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TechnoratiTop Ten Ways To Tell Your President & His Party Aren't Fighting For Health Care For Everybody
With the corporate media relentlessly distorting the public discussion around health care reform, it time for some clear, bright lines to help us tell who is doing what to whom, and whether any of it leads to health care for all of us. Here are ten of them.
Barack Obama and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate were swept into office on a promise they would deliver affordable and accessible health care for all Americans. But the corporate media journalism limits the national health care conversation to what insurance companies, drug companies, for-profit health care professionals, their executives, lobbyists and politicians of both parties and other hirelings have to say. So it isn't as easy as it ought to be to tell what the politicians are doing about accomplishing health care for everybody. Hence we offer these ten points. This is how you can tell whether your president and his party are fighting for the health care you deserve.
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Their plan doesn't cover the uninsured till at least 2013.
2013 isn't "day one." It's not even after the midterm election. It's clear after the president's second term, if he gets one. Congress passed Medicare in 1965 and president Lyndon Johnson rolled out coverage for millions of seniors in eleven months, back in the days before they even had computers.
22,000 Americans now perish each year because they can't get or can't afford medical care, and this year three quarter million personal bankruptcies will be triggered by unpayable medical bills. Why this president and these Democrats are in such a hurry to pass health care now that doesn't take effect till two elections down the road doesn't make sense in any kind of good way.
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Their "public option" isn't Medicare, won't bring costs down and will only cover about 10 million people.
The "public option" was sold to the American people as Medicare-scale plan open to anybody who wants in that would compete with the private insurers and drive their costs downward. But in their haste not to bite the hands that feed them millions in campaign contributions each hear, the president and his party have scaled the public option back from a Medicare-sized 130 million to a maximum of 10 million, too small to put cost pressure in private insurers. Worse still, the president and his party are playing bait-and-witch, not telling the public they have reduced the public option, to nearly nothing.
This remnant of a public option is not Medicare, as Howard Dean insists, and it will not lead to the sort of everybody-in-nobody-out health care system that most Americans, whenever they are surveyed say they want.
Some Senate and House Democrats want to ditch even the pretense of a "public option" in favor of something they're calling a private insurance "co-op", which as near as anybody can tell has the same relationship to an actual cooperative that clean coal has to actual coal.
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The president and his party have already caved in to the drug companies on reimporting Canadian drugs, on negotiating drug prices downward and on generics.
This explains why Big Pharma, the same people who ran the devastatin g series of anti-reform "Harry and Louise" ads to spike the Clinton-era drive to fix health care are spending $100 million to run Obama ads using the president's language about "bipartisan" solutions to health care reform.
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The president and his party have received more money from private insurers and the for-profit health care industry than even Republicans, with the president alone taking $19 million in the 2008 election cycle alone, more than all his Repubican, Democratic and independent rivals combined.
Democratic senator Max Bacaus got $1.1 million in 2008. Democratic senators Harkin, Landreau and Rockerfeller each got over half a million, and Senator Durbin got just under half a million. Other Democratic senators got a little less. Four Democrats in the House, Rangel, Dinglell, Udall and Hoyer got over half a million apiece in 2008, with other Democrats not far behind.
Is there any wonder that the insurance companies, like the drug companies are also running "bipartisan health care reform" commercials using the president's exact language?
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The president's plan, and those of Republicans and Democratic blue dogs too, will require families to purchase health insurance policies from private insurers.
This is something the policy wonks call an 'individual mandate", under which Individuals will be "mandated" to purchase affordable insurance, though companies would not be required to offer it. In Massachusetts, the prototype state for the Obama plan, a family with an income of $33,000 can be required to spend $9,000 in deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses before the insurance company is obligated to pay a dime. As in Massachusetts, public money is used to purchase private insurance for the very poorest citizens. With the revenues of insurance companies on the decline, individual mandate programs are a welcome bailout for the private insurance industry.
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The president's plan, and those of Republicans and Democratic blue dogs too, could force you to buy junk insurance.
Think about an insurance policy that costs a lot, but is full of loopholes, exceptions and steep deductibles and co-payments. That's junk insurance, and for many it's the only insurance companies offer. Even more pernicious is the widespread practice among insurance companies of "recission" in which claimants are routinely investigated and disqualified in the event that they finally make a claim. Insurance companies admit they do this to half of one percent of policies per year. That means if you hold a health insurance policy twenty years, you don;t have insurance - you have a ninety percent chance of having insurance.
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The president's plan, as well as those of Democratic "blue dogs" and Republicans, are to be funded in part with cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
Private insurance companies have always hated Medicare because it is far more efficient than they are. Medicare's administrative expenses are under five percent, as compared with the one third of every health care dollar taken by the for-profit insurance companies for their advertising, bad investments, billing and denial machinery, executive salaries and bonuses. Private insurers have, over the years, purchased enough influence in Congress and previous White Houses to restrict Medicare's payment rates and partially privatize it. But president Obama's plan, perhaps the most friendly to Medicare and Medicaid, calls for over $300 billion in cuts to the programs that now provide medical care to those with the fewest options, while failing to guarantee that care will come from elsewhere. In Massachusetts right now, hospitals are turning away poor people they used to be able to provide care for because funding that used to go to those institutions is now plowed into the state's "individual mandate" system.
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The president, with the cooperation of corporate media and the Republicans is trying to make the argument about himself instead of a discussion on the merits of his policy.
The president and his critics are happy to talk about whether this will be "his Waterloo", or his Dien Bien Phu, as if that matters more than the 22,000 Americans who die each year from lack of medical care, or the three quarter million who will go bankrupt because of unpayable medical bills. The concentration on whether the president looks good or bad takes up air, ink, and coverage time that might otherwise be spent explaining what is and isn't in the various proposals, and why.
If the president were not afraid of his own supporters publicly examining the merits and demerits of his proposals, he would mobilize those 13 million emails and phone numbers collected during the campaign. The reason he has not sone so already is that most of his own supporters favor a Medicare-For-All single payer health care system, HR 676.
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The president and his party, and the corporate media have spent more time and energy silencing and excluded the advocates of single payer health care, mostly the president's own supporters, than they have fighting blue dogs and Republicans.
But no matter how diligently the spokespeople for single payer are excluded from media coverage and invitations to Obama's policy forums and round tables, no matter how many times the White House cuts their questions from transcripts and video of public events, the calls, emails and letters keep pouring into Congress and the White House demanding the creation of a publicly funded, everybody-in-nobody-out system, a Medicare-for-All kind of single payer health care plan.
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Despite the president's own admission that only a single payer health care system will deliver what Americans want, he and the leaders of his party insist that Medicare For All, HR 676, us utterly off the table.
Before he became a presidential candidate, Barack Obama identified himself as a proponent of a single payer health care system. All we had to do, he told us, was elect a Democratic congress and senate, and a different president. Now that this has been done, he insists that "change" is just not possible, and we have to settle for less. The president continues to admit that only a single payer health care system will cover everybody, but insists that America just can't handle that much change.
The truth is that Barack Obama campaigned as the candidate of change, and a health care system that covers everybody from day one with no exceptions is what people imagined they voted for when they swept him and an overwhelming number of Democrats into office.
A single payer Medicare-For-All system will eliminate 500,000 insurance company jobs and replace them with 3.2 million new jobs in health care for a net gain of 2.6 million new jobs according to a study by the National Nurses Organization. That's as many jobs as the US economy lost in all of 2007. Single payer will create hundreds of billions in annual wages and local and state tax revenues for cash strapped cities and towns. It will lift the shadow of bankruptcy for medical reasons from two thirds of a million American families yearly. It's what we deserve.
It's what we voted for, and we won't stop demanding it.
123 Comments so far
Show AllBruce Dixon: Thanks very much for the pithy and thoughtful analysis of a 1000+ page bill that camoflages the essential features in wordy detail.
You have performed a great public service.
I have sent this analysis along. It is hard to rally protest when nobody clearly understands what is going on. Your article helps clear that obstacle, and we have little time.
