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Health Care Hypocrisy
About the only lesson Barack Obama has learned from the Hillary and Bill health insurance debacle of 1993-1994 is to leave Michelle Obama out of his current drive to get something-anything-through the Congress labeled "reform".
Otherwise, he is making the same mistakes of blurring his proposal, catering to right-wing Democrats and corporatist Republicans, who want an even mushier "reform" scam, and cutting deals with the drug, hospital, and health insurance industries.
His political opponents become bolder with each day as they see his party base in Congress weakening, his polls dropping, and a confused public being saturated with unrebutted propaganda by the insatiable profiteering, subsidized health care giants.
Their campaign-money-greased minions on Capitol Hill and the corporatist Think Tanks and columnists are seizing on President Obama's aversion to conflict and repeated willingness to water down what he will fight for.
The loud and cruel baying pack comes in the form of William Kristol ("This is not time to pull punches. Go for the kill."), Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) ("If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."), and Charles Krauthammer yammering wildly about medical malpractice and tort law. Krauthammer does not substantiate his claims or mention the many victims of malpractice as he gleefully predicts "Obamacare sinking."
All these critics have gold-plated health insurance, of course.
Hillary tried to appease the drug and hospital companies. Obama invites them to the White House, where they presumably pledged to give up nearly $300 billion dollars over ten years without any specifics about how this complex assurance can be policed.
No matter, in return Obama and his aides agreed not to press Congress to authorize the federal government to negotiate drug prices with the drug industry. Don't worry: the taxpayers will pay the bill.
At a meeting on July 7 at the White House between drug company executives, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), the industry, according to The New York Times, was promised that the final legislative package would not allow the reimportation of cheaper medicines from Canada or other countries even if they meet our drug safety standards.
Since these industry meetings at the White House are private, no one knows how many other concessions were made. What is known is that Barack Obama knows better. A former supporter of single payer health insurance (often described as full Medicare for all with free choice of physician and hospital and the elimination of hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate administrative costs and billing fraud), then-Illinois state senator Barack Obama predicted, in 2003, that it would be enacted once Congress and the White House were controlled by Democrats. Well, that is now the situation, but, as President, he believes single payer is not "practical".
Single payer health insurance is supported by a majority of the American people, majority of physicians and nurses, and nearly ninety members of the House of Representatives. (See H.R. 676 and singlepayeraction.org.)
A clear replacement of the private health insurance companies with federal insurance, as Medicare for the elderly did in 1965, allows for clear language. Twenty thousand people die in America each year because they cannot afford health insurance, according to the Institute of Medicine. Hundreds of thousands more suffer because they have no insurance to treat their diseases or injuries.
Single payer means everyone is covered from birth, as is the case now in every western nation. Imagine no lives lost or suffering due to no health insurance.
Fuzzy proposals, regularly altered and over-complicated due to the hordes of avaricious corporate lobbyists, make politicians like Obama very susceptible to lurid descriptions and lies by his vocal, well-insured opponents. Finally, the Obama people are using "health insurance reform", rather than the misnomer "health care reform" which opened them up to charges that government would take over health care. All proposals, including single payer, are based on private delivery of health care.
Now enters the well-insured libertarian Cato Institute with full-page ads in the Washington Post and The New York Times charging Obama with pursuing government-run health care. A picture of Uncle Sam pointing under the headline "Your New Doctor." Nonsense. The well-insured people at Cato should know better than to declare that this "government takeover" would "reduce health care quality."
About 100,000 lives are lost from medical-hospital negligence per year, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. This vast tragedy is hardly going to get worse under universal government health insurance that assembles data patterns to reduce waste, enhances quality, and transparency. By contrast, the secretive big health insurers who make more money the more they deny claims, ignore their loss prevention duties.
In 1950, when President Truman sent a universal health insurance bill to Congress, the American Medical Association (AMA) launched what was then a massive counterattack. The AMA claimed that government health insurance would lead to rationing of health care, higher prices, diminished choices and more bureaucracy. The AMA beat both Truman and the unions that were backing the legislation, using the phrase "socialized medicine" to scare the people.
