The majority of the American people have wanted universal healthcare since the 80's. The time is now to draw the line in the sand. Any politician that runs for office regardless of party that supports universal single payer healthcare has my vote any other position than that and I will pass thank you. Also, I have made a point of NOT donating blood and taking the donor sticker off my driver license. If you couldn't afford to have your own blood put back into you, then you should not donate either. Make your refusal to support for profit medicine with your body products loud and clear every time you go to the doctor or talk to a politician. We are done bleeding for the rich.

Vote third party as soon as you can.

Don't need no stinkin' "real healthcare debate" which is NOT actually about health care in any case! And you sure as hell don't need a "public option" that is "already a serious compromise, given that most citizens and physicians actually favor 'single-payer' -- a more comprehensive and progressive option."

The ONLY debatable question is whether the U.S, has any right to call itself a democracy in any sense of the word, let alone "the greatest democracy on earth" worthy to impose itself globally as such on unwilling recipients elsewhere.

Any such clear and unambiguous public mandate as current support for single-payer health care would simply be implemented by any truly democratic government, not debated and compromised ad nauseum for the benefit of non-human corporations and their paid sponsorship that aren't even a part of the actual health care delivery system for that matter.

Since when are compromises with non-constituent interests any part of the democractic process anyhow? I don't recall any mention of the Athenian Greek originators of the concept consulting the either Trojan horse or the Persian fleet when deciding whether to build the Parthenon and how to finance it.

In fact, there may be one other debatable issue more critically important even than health care or any other. If your government is not a democratic institution and does not represent the wants and wishes of its human electoral constituency, by what right does it continue to hold office and exert any legitimate power at all?

REFORM,n. the improvement or amendment to what is wrong, corrupt (the American College Dictionary REFORM, n. the improvement or amendment of what is wrong or corrupt.... (Congressional Dictionary)

Democracy can be turned into totalitarianism More easily and quickly than any other form of government. The constitution need not be changed, the bill of rights can remain in place, and all the trappings of democracy retained.

These are forms which embody freedom and democracy. Once the substance of freedom and democracy have been dispensed with the forms mean nothing.

Public opinion, the cornerstone of any democracy, can be manipulated by fear. 'We cannot protect you without the necessary tools'.

Once the public is brought on board a bloodless coup there is no one to whom an appeal can be made. Voices for real reform can be allowed to be heard as proof that the freedom of speech is not gone, and to disarm any clamor for a reduction in the prison population, an end to torture, an end to senseless war, and taxing the middle class into poverty.

Once the richest ten percent have everything, including all forms of mass communication, the police can be unleashed, the most repressive laws possible enforced, and everyone will still celebrate their freedom, wave the flag, and then go home to a dinner of potatoes and bread in a cold house.

Nobody will dare admit to their poverty. This is the land of opportunity. If you are poor it is your own fault. All the world loathes a loser.

And again, this is NOT about "healthcare" reform, it is about "health insurance" reform... a big difference. What is being proposed is a plan to enrich more private corporations, by forcing people to get insurance or pay more taxes. We have the monies to provide free health care (less elective treatments) to every man woman and child in this country. The mandate is in the preamble to the Constitution, which says that we should 'promote to the general welfare'... AND we already have socilaized medicine for our elderly (medicare and medicaid) which seems to be working fairly well. Yeah, it could use some fine tuning, but for the size of our population, it's been an okay system.

Just in............

By DAVID ESPO AP Special Correspondent
07/27/2009 3:33:54 PM
After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits a requirement for businesses to offer coverage to their workers and lacks a government insurance option that President Barack Obama favors, according to numerous officials.

Single payer? Not even a public option! UNACCEPTABLE! TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!

Define Freedom and Nietzsche:

Considering that you have stopped donating but are still medically eligible, I hope YOU never need blood. What makes you think it only goes to "the rich?" If you had ever worked in a hospital, you would know otherwise. People on Medicaid get transfusions too! (FYI, I just donated last weekend.)

* * *

As a longtime opponent of government and corporate centralized control (especially the collusion of the two under authoritarian administrations like Bush-Cheney), I have never supported "single-payer" healthcare, but a better safety net for those in need.

We will never get decent healthcare reform (or anything else) from the current government, which is corrupt in the extreme. If we want to reform healthcare, we first need to reform the GOVERNMENT.

The ONLY way we will ever be able to afford healthcare reform is to stop funding wars of aggression and other adventures of the military-industrial complex.