Joe
The lead story in this morning's "Washington Post" (Sunday 2 August 2009) proves every one of Mr. Dixon's points and also confirms the worst of my pre-election predictions:
"Obama Trims Sails On Health Reform...Seeks to Rally Support by Promising Less" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/01/AR2009080102403.html?hpid=topnews)
Which is -- as we all know (whether we are honest enough to admit it or not) -- the ultimate betrayal of "change we can believe in."
The "Post" reports that the final, eternally insurmountable obstacle to meaningful reform is the murderously greedy fear of those rich enough to have adequate insurance now -- the fact that to preserve healthcare as their own privilege of wealth (and obstruct the transformation of healthcare into the human right recognized by civilized peoples everywhere), they would literally kill even more of us who are impoverished, elderly or disabled.
Once again we see how the power of the ruling class has been guaranteed by the methodical conditioning of the entire population in the one true ruling class ethos: infinite greed as maximum virtue -- limitless selfishness as ultimate good.
Thus even those who could find themselves without jobs (and thus too without insurance) mere days from now have been conditioned to such a debased level of idiotic self-dishonesty, they refuse to acknowledge their huge vulnerability and indeed fight against the very changes that would protect them.
Such is Moron Nation: a people permanently reduced to eternal stupidity and thus to inescapable powerlessness.
As the "Post" makes clear, the ultimate beneficiaries of these so-called lesser "reforms" will be the insurance barons, the Sultans of Sickness who prey like vampires on our afflictions. By mandatory insurance, they will now have officially enslaved the entire nation -- a boost in profits that will more than make up for any reduction that stricter regulation might have imposed on their inconceivable profits.
This development -- and I say this not with any sense of triumph but rather with infinite bitterness -- is also absolute proof of the correctness of my pre-election prediction: that Obama would change nothing save perhaps our awareness of how powerless we truly are.
For here in the betrayal of healthcare reform we see the hideous truth: that the United States has been reduced a one-party despotism in which Democrats and Republicans are nothing more than separate cliques within a monolithic plutocracy.
Worse, it is a plutocracy that has converted government and governance at all levels into nothing more than the instrument of its tyranny: the perpetuation of capitalism (and thus the plutocracy's pornographic wealth) by any means imaginable -- absolute power for the ruling class, total subjugation for all the rest of us.
Which subjugation is already the ultimate truth of our lives, proven by the silent submission to this outrage that, in the eyes of history, damns us forever as a people who refused to save themselves -- and thereby proved themselves unworthy of saving.
Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of the current "debate" over healthcare reform is the steady erosion of meaningful change in the measures that have been proposed. If the best of the Democratic bills now under consideration were passed in its current form, American healthcare would remain exactly what it is: a national disgrace dominated by rapacious corporate interests. Victims of a collosal bait and switch by a man who promised he'd be different, we're reduced to fighting over chimeras, which is exactly what our foes intended.
sometime about dec 09 - jun 10 - "regular" folks will start to "really" realize - how f***ed over they really are - have no hope of even a modest "middle class" lifestyle - even if every member of their family worked 500 years - 12 hours a day - 365 days a year - and 50-70-90 percent of everything they ever earned or will ever earn is going to the wealthy elites....
I feel so sorry for the young voters. The election of 2008 was their first entry into politics--and they f*cked it up completely.
Now they're going to have to live with this blunder their whole lives. Ouch!
Maybe we should call them Generation F*ck Up.
This is one of those issues that people MUST go completely and TOTALLY APESHIT over.
I don't mean blogging about it. I mean mean French-style burning things in the street, blocking traffic and smashing windows APESHIT.
Can you imagine being FORCED to buy crap fraudulent insurance?! People need to blockade the offices of any congress ass that even looks like they MIGHT vote for this enormity. Basic human rights are at stake.
Agreed!
To quizmasterchris;
To our credit no one has started the burning in the streets because the history of the French Revolution defined the very worst path that humanity could allow to happen. The real portable wealth of the people of France disappered overnight almost, and the per capita earnings of the french citizen plummeted not so much in value, but in the 150 years that it took to slowly recover from the evisceration of the public's trust in their own leaders.
The point is that we're only hurting ourself when we resort to the violence that was part of that story. This kind of discourse and the voices that are being heard right now is the only chance that we have to make our country the kind of place that we want to live in.
One of my friends told me before the last election cycle that he would have liked to see the new President declare on his inauguration day that he would order the State Department to seize the passports of the 250 largest contributors to the Republican party. That's never going to happen, but it's a comforting thought while we rally and petition for the "Change we can believe in".
The Dems are hitting me up for more donations of late. This has been my response:
I donated in 2008 and invested hundreds of volunteer hours in the campaigns. It is the last time I will do either until I see a single-payer universal healthcare system or a muscular public option plan available to all.
I don't give a damn what else you do or how you nibble around other edges ... the litmus test for Democrats' commitment to fundamental change lies in two necessary actions:
1. Substantive healthcare reform
2. Ending Pay-to-Play by passing legislation to require the public funding of Congressional and Presidential Campaigns, a ban on donations in excess of $100, and a ban on working as lobbyists forever after leaving public office.
So think carefully about whether you need foot soldiers or legal bribes for your next campaign because you are unlikely to command both for your next election.
Please define exactly what you mean by a "muscular" public option.
When people throw around these vague, metaphorical catch-all terms untethered to a specific proposal, it makes it easier for the Beltway pols to engage in bait-and-switch.
Obviously the public options offered by the mainstream Dems so far are anything but "muscular"--emaciated is more like it.
So please spell out the provisions of your "muscular" option so people can't hide behind these talismanic phrases anymore.
We know exactly what single payer is--but what the hell to people really mean by "public option"?
The term "Public Option", is the official description that the Whitehouse has proposed for a government sponsored health Insurance program that would compete with private insurance to keep costs down.
There is no explanation that has been stated about how exactly that costs would be kept down.
The rhetoric used up to this point in commitee meetings has been to use the idea of cutting services for Medicare and Medicaid and use that money to pay down the costs of running a "Public Option" program.
This is the important point here...listen carefully..."Cut the services of a government-sponsored (i.e. a publically owned system) in order to provide funds for...Ta-dah...a government-sponsored, publically-owned health care insurance program".
So far, this seems all smoke and mirrors.
The government could always cut services, but without tying the need to reducing the cost of medical insurance this seems to be just not a very well described doublespeak for "We don't have a clue"... and if that's a correct assumption on my part, then my urgent insisting on a UNIVERSAL, SINGLE-PAYER" health care option still seems to be the only course to choose.
The question about "What is Universal Single-Payer" is the one that we should all be asking here.
I'll let the other bloggers here explain that one in greater detail.
My litmus test for Obama is healthcare and climate change/renewable energy policy. Looks like he'll fail on both. As for the Dems, if they're not in the CPC, screw 'em.
Good news guys, or so it seems. Apparently Pelosi has promised Rep. Weiner, the guy who wanted to amend HR 3200 and replace it with HR 676, that if he withdrew his amendment in the committee she would allow a full House vote on HR 676 sometime this year. With luck, the several shitty healthcare bills will soon be nothing but a very bad memoru.
http://weiner.house.gov/news
_display.aspx?id=1335
Sorry to be persnickety but I, too, would like a good source for the job-creation figure, and, also, some good proofreading before publication. The article makes really excellent points, but is useless as a citation. (BTW, the same goes for many articles at counterpunch.org...)
Back when I was a reporter I had to clean up witness language because if I did not, the editors would either delete it or re-write it anyway.
To wit:
"Mr. Smith said he wants health care for everybody..."
vs
"Mr. Smith said 'them guys is fuckin us over just like before, only worse'."
-30-
A practice to which I can also testify. Here's my best example (on metro rewrite late one spring morning in 1970 at The Jersey Journal, then a nine-edition-per-day daily).
A ship -- allegedly an ammunition ship eventually bound for Vietnam via the Panama Canal -- caught fire on the Hoboken waterfront, and we were maybe 10 minutes off the noon deadline for the North Lift, the first major makeover of the day, so it was imperative we get something for Page One.
We already had the pier number from the fire radio but I told the copy boy to fetch me the city directory. I used it to find a business close to the pier -- a tire warehouse as I remember -- and phoned it.
The conversation went something like this:
"This's Bliss at The Journal. Can you guys see the fire from where you are?"