Fifty-nine years later, "corporatized medicine" has produced all these consequences, along with stripping away the medical profession's independence. Today, the irony is that the corporate supremacists are accusing reformers in Washington of what they themselves have produced throughout the country. Rationing, higher prices, less choice, and mounds of paperwork and corporate red tape. Plus, fifty million people without any health insurance at all.
On Thursday, July 30, 2009, there will be a mass rally for a single payer system in Washington, DC. It is time to put what most Americans want on the table. (See www.Healthcare-Now.org for more information.)
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94 Comments so far
Show AllGO RALPH!!!!!!!!!!!
Ralph has been going full speed for decades------the problem is us, the people of the United States have not. Ralph keeps stating that the citizen is the highest office in our land, but most of us citizens are comatose.
I think it is a major problem that most of us allow the two party system to continue. So many of us INSIST that the Democrats are better than the Republicans. That is not true. Both corporate parties are just that---corporate parties. They are funded by and work for the corporations. Elected members of either of these parties are courtiers of the top 1%. These courtiers seek favor, especialy by flattery or obsequious behavior.
Our elected officials of both parties have no task more pressing or compelling than to keep their cushy job. These courtiers don't give diddly squat for you or your family. You can die on the doorstep of the hospital for all they care. This situation will continue until you recognise that you been had and there ain't no hope except for you to come alive.
The only way we can get our corrupt government to do anything to improve the standard of living for the working people of this nation is to get in their face and make their lives miserable. The people must rise up in the streets and INSIST ON DEMOCRACY. We want a government that works for us---you know, a government of the people, by the people and for the people---and corporations ARE NOT PEOPLE and are not protected by the our Constitution. "Corporate legal personhood" is wrong and must be ended.
...in return Obama and his aides agreed not to press Congress to authorize the federal government to negotiate drug prices with the drug industry. Don't worry: the taxpayers will pay the bill.
-----------------------------
This EXCELLENT piece from 60 Minutes a few years back details how pharma and its lobbyists beat the congress silly until they agreed to force Medicare to buy all their drugs at full price.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3108688n&tag=related;photovideo
That is a good piece of journalism.
It's truly sickening to watch the slimeball Tauzin lie through his teeth knowing how he, like Scully, was working for his current position as lobbyist for the industry.
q
It is no longer about left and right. It is about will greed continue to overpower justice?
As always thanks again Ralph.
W4D August the 1st for Single Payer health care for all!. Show your power, support W4D!
Anything less than single-payer Medicare for All is pure bullshit. It is a class war, nothing more, nothing less. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the greed, the lies, and the bullshit legislation written by lobbyists of all stripes. The only LEGAL way to change it is to vote out ALL incumbents, yes, even the "good" ones, much as it would pain me to see Berine Sanders of Vermont voted out. It's time to let the miscreants in Congress know that we the people, we the damned TAX PAYERS have had enough of their bullshit and that ONE TERM is all ANYONE is going to get from now on. Its the only LEGAL way to wake them up. Other ways include piano wire and lamp posts, but that is another posting.
But sex, beer and pizza is all our indifferent 90% care about, or will lift a finger to bring about.
I like pizza, but not as much as the other two.
I guess that frees me to lift a finger.
PS -- if you take the time to work out all the figures, single-payer will cost overall much LESS than the current "private" system. YES, some people will pay MORE but others will actually pay LESS. Do not let the filthy RICH propaganda cloud your vision. Do not let the f*****g wealthy rule your life.
Ten years ago, I moved to Sweden, from Massachusetts. My mother in law, who by the way, had a quadruple by pass, and guess what, she's alive and we are not in debt. I don't lose sleep at night worrying about health care for me or any of my relatives. About three years ago I had a hernia operation, that cost me in, American terms about 200 bucks. Yes, we pay very high taxes, but, at least we get something from it and not just health care.
On the other hand, Americans pay fairly high taxes and get zilch and I mean ZILCH! Why don't you folks wake up and throw the bums out? Insurance companies should have no business being in health care. I have insurance for my house and car, but not for my health or my childrens health.
Americans seem to be dumber than doorknobs. Trillions for war and little for its people. Get a grip.