We can only counter the corporate disinformation and $$$$ in the pockets of our government officials by demanding we join the 20th century ( no less the 21st) by bombarding our posts and asking all of our friends, friendly acqaintances, and relatives to do the same. Oops, by "bombarding our posts" I meant our fuckin' Congresspeople!

Sorry to say it but in the end were going to be given a reform that is really just nothing more then a huge robbery handed to the Private Health Dogs from the taxpayer. Another Wall St. fiasco and were going to be told it's all that's possible. This reform will actually make things far worse for all of us and far far better for the health Ins. Industry.

People with influence, please listen to us. It's in your own best interest.

I sent the following to every member of the Senate Finance Committee:

"I can't believe that the finance committee is going to drop the public option from the senate health care reform bill. Without a public option, at minimum, there is no reform.

True reform would require a single-payer system, but I understand that Congress is far too myopic to consider the long-term benefit of the public in general, especially when Congressional members' campaign funds' financial health might be at stake.

If Congress passes legislation without a public option, then I suggest you disband both houses entirely. You can save us all the expense of paying for the charade you call the "legislative branch."

This failure can be called nothing short of contempt of constituency."

We really need to stop this talk about health care reform. It ain't happening nor will it, not in America. The oligarchs have won the game and we are now expendable.

I have Medicare and I feel everyone should have it too, but people should not give themselves every excuse to do nothing and it is sick for citizens to be like that.

The Senate will soon be debating and voting upon the Health Care Reform Legislation reported from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) and Finance Committees. Senator Sanders will offer S 703 as a substitute amendment to this legislation. I urge you to vote in favor of the Sanders amendment. It marks a combination of the most efficient, progressive, and cost effective way of paying for health care through public financing and maintains our system of providing health care through private health care providers. The Sanders substitute amendment allows Americans to go to the doctor of their choice and choose their medical treatment without any interference from a third party. Many studies have been made over the years that show there are enormous cost savings that accrue from a single payer system such as that prescribed by S 703. This amendment provides an effective way to control skyrocketing health care costs while covering all Americans. Please support the smart, comprehensive, and humane health care policy embodied in Senator Sanders’ amendment, S 703.

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

It's all corporate media. Add public broadcasting to the list. All of it is bought and paid for and run by individuals who know they would be fired if they told the truth.

here's the situation we are out of money and a government
with no integrity spine or moral compass!we do not matter what we do. massive public demonstrations in washington until we
regain their attention!

as someone without health insurance who recently sustained an injury that made it necessary to make my way through the hellish labyrinth of 'health care' for the uninsured, i have to say it is astounding how ignorant folks are about the scamming of the insurance industry and the effect that their poisoning of the world of medicine has had upon patient and caregivers alike. i see medical professionals burning out, trying to maintain their sanity in a system that requires a continuous onslaught of nonsensical edicts from management designed to cover the ass of the institutions they work for, and which place unrealistic demands on understaffed, overworked docs and nurses who, if they're honest, will confide are making actual healthcare a lower priority than profitability in a catch-22 scenario that can make your head spin. as a patient with a nasty fracture in my foot, i spent over 10 hours waiting in lines, getting misdirected from place to place, witnessing every sort of passing-the-buck and burnout behavior from sullen to panicked to clearly frazzled or angry in my 'caregivers' and wound up with a procedure done incorrectly by a well-meaning but thoroughly fried practitioner who i finally got to pay attention to me for 5 minutes and actually DO something about my break..... now i need to go in to undo the botched job she did (and did because she gave a damn that i'd been waiting for so many hours, foot throbbing on crutches, and someone somewhere had dropped the ball making an additional several-hour-long wait likely before her shift ended. i feel terrible that she'll likely receive hell about it.... one of those cases of 'no good deed goes unpunished'.... my friend who hung in there with me the whole day was astounded, as was i, at the chaos and stress both staff and patients have to go through when most in need of care and healing. between my vicodin fogged naps i've got to figure out how to get my 'bulky jones' cast redone and write my letters to obama or reps or whoever about 'my story' which is likely tame compared to many people's.... remembering back to my public schoolteaching days and supposedly 'good' insurance, i honestly don't know which is worse, being insured or being uninsured as far as the insane rigamarole hoopjumping, but it's clear that the uninsured are subject to more endangerment of their health in the longrun since it's considerably more speed-focused and mechanistic.... the staff all seemed to be suffering from some kind of air-traffic-controller syndrome of some kind and, though good people all, incapable of slowing down and being present or compassionate with THEMSELVES, let alone with the patients.

We probably won't get genuine health care reform until we have journalism reform. Or, more accurately, until we finally get something that passes for genuine old fashioned worn shoe leather investigative journalism by our media.

Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]