"O fuck yes, de mohfucker thowin flames clear to de mohfuckin sky. I seen fires, I was in de war in Korea, but youse ain never seen such a mohfucker as dis. We gettin da fuck outa here."
Which became in print:
"It was awful," he said just before the evacuation. "I never in my life saw such a fire."
-30 back-
Source for single-payer job creation:
http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/january/first-of-its-kind-study-medicare-for...
Imagine if everyone put as much intent on their well being and health as now is being focused onto "fixing" the neglect..and wanting a "system" to do it...?
the one thing that can be said about this whole charade - which by itself costs american taxpayers billions already ..paying or subsidizing the salaries of congress and the corporate honchos --is
HIDEOUS ,
JUST HIDEOUS.
not even third world countries with endemic corruption can compare with this MONSTROUS HIDEOUSNESS..
Folks might be interested in the Baseline Scenario
http://baselinescenario.com:80/2009/07/27/health-insurance-innovation/
It would be wonderful if we livd in a democracy- then we'd get our way all the time. But as Native Son pointed out, what we do have is a plutocratic oligarchy. or plutocracy. or corporate state. anyway what happens is, these men in suits always get their way. they do it cause they buy congresspeople and senators...and presidents- to make sure their laws get passed.
Of course we like to dream that a populist agenda- or in this case one thing- single payer- can get pased cause so many people really want it. But that's when the corporate state rolls out ts heavy artillery, which is saturating an all too willing, actively participating, media to tell us up is down so often that our minds get addled and soon we start telling the pollsters we are afraid of single payer. media manipulation.
it really does sound discouraging don't it?
other western countries are afflicted with the same illness, only not quite so bad. They can still take to the streets and make their leaders behave. sometimes. not all that often.
but us? listen, just a few decades ago we were Vietnam peaceniks and we did some serious marching. And before that, civil rights. Those things were won in the streets. really.
why we don't stop wars gulags tortures and a really sick health care system now is- they have tightened the screws.
CURIOUS, first time poster--- as a fan of CD & it's posting community I've been struck that, in the single payer discusions, as well as the authored articles, no one seems to mention the crucial fact the health care is neither a priviledge nor an entitlement, rather it is a basic fundamental HR---ours, yours, mine, everyones, as a birthright, simply for being born & not a commodity,
If those of us in the progressive community continue to suffer from a poverity of knowledge concerning what are HR are & if the imagination is not alive to another way, why should we expect others to not be apathetic or fearful! If we don't know what our HR are, defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, founding doc. in the UN Charter, of which America is a charter member, why should we expect different results
How is it that the argument is not being framed through a lens of HR! Or for that matter as part of the 2nd Bill of Rights championed by FDR's freedom from fear & freedom from want, "A person of necessity is not free'----if the imagination is not alive to another way we'll keep on keeping on with similar results.
This is not a new argument. It has been made often in articles and comments on CD.
This past Tuesday, July 28th, I went to New York City to attend the event sponsored by F.A.I.R. where they delivered 12,500 petitions to ABC protesting the fact that ABC has censored "Single-Payer Health Care" from their network discussions related to the Congressional health reform legislative process now being held in D.C.
People were particularly taken back when ABC "disinvited" President Obama's personal physician, Dr. David Scheiner from their "Town Hall Forum on Health Care: Prescription for America" because they discovered he supports a "Medicare for All" system of health care for the U.S.
I filmed this event Tuesday and here are the two links. I hope you find them valuable and will link them everywhere you can to spread the word for a "Medicare for All" health care system in the U.S.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gN4cc0XvIk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2BSvfyoI9Y
Thanks,
Abbybwood, R.N., Member of Physicians for a National Health Care Program
Thanks Abbybwood for those links.
Whenever I can get them to smooth out and run smoothly I'm sure that they'll be as good as you're suggesting that they are.
I bookmarked them so that I can return and watch them again.
I believe that the demand for them across the web has caused a spike in the server ability to load the film smoothly.
It loads for about ten seconds in part 1 and shows about 1 sec of film and then stops again to load a little while longer.
The lag time is possibly an indicator of all of the households across the country trying to access the film and might not be a bad sign.
I look forward to this eyewitness account of all of the F.A.I.R. activists demonstrating for our rights to Universal Healthcare.
It's truly a moving sight to see this country beginning to wake up.
I hope that it's in time.
hman
Thank you Bruce Dixon. I looked at the article and so many thoughts about each and every one of these points came up. The next time anyone wants to say that Democrats are at least doing something, here's what you can use to rebuttal. Very sad but well said.
change? from the pan to the fire! our government has gotten
behind us like rock hudson behind liberace. its not pleasant.
have we had enough yet? are we ready to begin organizing our neighbors friends and community and jam america up just like the french do.its all they will understand we need to reenact
the 60's again because thats what it will take at a minimum!
I surrender.
If single-payer or a real public plan that comes into effect very quickly after signing isn't passed, I will actively support at least one of Obama's opponents in 2012.
Please define, quite specifically, what you mean by a "real" public plan. The phrase "public option" has been tossed around like a beach ball with very few bothering to define it or ask for a definition.
So there should be a rule: thou shalt not use the term "public option" without pointing to a bill or a proposal--your own or someone else's--that pins down exactly what you mean. Lacking this, the term becomes an empty signifier that demagogic pseudo-liberals use to lull the credulous into supporting debased, lobbyist-written nonreform, like the bills currently floating around our--their--bought-off Congress.
So what do you mean?
to vannmungo;
Please see my post below....hman August 1st, 2009 3:52 pm
I'm sorry for not seeing your question earlier.
I skipped many of the comments and found your question echoed a few posts further down by another poster.
I answered his question instead and didn't really see your post until I went back and made a more determined effort to read through all of the comments.
I mean the kind of public plan supported by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the kind they hope will lead to single-payer, and compromised on single-payer to have included in the House bill. I don't really have the details of it, so I can't tell you much more than that. But it may not be needed...apparently, Pelosi has pledged to allow HR 676 a full House vote this year.
http://weiner.house.gov/news_
display.aspx?id=1335
Sorry--that is not a definition of a public plan
It's obvious that you and countless other self-designated progressives have never really thought about what a public plan actually is and what its implications are. This conduces to fuzzy thinking and reliance of the judgment of bought-off Beltway pols, many of whom are members of the House Progressive Caucus.
In point of fact, the House Progressive Caucus has been supporting the shriveled farce of a public plan contained in HR3200.
Please read the following report by Kip Sullivan of Physicians for a National Health Plan:
"Does the Congressional Progressive Caucus care about its 'public option' principles?"
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/28/does-the-congressional-progressive-caucus-care-about-its-public-op...
Thanks for the link, it was very informative.
In that case, I'd only support a public plan on the scale of Mr. Hacker's original proposal. The estimated 10 million covered by the current version is a bad joke.
zmann, I understand how you feel. I know it hurts at first when one's own party betrays those who had faith in them. Let me help you out. Don't vote on the party identification. Get at the heart of the issues of each candidate and vote with an open mind and heart. I know you can do it and good luck. Don't feel disheartened. None of us wanted this to happen. Think of it this way and again I hate to quote Ronnie Raygun but "I didn't leave the party. The party left me !". Take heart. We'll always be here to help. This site has pulled me out of a lot of hard feelings even with all the depressing news and I have great faith that you too will be helped. Take care.
Jennifer--
But this is exactly what your hero Kucinich asks people to do time after time--vote the straight Democratic ticket. This nullifies all the progressive rhetoric he retails to his fan base.
I don't completely agree with Kucinich especially when he does what you correctly said he did and I haven't forgotten Kucinich doing that in 2004 and 2008. When Kucinich and Dean (who I then thought was ok until I found out more about his DLC background in latter years) dropped out in 2004 and when Kucinich and Gravel in 2008 dropped out, I was on my way towards voting for Nader or Green because at that point, I reckoned that even though the primary season was going on, it was obvious who the types of nominees in both parties were destined to be. I vote based on the issues and of course who's available to pick from. Of course I do not appreciate it when Kucinich dropped out and endorsed Edwards in 2004 and Obama in 2008. I would love to see Kucinich and Paul switch to Independent even if it meant losing their seats. Trust me.