Americans are finally faced with the contradictions implicit in their social/economic system. You can't expect them to embrace collective action to solve social problems immediately. It will take twenty years or so, at least, to effect the kind of change most Europeans can understand.
I support Obama's public healthcare option because I feel it is the only choice that can possibly succeed in this conservative country. It will eventually outcompete the corporate model for healthcare and, through artificial selection, will come to dominate the field.
Most of the folks on this site do not represent the opinions of most Americans. If you listen to ordinary blokes around you, you will hear the echoes of thirty years of persuasive manipulation: "No, I don't want government to play a greater role in healthcare or anything else." You don't undo thirty years of brainwashing in a year. Better to admit that and go for solutions that do not assault the values of the majority of people.
An excellent post in favor of brainwashing.
Your brain is now squeaky clean.
drosera: America is not a "conservative country." Sounds like you've been watching too much TV. Polled on the issues, instead of on meaningless buzzwords like "liberal" and "conservative," Americans are more progressive than conservative. They've favored sing-player delivered healthcare for decades, by a margin of at least 2 to 1.
Sorry to bring you bad news, but the public option is just an empty name now - the substance has been bargained away. There is nothing that will "keep the insurance companies honest", nor to be a "gateway to single payer". There is just a support system for the new generation of robber barons.
R.I.P. Public option (if there every actually was one).
By the way, just what is Obama's health care plan, other than the three vapid principles?
I supposed that to be a hypocrite you have to "Know better." Barrack however acts like an insurance salesman when he says that, "through the connector we will find a health care plan just right for you." (add another 4% overhead) "Healthcare is a Right, not a commodity" How many of us really believe that-- certainly not the ones who hold the reins of power
I am hoping that others will pick up on the Barack as insurance salesman angle. That is all he sounds like now.
rybo1, good point. We do get zilch for our taxes. It wasn't always this way, but it is now.
Our country has been taken over by the corporations. And they aren't our worst enemy. They are doing what corporations do. Maximizing profits with no other considerations. They're supposed to be regulated but that's become history. Our worst enemy is our own political class. They are supposed to represent the people who vote them into office, but they have betrayed us and represent the corporations instead. So now we have private corporations writing laws which Congress rubber stamnps without even reading them and corporations owned by Republicans counting our votes using secret (proprietary) codes. It's become a corporate country. We are rapidly being reduced to wage slaves and cannon fodder.
But I've been talking about starting a new political party, the Main Street Party, and everyone I meet loves it. Even a businessman and a farmer I spoke with want to get involved and are willing to work to make it happen. No social issues, just economic issues that 60% of Americans agree on. People know things are awry, but don't know what they can do about it. So they're excited when presented with concrete steps. We can take back our country one Congressional district at a time, running candidates who take no corporate money.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, let's just blame the corporations for everything ! If it weren't for corporations, we wouldn't be having a fucking economy by now and more welfare queens would be freeloading off government. Government isn't your moneybag ! Corporations are good for you !
CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO
Stupid corporate shill ! All that corporate koolaid you've been guzzling down your throat has severely impaired your main engines with corporate sludge ! By the way, did you know that corporations get the most money from government? Government is the moneybag for the corporate fascists that is. Why is it ok for government to keep doling out more money to those greedy corporations and yet this same government has the nerve to be a "scrooge" creep against the rest of us who aren't asking for even a fraction of that amount just to maintain a good infrastructure for the country? Your idea of corporate care has already been tried for 30 years and has resulted in catastrophic long term national failure. Please write "REPAIR ME", paste it on your head, and shut your engine off so that some really nice mechanic can not only get rid of all that corporate sludge clogging your engines but reprogram you to stop drinking corporate koolaid for the rest of your life !
Ignore the retarded trolls, it's better for you :-)
EncinoM spews, "If it weren't for corporations, we wouldn't be having a fucking economy by now..."
Right. Before Corporations existed, humans had no economy. Not the Ancient Greeks. Nobody.
That's exactly the problem: precisely BECAUSE of corporations and their Wall Street/Federal Reserve Banksters, we DO have a "fucking economy" instead of a healthy economy! It's "fucking" most of us big time!
An economy, the creation of a culture, should operate to serve the needs of the people of its culture, NOT the other way around.
