogation techniques? Unless...?
As Cornell West pointed out on "Democracy Now" yesterday, if a white president lectured African-Americans in the manner of Obama, it would be considered racism since Obama ignores the structural realities....Why doesn't he send his girls to one of the urban failing schools with an admonishing pep talk?
So, most likely, if the issue were slavery, surely Obama would propose that it should be abolished---if we were "starting from scratch", but since the structural institutions are already established, ending slavery would be impossible at this time.
I'm not buying anything this asshole is selling.
Obama and Congress' idea of health care reform is limited to rearranging the furniture in the "structural institutions", not what I would call reform.
Same thing in the financial sector.
Problem is the furniture being rearranged are deck chairs aboard the Titanic.
Well, the metaphor is off...
The Titanic was far more sound than the us economy is now. Had the captain of the Titanic paid attention to the conditions of the sea his ship might have made landfall. With about 57 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities there is no land for the us economy to hit.
Nice article by Solomon but the time to have criticized Obama's health plan was when he was running for president. Instead Solomon, like so many other liberals, decided to illogically back this faux progressive instead of campaigning for a third party candidate.
From David Swanson of Afterdowningstreet on the censoring of Single Payer by corporate media:
"...I just did some searches in the Lexis Nexis databases of major US and world publications, news wire services, and TV and Radio broadcast transcripts. Searching for "healthcare" in July 2009 found over 1,000 documents, the maximum number that Lexis Nexis will display. In fact, searching just the past two days found over 1,000 documents. Another search confirmed that this is "Michael Jackson" level coverage. And another search confirmed that virtually none of these documents mentioned single-payer at all, much less told anyone what it was."...
Unedited at:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/44674
"I want to cover everybody," President Obama said at his news conference Wednesday night. "Now, the truth is that unless you have a -- what's called a single-payer system, in which everybody's automatically covered, then you're probably not going to reach every single individual. . ."
Yes.....and the next question would be, "Why? Why can we not have a single payer system in which everybody's automatically covered"? Did anyone ask this question?
Well, everyone who pays attention pretty much knows the answer: because the corpora-fascists (in this case, the ones who own/run big insurance and big Pharma) don't want to give up their seats on the gravy train....right beside the politicians who make the rules.
The public option is just to placate the masses. I think they'll be setting it up so it will FAIL - then they can say - see, public insurance plans can't work in Amerika.
Unfortunately, We the People, will not get to see any of the details until it's a done deal.....so much for transparency in government.
A commentator on NPR summed it up yesterday by saying " what we call waste in the health care industry is somebody elses profit".
Those profitting in the current broken system will do whatever it takes to preserve those profits.