Jennifer--
But that's part of Kucinich's game. He's a back-door magnet to keep progressives corraled in the corrupt pen of the Democratic Party.
He places party loyalty above principle EVERY time.
You can't take a guy seriously who ALWAYS tell voters to vote for the mountebanks who, in practice, oppose everything he supports rhetorically. Kucinich is the ultimate bait-and-switch con man. All the right stands on the issues, and then . . . he tells you to support the Democrats who, in office, trample on all those issues. This is self-defeating at best, suspiciously undermining of the progressive project at worst.
He does this not sporadically, but inexorably. He ALWAYS will tell people to vote for ANY Democrat vs. any Republican.
Beneath all the bold posturing, he's just another party hack whose deeds belie his words.
What I feel most is regret for forking over $50 for this schmuck's campaign. And then the overdraft fee I got because the second time, it turns out I didn't have $25 in my account at the time. For a Jew, I was pretty bad with money.
And trust me, this site is pretty much the only thing that keeps me sane. Today I had the special (dis)honor of live monitoring Lou Dobbs continuing to demand Obama's birth certificate. Oh, and he seemed quite miffed at Bill Maher's op-ed on the birther movement, so I had to listen to him whine several times about that.
I literally never hear any rational discussion of real issues from the psychos I monitor. This place is definitely an oasis of reason and knowledge in a vast desert of willful ignorance and hateful propaganda.
"And trust me, this site is pretty much the only thing that keeps me sane. Today I had the special (dis)honor of live monitoring Lou Dobbs continuing to demand Obama's birth certificate. Oh, and he seemed quite miffed at Bill Maher's op-ed on the birther movement, so I had to listen to him whine several times about that.
I literally never hear any rational discussion of real issues from the psychos I monitor. This place is definitely an oasis of reason and knowledge in a vast desert of willful ignorance and hateful propaganda."
The Lou Dobbs birth certificate coverage even on the progressive sites such as Alternet was just as bad. After I had criticized Alternet for posting a worthless article on birthers when in fact they were no threat but just another distraction, man was I pelted with hundreds of wacko comments going out of their way to defend Obama.
One more thing. you're not the one who's bad with money. It's the politicians and their business goons who are and for years, I've been an economic vigilante as some would call me but without the guns. It's time to stop feeling bad and it is time to get back up. Stand strong and tall, soldier. It's time to fight back.
I'm tired too, like zzman; exhausted really. Ready to support someone other than Obama. I've been a political warrior my whole life and this has gotten way too old way too fast on way too many levels (not just healthcare). Obama's playing out as disingenuous giving us more disenchantment & more BS. What to do? I'm ready to become apathetic and just say f**k it all! And that is so far away from whom I really am, that alone pisses me off.
I saw a man walking down the street the other day wearing an old t-shirt that said, "The hippies were right!" Didn't know if that was about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. But somehow I felt like he meant they were, and still can be, right about taking it to the street. If Iranians can do it, why the hell can't we??!! Remember Kent State?! We've got to do something. We are not going to even have a planet if things don't freakin' change. I guess I'm as outraged as I am wiped out.
This crap is not going to cut it; we are going to have to do it ourselves, but I really am one tired activist....
On the contrary, I'm very young, only 26 and just graduated college 8 months ago, and only became politically active at the beginning of 2008. But I have come to realize that Obama is not doing anything to support us...I can't even figure out what his agenda is, for all I know it's just to pass any bill, no matter how god-awful it is, just to "prove" he can get things done. It's disgusting.
Even if it is someone who ALSO opposes single-payer?
What sense would that make?
I advise you to vote FOR someone for some reason, not "against" by for someone because of your disappointment in someone else.
If there's nobody who REALLY represents you, don't vote for anybody.
I'm sure there will be a socialist or green candidate that supports single-payer.
There was Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader the last time.
Yeah, I was so close to deciding to vote for Nader, but in the end, couldn't bear the possibility of McCain winning Florida.
I had the same feeling about Mccain/Palin winning Virginia. On the last minute, I screwed up and thought that after 44 years, it's best that I let this one just go blue and give up. I was also feeling down that Nader wouldn't be able to overcome the hostile Congress of both parties. Then there was that lingering race guilt feeling and I kept having stupid nightmares that everyone would call my wife and I racists for not voting for Obama. As I and others have said before, we wished we could take our votes back. I'm ready to go back and write a tough letter to both my senators, gubenatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, and my congressman Glenn Nye warning them of risking losing our votes. A friend of mine who works with registration already told me that since Obama took office, 1749 people switched from Democrat to Independent in registration, 219 from Democrat to Republican, and no one to Democrat and this is Virginia Beach alone so far. If Northern Virginia is this bad or even worse, the Republicans will win the gubernatorial race and possibly make that new governor the Republican presidential nominee.
Despite living next to Virginia now, I haven't been following the politics out there, but I have seen stuff from Creigh Deeds' campaign, one of my co-workers invited me to his FaceBook group.
You should come up to DC sometime, I like to hold bacon cheeseburger and beer parties for no reason other than hanging out every now and then. And boy, I can tell you some crazy stories about the media.
Dixon sez: "7. The president's plan, as well as those of Democratic "blue dogs" and Republicans, are to be funded in part with cuts in Medicare and Medicaid."
***
From the perspective of Medicare and Medicaid, this is technically a "cut". However, the public would be better served by a more accurate depiction:
"The (plans) are to be funded in part by redirecting money from Medicare and Medicaid to private, for-profit insurers."
Instead of a "Medicare-for-all" style, single-payer system, you get the opposite. The noose is placed on the existing public program and the slow tightening begins.
Sioux Rose
GOEBBELS: Your point is well and wisely taken. The right wing hates entitlement programs which is how they regard Social Security and Medicaid. By bankrupting the treasury in ridiculous giveaways to Wall St/bankers' club and/or the MIC, the pot is nearly empty and they are making sure it empties out quickly.
About 10 years ago my accountant tried to convince me that I should declare MORE than I make so as to become eligible for Medicare later on. I told her that I really did NOT believe there would be any such funds by the time I retire (in 9-12 years). This 1000 page medical hocus pocus seems like their end run. They will start chipping away at these programs and make it SEEM like it's a positive health reform. Less and less persons will be considered eligible!
The idea that I (and the rest of us who are uninsured) might be forced to pay insurance without any GUARANTEE of health services is so noxious to me that I would rather pay a $1000 penalty and consider that money a tithe to those who DO manage to get care. As a freelance writer my taxes have not been heavy over the years.
And get this: just as the banks recently starting upping the ante on their unique forms of extortion in the way of shortening billing cycles expressly TO add late fees, etc. I got a notice from my insurance guy today, and in Florida, manufactured homes are only covered by the state's own fund, Citizens. I pay $900 a year for my property and $500 each for my two rentals. The news is that there has been a change to these policies. The insurance companies have found a new way to rope back their expenses... they are now only required to pay on the depreciated value of said property, as opposed to replacement costs for items list in fire/tornado/flood, etc. I may have to start "riding bareback." I am tired of all the money one is forced to pay (car insurance another example, and all vehicular registrations just doubled in this state) with NO guarantee that they will get squat for their side of the fiscal equation when the time of need arises. In other words, insurance across the board is learning how to game the system even more in their favor, seeing how this Prez has opened the cupboards to let every sleaze in to "steal from the public's house" with impunity! It was obvious things were rotten in Denmark, but we citizens are being scammed and rammed every which way by those who have cost us irreparable harm in the way of karma, bankruptng our treasury, falsifying elections, making leaders unaccountable to the Constitution/Bill of Rights, and now observing them in the process of writing up lengthy "law" that effectively picks what's left in our pockets? Maybe it IS time to leave this land of the hardly free or brave? Or storm the Bastille with pitch forks!
For Bruce Dixon
THANK YOU for your article. I shall be sending it to the President as a very clear statement of what is wrong with with the current proposals.
What I appreciate the most is that, to me, it is complete & clear & all in one place. I shall also share links to your article everywhere I blog.
I am Canadian, raised across the river from John Conyer's Congressional District.
HR 676 gets the needs addressed very clearly and completely in a mere 30 pages. HR 676 is even BETTER than the universal health care in Canada, and I LOVE my health care.
For those who have not seen this link, I share it again.