I have read a lot of blogs and seen many programs denigrating single payer national health care systems. They seem to come from people that have no personal experience with such systems or a vested interest in the current system. Numerous studies have established that single payer national health care systems cost about half of our system while providing better health care as measured by outcome such as infant mortality, longevity, hospital mistakes etc. My family has personal experience with health care systems in England, Germany, Norway and USA from living in those countries. I would not hesitate one moment to choose any of their systems over ours (USA). It is difficult to understand why systems demonstrated to be better than ours, no matter which criteria you use to compare them, are not seriously considered here in the USA. Are we that misinformed, brainwashed, uneducated, dogmatically tied to capitalist philosophy (that in this case is failing), not as smart as citizens in other countries, or is it that it was not invented by the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth. Most likely it is that our politicians are bought off by the corporate beneficiaries of the current system.
A viable health care system must also be decoupled from ones place of work like the rest of the world. This will help make our industry more competitive, and encourage employee mobility into new economic activities to help spawn and expand new businesses.
The bottom line, born out by facts and not emotions or dogma, is that single payer national health care systems work better for more people at lower cost than our for profit system.
True -- for to say that healthcare is not a right, is only for those who earn good income, is to say that we who have not the intelligence to earn good income, we of the slow and careful laboring class, are not fit to live.
Self-absorbed and indifferent 90% -- What is Nader to do?
And if that was not enough, we have the wealthiest 50% enriching themselves upon the misery of society.
But our hero’s day may be yet to come, for about this time next year our selfish 90% shall be 50% foreclosed, bankrupted and impoverished. Can’t say we didn’t warn them.
Hi Alabama_john,
It is indeed very upsetting and frustrating to see how indifferent our electorate has become. I used to often not know whether to laugh or cry at our dysfunctional electorate but like many others in my boat, I am trying to find a way to help break down the indifference. One thing I thought of was getting your friends, neighbors, family, etc ... to vote with their open minds and hearts on the issues rather than be so closed-minded and vote on the party and/or based on the corporate media trash talk and polls. Don't give up the fight and thank you for understanding Nader well. If only more people in your state and mine (MO) and others as well could do the same.
5% support Single Payer, 5% oppose it and 90% indifferent.
So all is not lost. Just forget the self-absorbed 90% as they will never change, and let us concentrate on that very small 5% who oppose healthcare for all, the 5% who own the wealth and capital of us all. Any ideas?
The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan — something like Medicare for those under 65 — that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/policy/21poll.html?_r=3
or
via tinyurl at http://tinyurl.com/kta5ra
Now that Obama and the rest of the Government has failed to produce a health care plan that will reduce costs or provide equal access, the biggest question becomes what price will be paid by society for this failure. The only reason why "health care reform" is being talked about at all by the ruling corporations and the Government is the apparent truths that the sky high cost of health care has (1) contributed to the current economic collapse and (2) might very well prevent an economic recovery.
Incidentally, when rich people on television talk about "economic recovery," they are talking about a recovery for rich people (through stock market gains and so forth) not about a true economic recovery that obviously would have to include a large number of jobs being created. But in fact, for the first time in history, the US Government has recently been dropping hints that there might be an economic recovery with few or no jobs created! Seriously though, any jobless recovery would be a recovery only in the fantasy world of very rich people.
So going forward, the relevant question becomes whether the failure to fix health will keep the economy from recovering and, specifically, will the failure prevent jobs from being created. If the number of US jobs does not rise anywhere near enough to cover the need for jobs (or continues to drop) for years and years, while the population continues to grow, (more slowly due to reduced immigration) then I for one don't see how the system as a whole can continue indefinitely.
This "doomsday" scenario would represent a systemic collapse on a scale seldom if ever seen in the world, and I assume that the relevant question would then become when a new political order would be established, not if. The US Constitution or at least some parts of it would probably be history in any doomsday scenario.
Although the new order could be less right wing than the existing one, I suppose it could be more obviously fascist than the current one, also. The US population appears to be too inherently right wing and too "dumbed down" for there ever to be Social Democracy" there, at least within the next 50 years or so. However, on the other hand, the virtually unprecedented scale of the very possibly developing systemic and essentially permanent economic collapse is a wild card factor that, to me as an economist anyway, makes possible almost any future political order, including a more progressive one.