Healthcare-NOW! - Organizing for a National Single-Payer Healthcare System
http://www.healthcare-now.org/
Bring America Back !!!!.........!...Well, by all means let us add the Number 11 Top Way to tell if our Prez is advocating for the People in his Healthcare reform:
Number 11===When your former personal Doctor, David L. Scheiner, MD, totally advocates for a Single Payer Healthcare Reform System, and writes an elequent article to that effect (published yesterday 7/30 on CD), you then know our Prez ain't dancing with the ones who brought him to the Prom !!!! Dr Scheiner knows and elucidates that under the present broken, corrupt, and massively inept medical system, Healthcare will NEVER be AFFORDABLE to ALL Americans.
Only the Single Payer Concept provides what America wants and requires.
****One of my favorite piques is: If the Repubbys can have over 60 Blue-Dog Democrats (These are elected Democrats who are really Republicans and vote that way too), then why can't the Democrats have 60 some RED_DOG Repubbies who will vote like Democrats ?????
====This is patently unfair to the Democratic population who cannot claim to have even one Red-Dog in the race!
How did this Blue Dog Disaster, and disgrace ever come about anyway ?????
Maxine Waters talks about Rahm and the Blue Dogs:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/maxine-waters-rahm-to-bla_n_246325.html
Even if this passes, millions of people are going to be shell-shocked when they realize that nothing starts happening until 2013.
Obama will not bring change during his presidency.
Imagine if the TARP funds didn't kick in until 2013. Or the loans to the auto-makers.
A lot of people are going to die by then. Even more people are going to lose everything they own and declare bankruptcy by then.
Tens of thousands of lives will be destroyed by 2013, courtesy of insurance companies.
2013 is a glaring lobbyist win.
The whole bill is a lobbyist win, right down to the shriveled farce of a public option. See
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/
Elliott sez: "...millions of people are going to be shell-shocked when they realize that nothing starts happening until 2013."
***
Well, the non-care will kick in in 2013. But the funneling of public dollars to private corporations will commence before Obama's signature has dried on the bill.
It could only be worse if it kicked in the day after Election Day 2012.
Not even a saint could get through the Washington sewer and not be corrupted by demonic conservarats. http://ni4d.us/
Kind of makes u wonder why Obama even bothered doesn't it? I mean someone most have warned him that fixing health Care was the Gordian knot of American politics. So, he bets his Presidency on this with no real plan? Did he think he was going to charm all these pricks into doing the right thing? It shows how politically naive this man is and how deceitful his own party is.
Sioux Rose
SEA GLASS: The answer is in the order of Bush's program-style, such as "No Child Left Behind;" and I wish to credit Rich M with articulating something to this effect in a previous post. The appearance is being created that legitimate reform is being executed when in reality, the system is being further GAMED AGAINST the public's interest to favor the for-blood-profit insurance companies who are the moral equivalent of the bankers who took their rich cut while leaving the rest of us at a significant loss, who in turn don't depart much in spirit or action(s) from the MIC big whigs who PLAN WAR in order to skim lots of profit off the top of the corpse heap. Nice pals Obama is playing political ball with, and the favors... alas, a sell-out in everything imaginable coming from every direction! I stand in shock and awe at what is going on. I did NOT imagine things would worsen or stay on the same damning track (from Bush) as is obviously the tragic case unfolding before our more-informed-than-most-of-the-nation eyes!
I think we'd have better odds of positive change organizing a meet at Stonehenge and petitioning the old gods/goddesses and/or nature spirits!
Even O's financial backers understand the exigencies of retaining some superficial semblance of democratic governance.
When the all rest of the world's major economies provide their citizenry with a social benefit and a significant domestic majority demands a similar benefit for themselves, you can't just ignore it completely. What you can do is to respond in a manner that appears to support the carefully cultivated illusion of democratic representation while actually protecting your corporate sponsorship.
In that larger context of systemic preservation and establishment protection, both success and failure take on entirely different meanings.
RV July 31st, 2009 4:27 pm.......Right on the nail head!
It's an illusion within an illusion within an illusion.
And the greatest illusion is that we are free or were ever free. Light up a joint and see how free you are. I would bet they do not even read you rour rights any longer.
"a welcome bailout for the private insurance industry", perfectly said.
Still, I never expected single payer from Obama because I listened to what he said during the campaign season. That's why I voted third party. People tried to read into Obama's speeches things he was not saying.
He did, however, debate against Hillary on the idea of making health insurance mandatory. Hillary was up front about being in favor of it. Obama said "people are not without insurance because they don't want it. They don't have it because they can't afford it", and the crowd went wild with the applause.
Therefore, Obama is a traitor in this regard, delivering millions of innocent people to a savage insurance industry after making it clear, during the debates, on TV in front of God and everybody, that he was not in favor of that.
Sioux Rose
BLISS: Here's the hypothetical, albeit somewhat facetious chain of events: as those forced to buy insurance--who can't afford it--indeed make efforts to do so, their grocery bills go down. Obama must then next bail out the grocery chains, who, re-incorporating as banks, become eligible for financial assistance. And cable tv subscriber numbers fall, so the cable tv giants come forward with their own "earnest" request for a similar necessary bailout. The food corps declare that food was always a bank, hasn't anyone heard of a foodbank before? And the cable tv CEOS explain that access to their programs constitutes a BANK of information; so they, too, put their hands out for all those absolutely generous giveaways that seem to be the rage in DC lately.
You know you've entered the new phase of pharaohs and slaves when everyday laborers begin to really hold up the gilded carriages of their fiscal "betters." Time does not travel in a linear direction taking us away from the past to a distant future on some progressive trajectory. In truth, it circles; and we seem to be living the return of the old kings/dictators/pharaohs, except they wear more modern dress.
"Blessed are the bewildered...
...they have no clue". William Connolly UK Actor
Yes we can:)
"It's what we voted for, and we won't stop demanding it."
Stop that! Just stop saying it!
During the Democratic Primaries, I looked at all the proposals on the table, and no one's (except Kucinich of course) was close to single-payer. Those who voted for President Obama did not vote for single-payer. they all went out of therir way with their language, that when I was paying attention I clearly heard that they were not talking about single-payer.
Now, do the voters think now that they did in fact vote for a mandate on single-payer?
If they thought that during the election, they were not paying close attention or evaluating the evidence. That I understand.
If they think that now, well, they're being duped... and the pundit-class still won't knock the President or admit that he is not the Angel of Enlightenment.
How do we Keep Hope Alive while at the same time realize that President Obama ran on Hope and not Substance?
Well, the same way we always had to do it- Advocacy!
How many email pettitions have you signed today? How many conversations on single-payer have you started today? How many of your friends know your position on it?
I hate when people say that letters, emails, calls, marches etc don't work. Admittedly, they don't seem effective because of the scale advocacy needs today. If you and 1000 other people sign a letter or picket your Majority Whip's office, then you still might get squat. But if 100,000,000 people do it then it happens (yes I exagerated the number). It's called critical mass. It's what works.
What doesn't work is thinking the President is breaking a promise which he actually never made. That put's the focus on the leaders and not the public's demands.
Dustinchicago, I completely agree with you. Critical mass, for sure. Although, on the other hand, at the national level it's been stated more than once by elected officials that, for eg., when that get even one call, email, etc. on a topic in their minds it's equivalent to 13,000 calls, etc. That's power and a way to feel just a wee bit less helpless. Yup, I said I'm exhausted, but I just cannot give up. So many of us assume someone else will write that letter to the editor or to whitehouse.gov or to our reps and senators, etc, etc. WE need to do it, talk about it everywhere, twitter about it, put it up on Facebook, whatever, wherever your networks are - DO IT and don't allow anyone to SILENCE you! Period. That's all she wrote! The fat lady has sung! LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Please permit me to provide a correction.
HR 676, was drafted by John Conyers D-MI, most recently submitted to the House in February 2005. Dennis Kucinich D-OH, is a co-sponsor of HR 676.
HR 676 is a Single-Payer proposal. It has a huge amount of support.
It is "off the table" because of health care lobbyists and those they support in Congress and the White House.
The voters are NOT obliged to support "bad" reform, whether it comes from the President or Congress.
Voice your support for HR 676. Read the Bill and take action.
Advocacy for HR 676 here: http://www.healthcare-now.org/
Having been born a prisoner of war in the USA, I am one of approx 2.2 million members of tribes recognized by the US Government. There is perhaps another 12 million people in the US that would qualify for recognition of that status, but they would need to petition the Government and most of them even collectively could not afford it.
The Plutocratic Oligarchy that has been in place since 1776 has not worked for 'the people of the USA'---nor has it been a success for the Native American People either.
The fact that so many americans are incapable of recognizing the fact that they are being manipulated by a relative few through that Plutocratic Oligarchy is a tribute to the power that the few can have over the many. It is also a statement of truth that should cause the American people to rise up in revolt; but 'ignorance is bliss' and for many of them they would not know what to do with their own lives if they were to experience a Democracy. They would rather be 'manipulated'.
If the USA were a relatively small and isolated nation the ridiculous display of stupidity that has been in control for so long would be a source of entertainment for the world.
But that is not the case. Just in the past 60 years the USA has been directly responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people, the destruction of their nations --even some civilizations---the long term pollution of many formerly pristine ecosystems, and so much more; all for frivolous reasons that usually made the few who are in actual control---wealthy beyond most peoples imaginations.
Presently the USA is making a few "contractors" exceptionally wealthy in three illegal wars of aggression, while they cannot provide even basic care to their veterans, old or new. At the same time their people must suffer under what the WHO considers to be 37th in the world in quality of health care delivered to the people who need it the most.
These are just a small example of the contradictions that the USA present the world each and every single day. It does not go unnoticed, and the world who rightly fears the USA--has now grown to disrespect it as well.
Which brings me to the conclusion that the world cannot possibly tolerate the USA much longer. Taking into consideration the 'Federal Bailout of the Banking system' of 2008 and how it benefited the very people who had played a leading roll in the catastrophe with billions of 'bonus pay outs': the 'end results' are easily predicted. When the world finally calls an end to the danger the USA presents to them, and whatever they make of the USA after they 'do what they need to do': the members of the Plutocratic Oligarchy will flee---with most of their money---and receive asylum in other 'locals' while the majority---who put them into power; become slaves to another system.
Barack Obama's election should be a final proof to the American people that they need to act now to take control of their own lives, and their own government. The changes he represents are refreshing, --at least he can speak the language they forced upon us. There could not possibly be a better signal. That the 'changes' he represents are only superficial yet so many still do seem to see the reality. They could change the Plutocratic Oligarchy to a Democracy in a very short time----they just may not have enough of that comodity left.
Good Luck America, you really need it.
Sioux Rose
NATIVE SON: I appreciate your thoughtful post and feel the validity of most of your points. Your conclusion is quite hopeful in that you seem to think the American people have the power to throw off the chains of the current moneylenders (and stealers). Would you not agree that were such an uprising, in the form of millions, to occur that either 1. it would be known before it happened (lest it became a truly spontaneous event without any planning or premeditation, a "Howard Beale" moment when everyone just opens their window to yell, "I'm mad as hell! And I'm not going to take it anymore!") and thus intercepted, its instigators put into custody (and for all we know, sent to an offshore prison like all those "disappeared" ones) or 2. the first in the crowd will be shot down, tasered, or possibly the entire crowd will be targeted by unmanned drones.
John Kerry asked who wanted to be last to die for a war that signified nothing. Well who wants to be first to die in a struggle for human rights in the land of the already-quite depraved? Those students at Tiannamen Square were seized by the passionate ideals of youth, their dreams not yet dashed. Our nation has a basement full of dastardly deeds and most have been directed at those voices that could or should have made a difference. With odds like these, some prefer life in a virtual prison (nation) to no life at all. Care to respond?
native son--thanks i enjoy your writing
sioux--yours also..a start or an end
think kent state..
were these 4 an end of an era
or the start of something new??
ken
Um you are a part of this country, whether you like it or not.
See, a country works best when it is thought of as a community or family. If you say "to hell with my community" then you aren't really part of it anymore. But, you can't be not part of it and live in it at the same time.
I'll accept anyone criticizing their community. But I will not tolerate people declaring they are not part of it while actually being in it.
Complain For Change!
I can say "to hell with my community" all I want, especially if that community is run by a bunch of rogue criminals that steal, murder, cripple, torture, pillage, and lie. I can continue to live on this continent and consider my community to be people who abide by mutual respect. Invisible lines drawn out by 18th century surveyors with transits doesn't mean I have to play the same games made up by those who think those lines are real. I never gave politicians or corporations permission to lie and murder in my name, and I am not a part of their community whether you, or they, think I am.
I understand Native Son completely.
The First Corporate Theft was the foreign concept of "ownership" of the land. Remember the "purchase" of Manhattan for a bunch of cheap beads?
The indigenous people were the servants of the Earth and not it's owners. The caregivers of the land experienced genocide and those who survived were herded and confined to areas unfamiliar to them. Their communities were devastated and their families murdered. They have always been treated as different, apart and unworthy.
The government is still giving everyone the same damn cheap beads instead of care and compassion.
Learn from your own past. The same M.O. is still disgraceful.
The moral wrongness of Indian treatment by the U.S. Government, State Governments, and European immigrants in general does not negate the fact that that post is spam.
Where is the relevance to Health Care Reform, or even the mention of it?
Sioux Rose
MATTI: Not spam, and let's not be so letter of the law here. The relevance of his post is in the way the elites treat the citizens of this land. There is always money to blow up other people and their children, but little to patch up those who reside in the Homeland, and by that I mean scant funds for single payer health care. On a metaphorical level, NATIVE SON is pointing out that "we're all Indigenous now," and welcoming us to the extended reservation. Ultimately, that IS our current status lest DC gets soon separated from its money changers, those who are on board to BUY policy and shape the Republic as to their liking, and woe to the rest of us... as is obvious in 1000 different ways these oh, so corrupted days!
NativeSon & SiouxRose...
Excellent posts...!
Stop donating your blood and organs. The rich will be willing to give everyone a shot at health care if they have no chance of survivng for want of blood or an organ. A dangerous message to be sure but in for a penny, in for a pound. It is time to play hardball.
"BOHICA" (Bend Over Here It Comes Again)
"BOAGYA" (Bend Over And Grab Your Ankles)
"This is going to feel a little cold at first"
And that's the miracle of free-market capitalism at work.
Tough shitsky, comrades.
genicon
I've heard that the figure they are going to cut medicare by is $500 billion, and when the very old get sick the patriotic thing to do is die, just quit eating so you're not a drain on the limited resources. If you are lucky enough to be one of the Rich and/or in the House or Senate you will be able to spend years being well cared for as you drool in your oatmeal.
Here's the real core of the issue that is not even whispered: the status quo wants to dismantle the health care system for at least 20% of the population.
This "rationing" is being done in the service of a man-made Malthusian scenario.
Why? Because, it has finally dawned on the ruling class that their survival depends on a drastic reduction of the earth's population because of unsustainability issues and projected scarcity of resources (forget oil, how about water?). Look around, and you will notice genocides happening (at present, mostly in Africa), Monsanto hording agricultural patents (for eventual political power and control), and a huge "flu" epidemic (whether swine or not) lurking in the near future.
So, denying health care access through exorbitant insurance premiums is just another "tool" of population control; of course, the social Darwinists will rejoice at the outcome of this sinister scenario that will reinforce their ideology of the survival of the ruling class over the downtrodden. Compound this with the financial catastrophes (both present and future) and you have a total picture. The arrogance and blatantly belligerent BEHAVIOR of the health, financial, and media industrial-complexes is the "canary in the mine."
The underbelly of any issue resides many "layers" under...requiring deep thinking and "step" thinking, beyond just reading between the lines or the small print. A society that has stripped pure analytical thinking from its educational curriculum is bound to perish under the tsunami of misinformation.
from birth, we are coerced into systems, ostensibly supported by faith, reason and tradition, but really supported, in the end, by nothing, more or less, than violence...these systems are as fundamental as the origin and meaning of life (science\religion\philosophy), the rights and responsibilities of living (ownership of property, citizenship\law, sex\reproduction, education\indoctrination, money\labor)...they are so numerous, these 'inherited' beliefs, that I cannot successfully list them for omitting many...most of them fail miserably if given a small amount of critical thought...the point is, they are supported by violence, assisted by complacency and fear of pain and death (which reverts back to philosophy)...one is not allowed to truly explore these issues, or one quickly meets with violence...without counter-violence, there will be no escaping these 'frames'...we are born into a net, and will never be freed, until we free ourselves...in the meantime, the planet is poisoned, vital resources are hoarded for sale to the highest bidder, and avenues of peaceful change are throttled...again, all supported by violence...