All we get for our taxes is more death.
All of the countries of Europe which have national health care for all of their citizens have far lower teen pregnancy rates, far lower teen venereal disease rates, and far lower teen abortion rates than does the United States. Tell a "social conservative" this fact and you will get silence and a scowl.
When I hear the words "reform . . . the heath care system" on NPR, I think, "What health care system?"
How do we get information to the masses? News no longer informs. The only information out there is on shows like Bill Moyers Journal, which only a small fraction of people will ever see. Michael Moore was effectively neutralized by the jingoists and Frank Luntz. There is zero information regarding what single payer is, what the public option is, or the demerits of private insurance (although many of us who have it already know its many shortcomings).
The process is happening in an information vacuum. And this rally will go unreported to the nation.
Awwww, poor Ralphie. The poor old geezer can't win an election and he can't stand to watch Obama making history with health care reform so here he is posting such poor comparisons between Hillary and Obama on healthcare. The only people who want Obama to fail are the Republicans and the Naderites. You Naderite worshippers should shut up and get a job instead of begging government to give you free health care. I'm self-employed and well-insured and Obama is doing a fabulous job compromising with Republicans and Democrats and working out a great plan that your crybaby losers are just jealous of. If you can't learn to pay up, then you have no right to complain and invent stupid names like Obamacare. If Obamacare sounds a lot like mandatory care, then I like it a lot because you sore losers need to be beaten down and disciplined until you learn that you can't keep taking free care from government all the time. Either shut up and get a job or get lost. Government isn't your moneybag.
lol, so they have internet on some of the psych wards now?
Yes, either that or Encino loves to give all his/her money to health insurance companies and allow them to decide what procedures, tests, and medications s/he's worthy of.
EncinoM is a typical Obamabot. Like most Obamabots, he drinks GE Koolaid which does not allow him to compute since there's a lot of sludge buildup on its engines as if the sludge from Ronnie Raygun's koolaid wasn't enough to keep him handicapped given his support of Raygunomics.
The only reform Obama hopes to see is mandated coverage to incerase the coffers of his corporate masters in the insurance industry. True reform = SINGLE PAYER. Anything else is sheeple food.
Well, I didn't read Encino's post (I scroll past his screeds as a waste of time) so I don't know what you all are referring to, but I'm sure you have better things to do with your time - such as commenting to thoughtful and intelligent comments, as with the one by tremaine. Being that you got sucked into a shit throwing contest with a registered troll, I apologize for not reading your comments either, although I generally do read them with interest. So can we please get back to interesting and informative discussions?
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I think we need to be careful in our language. There may be other options than single payer that would solve our health insurance dilemma other than single payer. What we really need is universal health coverage. Some countries have single payer, some don't, but civilized countries insure all without the need for employers to do it.
That's what we should be demanding!
"What we really need is universal health coverage. "
I agree except for one thing. Universal health coverage better not be like the one in MA unless you want to be treated like cars in front of Big Insurance. In some states, you have to already have auto insurance or else you cannot register your vehicle. Imagine employers denying you employment simply because you didn't allow Big Insurance to rip you off. MA care is NOT universal health coverage despite their slick language to make it look like it is.
I'm not that familiar with the MA system, so can't really comment.
What I meant is that there may be options that work better in the US than in other countries, and we shouldn't close our minds to them. For instance, how about a 51 payer system with each state administering the coverage while the Fed oversees it. I have no idea whether that would work, but we should allow the possibility and latitude so that we can work something out. The Canadian system is what works in Canada. The UK system is what works in the UK. Etc. As long as our aim is to, A. cover every American equally, and B. not have health insurance coverage dependent on jobs, I don't care if it's administered by Bernie Madoff. Well, I jest, but really, there are options we can't foresee, so we shouldn't close our minds to them.
What you have described about the states administering coverage while the Fed oversees it is, in fact similar to the Canadian system, which is provincial, not completely national.
We will never get ANY system to work in the United States because too many people don't want one that works, no matter what it might be. They want one that makes money for them.