IMHO, this scenario is a bit of a stretch.
If 500,00 of the workaday folks currently employed by health insurance company employees lose their jobs when a single payer system is adopted, at least they won't have to worry about losing their health insurance along with those jobs. As far as their bosses go, they should be thankful just to be able to walk away with their ill-gotten billions and not be tarred, feathered and jailed for life.
Isn't everyone (us) saying that Single-Payer would actually create more jobs? not loose 500,000?!! Yes the accountants might have to be retrained as nurses I suppose.... we woulnd't want anyone to actually work or adjust to life or anything as crazy as that....
A Single-Payer plan would need employees in each state to process the claims. The only difference would be that ALL CLAIMS ARE PAID rather than being deliberated over and/or denied. All billing to, and payments made, by ONE not-for-profit agency. This drastically reduces the overhead caused by claims having to be submitted to a multitude of different insurance companies, only to have many of those claims denied and the doctor and patient having to appeal those decisions. THAT is a complete waste of time, talent & money as the patient continues to grow sicker and possibly die.
Don't look for Single-Payer to be more, or as, complex as your current broken system. Single-Payer IS that straightforward. The doctors maintain a private practice that is publicly funded. That is why the rest of the industrialized world embraces Single-Payer. The US refuses to see the light of the wisdom of the rest of the industrialized world.
For shame.
This is exactly why the insurance lobby fights single payer so hard, as if their livelihood depended on its defeat, because it does.
5% cost for medicare administration vs >30% for private insurance - says it all.
I have a radical idea that has much risk but may have a great benefit in the long run for this country and the world.
How many people would be willing to decline their employer provided health insurance for one year --- as a protest? This truly could be life or death politics. To be sure we'd need a celebrity or 2 to join us and advertise the emotional and life and death costs of having no insurance. The celebrity would not be able to use their money for health care during that one year either.
This country's horrible health care inequality will never change until rich people can no longer pay for their own doctors and hospitals and screw the rest of us.
Do you realize that you are saying that only the rich can effect change?
What the hell did we give up feudalism for then?
Why not use the power of Democracy instead?
If the 40-or-so million people in this country who can't join your "voluntary no-health insurance for a year" campaign because they don't have health insurance INvoluntarily would merely join together as a political party and voting bloc, they would have the power to affect change with out recourse to "celebrities".
That this simple act of solidarity and Citizenship is very, very, unlikely to happen on its own does not make assuming it will never happen and capitulating to the current system right or wise, just safe and easy.
How about a bunch of us just get together and appeal for the right to buy into Canada's system? We would have to voluntarily give up future choice in health insurance (but then the insurance system would also be giving up the 'choice' to drop us from coverage when we actually got sick). We would have to work out how to benefit from the money being put into the Prez's healthcare reform, to subsidize our healthcare costs. And we would have to get some implicit approval from the Canadian government. When we got sick, the Canadian govt would reimburse our doctors at Canada's doctors rates, and we'd get all our drugs from Canada.
To some extent, I'm being facetious. But, if you got one or two million signatures on that ballot, I'll bet you could start getting all parties to take you seriously. Enough American's want what Canadians already have that we should be able to 'buy in bulk' from them, and abandon America's pathetic attempts to shoehorn healthcare into a 'for profit' mold forever. In other venues, its called 'voting with your feet'.
You'd have to pay taxes in Canada and the U.S.
In fact, it is not about paying taxes in Canada. You must be a permanent resident to be covered by the Canada Health Act.
" . . . 13 million e-mail addresses and phone numbers collected during the campaign . . . "
Many of those 13 million each contributed small amounts of money and Obama set campaign cash records by collecting them.
I have an idea for a potentially very visible and uniquely creative protest:
Solicit contributions from the same millions who gave little bits of money each to Obama's campaign because of their hope and passion for real change, AND to millions more who voted against him but are also deeply affected by what happens with health care legislation. Take the money collected and openly, publicly offer big cash bribes to members of Congress who have been shameless whores for insurance, pharmaceutical and other industries/associations profiting from the current system. We may not be able to outbid the medical/industrial complex and will be too above-board get any takers, but it forces the question to be answered regarding this issue and countless others where Congress responds to the influence of big corporate money instead of to the will of the people that vote for them:
How would an open bribe from those desiring a system that provides quality health care for all Americans different than backdoor bribes from corporate lobbyists, other than that it would be out in the open, morally decent and humanly compassionate, and actually favored by a majority of voting, tax-paying citizens?
Anybody out there who likes the idea and has the organizational skills to publicly light this fire?
I like the idea....
"you'd have to persuade your fellow Americans to abandon their cherished delusions in the face of the overwhelming propaganda that supports them" - yes, a giant hurdle
Plus, practically, the return on investment is weak. Oversimplified, if 1 person gives $1 million they get 100 hours of access. If 1 million give $1 each, each person gets 1 second of access.
now if you created a Lobby, then things would get rolling. Oh wait, there are already (good) lobbies. They're too few, and too underfunded and compete with each other, but they are there.
Now a direct push to match a (good) public lobby to the (bad) corporate lobbies is a good idea. Goes beyond the first public lobby of "voting" to a stronger "cash=votes" paradigm.
Basically, you're talking about accepting and adopting the realities of USA Incorporated's "freedom and democracy" and competing under their rules using the "dollars = votes" language they understand.
I suppose it might make more sense, at least pragmatically, than laboring under the delusions and mythologies that currently prevail, but there are two problems:
a) you'd have to persuade your fellow Americans to abandon their cherished delusions in the face of the overwhelming propaganda that supports them, and
b) you'd still be playing with a stacked deck where your competition holds the cards, including most of the organizational tools and financial advantages.
Nevertheless, the underlying reasoning appears logical. You may be on to something if you could figure out a way to overcome those major hurdles.
You've got the right idea. Big problem with it is that it would take a lot of money and time to create the network to pull in the funds daily and process them as a non-profit. You'd also need a media source with daily exposure on the same level as Faux News. Lots of programming, project mgmt, financial mgmt, etc. Who has time for that when lots of us who are still working are forced into >70 hours a week to keep our jobs?!
Maybe after they lay me off I'd have time to help but no money for the tools.
What we need are millions like me and millionaire/billionaire true free spirit democrats to step forward... maybe those on the down side of 50, maybe those close to kicking the bucket would be willing to chuck all their money toward such a ultruistic goal. I keep dreaming about a revolution forming of the older adults pushed out of jobs nationwide, joining with the millionaire/billionaire class of free spirits I know are out there playing .... and retired military types - form a coalition, form a vast left wing conspiracy to fight the right wing one started with Reagan, so strong as to distort reality as in the right wing distortion of reality that is the "birthers" movement, wholly out of thin air they have built the alternate reality that over 50% of republicans truly believe Obama was not born in Hawaii, when in fact he was born in Hawaii. Awesome. Truly awesomw feat. The vast right wing conspiracy.
A comment in my local paper said it all. The writer felt that politicians, like NASCAR drivers, should wear suits adorned with the names of their sponsors.
Re sheepherder July 31st, 2009 9:49 am
If memory serves, that line originated with St. George Carlin.
Hahahahaha! Thanks Jethro.
Good Ole St. George.
Thank you, Obama voters for
"Change We Can Believe In"
"Yes We Can"
"The Audacity of Hope"
and lastly for all the ridicule and abuse heaped on those
who said that we should vote for a third party.
Congratulations on giving me the government you deserved.
Don't forget the fierce urgency of doing nada.
Are we really accomplishing anything by repeatedly rehashing the same issues surrounding healthcare financing reform?
If you need ten ways to tell that the democrats in DC have sold out their consitutents and supporters on this issue then, as my father used to day, you're dumber'n owl shit.