Do some investigating of the Massachusetts plan - the state is foundering under the load, many people are losing access to health care, facilities for the poor are being closed because the governor needs the funds to feed to the uncontrolled insurance and drug companies.
I like that idea of connecting the state and the federal levels together on universal coverage. I shall keep that idea in mind for future discussions. Thank you Ted. :)
And the people shouldn't be the profiteers' moneybag, either.
Really, Mr. Nader. Health care hypocrisy?! Perhaps you'd point out for us ANY element of USA Incorporated's "freedom and democracy" that is NOT total hypocrisy from sea to shining sea. Diogenes's search had a better chance for success.
Agreed, but he's got to start somewhere. Can't expect him to go madly riding off in all directions at once. That's Congress' job.
Ted Markow ;
I think that BIGGEST problem Obama created for himself (supposing only that he BELIEVED what he said about singlepayer YEARS ago) -
was that HE did NOT stand BY the participation of Singlepayer advocates in the national discussion.
ONCE HE DID THAT - he compromised - and everything ELSE is watered down - to the point that eventually - there is NOT MUCH CHANGE.......
health care in the USA remains FOR PROFIT . bottom line. and THAT is the problem.
obama ought to have used his bully pulpit - to place Single Payer
FRONT CENTER and PRIMAL so that NO politician or big money DARE oppose it PUBLICLY knowing that the public FINALLY UNDERSTANDS what has been hidden from them in broad daylight.
but obama let THAT OPPORTUNITY go . and now - it is perhaps almost too late for him to correct his steps.
in THIS - he is SINGULARLY at fault for denying admittance to Single payer discussion ....
no - it ought to have been ONLY single payer discussion and TEACH americans - that is ALSO HIS ROLE - that FOR PROFIT HEATLH CARE
has NO BUSINESS being in existence whatsoever.
americans are smart but they NEED to be "learned". they can only LEARN if the TEACHER brings the proper MATERIAL to LEARN.
"americans are smart but they NEED to be "learned". they can only LEARN if the TEACHER brings the proper MATERIAL to LEARN."
Allow me to address your last sentence first: I disagree. People learn when they WANT to learn, when they are ready to learn. Most Americans simply don't want to learn. What we want is to be handed everything on a silver platter. And, by the way, we want it now. Many years of believing all that American exceptionalism crap has drummed that into our heads and now we believe we are entitled. Time for the American people to do some growing up and start stretching ourselves to learn.
As far as Obama being anything other than what he is...well, who knows. We can all go "coulda, shoulda, woulda," but Obama is Obama. I'd love for him to be the embodiment of everything I believe in, but he isn't. Only I am and I'm not interested in being president (now, emperor of the world...).
Yes, he's let opportunities go, but probably not in his mind. Just think, 300 million people in this country and each one probably has their own set of agendas. Kinda tough to hew to that.
"health care in the USA remains FOR PROFIT . bottom line. and THAT is the problem. "
I so agree. However, the state of health care in the USA is merely a symptom of something larger. While we certainly need to get this under control, who knows how long it would take for capitalism to wile its way into a government run health insurance system before the insurance industries would be right back in it? Depressing, ain't it? We need to change the system, including our health care system.
"was that HE did NOT stand BY the participation of Singlepayer advocates in the national discussion."
He did not, and you are right. He should have and that alone has shown many that he never was for single payer. When this latest attempt to fix health insurance in the US fails (either way it goes, it will fail), the people need to rise up. Obama may be a politician, but he is smart and he is not evil (yeah, yeah, I know. No he's not.) This wall is thick and tough and we must keep hammering away at it. This one issue has the capacity to knock this country flat on its back, and Obama knows this. If he doesn't get it this time, we need to make him see it. If he won't see it, he will deserve to get his ass kicked out of office. (That will make some folks here happy).
Ted Markow -- obviously your pointing out my first statement about "americans need to be learned and are smart...etc"......
reflects on what consciously tried to include while typing: that I want to BELIEVE that americans are better than just being sheep-like when led through things that eventually harm them, individually and as a society.
sometimes - i try to ask myself if i am being TOO HARSH on my assessments ...but perhaps you are closer to the truth than I in my previous statement...sad as that would be.