This article is essentially just a recapitulation of matters that we've discussed to death on this site. I'll admit that I haven't seen the "3.2 million" new jobs figure before today but I'd like to see a little substance behind that assertion.
We're all pretty aware of the benefits of a single-payer system. We need to work on disseminating the truth and debunking the corporation-driven lies about government-financed health care. Too many US citizens are just grossly misinformed on this issue.
q
You can help here:
Healthcare-NOW! - Organizing for a National Single-Payer Healthcare System
http://www.healthcare-now.org/
So create a model for a house party or whatever, and then tell us all how you did it, and how we can duplicate your efforts.
Sorry to sound like a pessimist, but those events seem to attract those who are already supportive of single payer. You'd, essentially, be preaching to the choir. The ones who are in need of convincing keep watching MSM and believing the myths and distortions about Canadian health care. I know this, because my own family members are those people- as are the majority of people in my community. When the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries have control over the content of the "news" and can influence what is said about single payer systems- or prevent anything being said at all- we're doomed.
the idea was to invite those family members to your (houseparty). Didn't say it was going to be easy. Maybe thhrow one for the choir first to get some practice. Then you'd have to figure out how to approach people in your family with other points of view (remember, they can still be valid and have moral justification)
Unless you have your own media outlet, of course
Dixon provides the link, and its pretty informative. Face it: cover an additional 50 million Americans, and you're going to create a lot of heathcare jobs. Here's another great statistic from the same link:
An Economic stimulus comparison:
Citigroup bailout: $350 billion
Fannie and Freddie bailout: $240 billion
TARP checks to 116 banks: $170 billion
AIG bailout: $150 billion
Covering ALL Americans under Medicare - additional direct spending: $60 billion
This statistic also comes with its own sources, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters, and IHSP
http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economy_report_charts_011509.pdf
"We're Sorry. The page you're looking for is no longer available."
Got another link?
q
The study is from calnurses.org.
Though what I've seen on their site seems to imply a lower number of 2.6 million new jobs that would more directly offset the recent losses.
But who needs a link or an "exact" estimated figure?
Understaffing of non-doctors is a major problem in hospitals and in medical care in general nationwide. Single-payer would obviously increase the number of people seeking health care, which would spur job growth in that field. There seems to be some indication of a "ripple effect" outside of direct medical care as well.
"Single-payer would obviously increase the number of people seeking health care, which would spur job growth in that field."
By relieving small businesses - the biggest source of employment in our economy - of the burden of financing health care for employees, single-payer would result in increased employment in all sectors.
It would also result in a migration of employees from large corporations to small businesses - one of the reasons that the big boys hate it.
q
In a July 27 article also featured on CD, Dixon gave a figure of 18,000 Americans who die each year because they lack access to medical care. Here, he ups the figure to 22,000. Which is it?
The 18,000 assessment is based on 2000 data. The 22,000 assessment is based on 2006 data.
The increase of 22% exceeds population growth so the per capita rate of preventable deaths worsened over these 6 years.
Thanks, Prof, for elaborating. Seems that this discrepancy isn't so trivial after all.
THAT'S what you have an issue with?!
Question: "Blah balah blah, which is it?"
Answer: You are a MORON.
Single Payer NOW ! New political parties NOW !
So all 10 are true, which simply means that this President and this Congress are betraying the American people on Health Care too.
They have rewarded bad business's, porked every single bill so far, proposed Health Care for the Insurance and Drug companies, an energy tax for the power companies and business while cutting themselves in for a nice slice of new taxes....Oh, its not a new tax its just some of your money you really wanted to give to the government that you were stupidly going to use for food and gas. Next apparently they want to further burden Americans with supporting cheap labor for business and betraying the American worker one more time (don't count on this being the last time if you fall for this).
Lucky us.
Since government has done this much damage so far, I wouldn't trust them to keep single payer alive even if it did pass. I'm afraid we're stuck with corporate care so we'd better find a good model to punch our employers into providing. See my post under today's article by Paul Krugman where I mention CostCo Care. For a lean and wholesale corporation that rocks in sales and labor unions, they sure know how to put even Medicare to shame.
Most corporations don't think like CostCo so I would not put faith in expecting most corporations to be a tenth as decent as CostCo. In any case, this is all still privatized care. If you're unemployed, you still get no benefits unless you want to pay separately which the Republicans and the Blue Dogs have no problem cheering about the idea of telling people to buy their own private plans.
You're correct. I was having a bad day (see my response to Bliss doubt) and feeling bad enough that the chance of single payer was slipping away, I was thinking of another plan that I thought might be worth sharing. I reexamined it and realized that you and Bliss Doubt were right. Corporate care can never be reformed. It's best to scrap it altogether and stand tall to unite like soldiers and make Washington come clean. Ok, it's a long shot too but it's not a crime to try I would think.
Max, after the corporate version of health care reform becomes a reality, the next thing to go will be the tax deductibility of employee health insurance to employers who provide it. It is that tax deductibility that spurs employers to provide insurance, and providing it gives employers the buying power to negotiate better insurance rates than individuals would get. The insurance companies don't want anyone to have that negotiating power, just as the pharma companies have fought tooth and nail to keep medicare from negotiating lower drug prices, based on volume, for medicare patients. After the tax deductibility goes, a few employers might continue to provide health insurance as a benefit to attract and keep good employees, but most major employers will dump it as a matter of staying competitive. For employees who do receive employer funded health insurance, it will be declared income taxable, which is just one more way the insurance companies will pull the strings of their sponsored politicians to get people off any kind of group rate insurance. In any case, Obama has already talked about making employer funded insurance taxable. Hey, why rescind tax breaks for the mega-wealthy when you still have something to bleed from the working class?
I would have thought that corporate care already exists but that it'll be too easy for Big Insurance/Pharma to financially mug us even more. I was thinking that maybe it could be possible for more companies to follow the CostCo model but now that I rethought that, stupid me. I'm sorry I've been having a terrible day getting angry as my sister got ripped off by her employer's crummy insurance provider. It's bad enough that even where the insurance policy appeared to cover her for her medical costs, the copays were higher than expected and her husband is still looking for employment. Obama knows my then governor Mark Warner very well and he's following his playbook rather well. Here was what Mark Warner, now senator, had in mind and carried out rather well. Don't raise taxes on the wealthy, invent some phoney technology and rip people off on the highway with purposely glitchy traffic watchers, ding-dong the sales taxes up and down, keep cutting funding for public transportation, education, and other critical services, and then go on the stage and shout at those of us who are protesting NAFTA and these phoney "pro-life" groups and blame us for the Democrats losing. Of course there's more to this mess. Obama's spreading the wealth lie is just as dangerous as Bush's "Healthy forests" lie. God help us out of this insanity.
Excuse me but the "government" didn't screw this up so far all by themselves it was the vast right wing conspiracy begun by Reagan revolutionaries that said big government was to blame and set about privatizing that so-called big government.
Government and militarty are in the toilet because they are being run for a profit by outsourced businesses in it for profit and screw the tax payers.
Hey Obama you want to be a true hero and stop being the sell out you are?! STOP all government outsourcing NOW and while you are at it STOP military outsourcing as well. HIRE all the millions of US citizens out of work to do that work instead for the government for pennies on the dollar and we will take those jobs I tell you as our patriotic duty we will be there!! Do it! Yes we can!
"Excuse me but the "government" didn't screw this up so far all by themselves it was the vast right wing conspiracy begun by Reagan revolutionaries that said big government was to blame and set about privatizing that so-called big government."
First of all, who's in charge of the government? You answered that and you proved my point correct. The politicians that run the government chose to go to bed with the devil that is Corporate America ever since Nixon to be exact. Nixon was the one who first rolled the ball on privatizing healthcare for all without others to follow. Don't get me wrong. I strongly support single payer but we would have to change the pols in Washington to ones who do support it and that can only be done through voting. I do agree with what you've said but thought I'd clarify.
IMHO, you are both correct. However, blaming resolves nothing.
There must be a a way to put a complete STOP to the government corruption.
Can the ACLU help? If not them, there must be some way to return the power to the voter and strip the government & the lobbyists of their strangle hold on ALL aspects of American life.