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This Country Needs an Outburst of Common Sense
The idea that doing nothing and going on without changing the way this country's health care is delivered works to the benefit only of the insurance companies, the giant health care providers and the big pharmaceutical companies.
That industry is now pouring $1.4 million A DAY into lobbying — read that buying or renting members of Congress — to water down or delay or preferably kill health care reform and hope it goes away for another 20 years or so.
Part of that high-dollar industry budget is going to the low end of Washington's K Street lobbying corridor, the firms and the folks who specialize in dirty tricks, panicking the uninformed and most vulnerable citizens, financing the creation and spread of lies written, spoken and spread like viruses by robot dialing machines.
The Republican Party, on life support itself, somehow sees an opportunity in encouraging and participating in this flim-flam operation. It ought to, and should, seal the GOP's fate.
Each night for the past week, we've been treated to the sight of mobs screaming and ranting and shouting down town hall meetings where congressional representatives had come to answer their constituents' questions.
No questions got answered. No information got provided. No one left more informed than he or she was when he or she arrived.
That's because they and their organizers were following online playbooks that are telling them where to go, where to sit, how to make it appear as if there are more of them than there are and, above all, to stop the program and allow no discussion of this issue.
They scream that any government-run health care is socialism or Communism. But look at them; look at their gray hair and thickened waists. At least half of them probably depend entirely on Medicare, a government-run program and a damned good one, for their own health care.
They scream that the bills still being written and amended in Congress will deny vital treatments for older Americans and doom them to an early and unnecessary death. Some dare call it euthanasia.
What utter, unadulterated BS.
The only outfits in America that have the right to refuse you treatment for an illness or deny you an organ transplant are the health care corporations, if you're unlucky enough to have to depend on that wonderful private insurance the right wingnuts are so loudly praising and defending.
This is the same wonderful health coverage that's driven hundreds of thousands of American families into bankruptcy because their private insurers refused to pay for urgently needed surgery or cancer treatment, or simply cancelled their coverage.
Why is that?
It's because those same corporations have, in just one decade, driven their profits and overhead (hiring those lobbyists and buying those congressional critters and building their fleets of private jets) from 5 percent to nearly 20 percent.
In other words, the corporate bite has gone from 5 cents of every dollar paid in premiums to 20 cents of every premium dollar.
It's good old unregulated American greed of the same stripe that drove this country into its current economic meltdown. Wall Street loves these guys.
We desperately need a government-run health care program that can, by good old American competition, force private health insurers to get off their pirate ships and back in the real world. The 46 million or so uninsured Americans need somewhere to get their health needs tended. The millions more in dire danger of losing their jobs and their private insurance need some alternative immediately available.
All of us need some people in Congress who haven't been bought or rented by the pirates, liars and thieves to speak out in favor of filling those real needs.
Wonder how much Big Pharma donated to the key committee members who amended the health care legislation to prohibit any government-run health program from negotiating lower drug prices with the price-gouging drug companies of, you guessed it, Big Pharma?
What we need right now is a huge outburst of common sense and enlightened self-interest.
Those gray-haired Medicare recipients who're playing angry mob need to stop screaming and start listening and reading, separating fact from fiction and learning who’s manipulating them and why.
Follow the money trail back to the pirates and thieves and their handmaidens, the greasy liar lobbyists and those in Congress who're slurping at their troughs.
45 Comments so far
Show AllMr. Galloway,
Spot on.
Thanks for this important and heartfelt article.
Bring America Back !!!!...Tku, Mr Galloway, So very True !
**A really great exercise in common sense is to get the DVD, titled "SICKO", by Michael Moore, watch every minute of it, then act and vote accordingly.
'Sicko' is available at Blockbuster, Netflix, or probably at most local libraries !!
If you are a human being resident of the USA, then by right, you are entitled to the best of medical care our Nation can provide====FREE OF CHARGE ..!
The present broken, corrupt healthcare system will never again be "affordable" for Americans. We are in the era of the $100 band-aid, and Patient-dumping by hospitals.
If this Nation can pour untold trillions and billions of our treasury $$$$$ into illegal, immoral, and criminally pre-emptive WARS, then it can easily fund Free Healthcare For All !
You can watch "Sicko" online for free: http://freedocumentaries.org/index.php
Thanks!!! I've been getting documentaries on Netflix, but their selection is fairly limited. I'm also going to share this with one of my former student organizations, maybe they can finally bring back Radical Movie Night.
Free when you need it.
Pay for it bit by bit throughout your working life - best way.
......We need more than common sense. We need an outburst of utter OUTRAGE. We should all be calling the CONgress and the WH non-stop 24/7. There can be no compromise. Single payer is the only option. It's not off the table until THE PEOPLE SAY SO!!!
Way to call it like it is. A liar is a liar, and a thief is a thief. Please go to your local town hall meeting and show your numbers.
Contrary to what you believe the public is generating an outburst of common sense.
Unfortunately for you many people realize more govt involement in their lives especially healthcare is injurious to their freedom,health and economic liberty.
Your screen name is socialist but you are against government involvement. That doesn't make sense. I think government involvement in health insurance, not health care, would actually greatly improve our freedom, health and economic liberty once the economic bloodsuckers are forced out of the system, or at least reined in. Look at the socialized single-payer health insurance in Canada, Europe, Japan, Taiwan and many other advanced countries for living examples of how it can work. Actually study the facts, don't just read biased fact-free accounts written by right-wing American bloggers who haven't lived in or visited these countries.
I'm afraid you do not understand my screen name. In the just cause of reparations to the honorable and exploited (for centuries) black man , white privledged americans owe all blacks free housing , health care , education and govt jobs for life.
Unfortunately that is not possible if we let evil whitey shirk their responsibilities to us and engage in the wasteful and stifling economic system of socialism writ large. Only a healthful capitalistic society can withstand delivering the cradle to grave reparations we deserve.
It's time for those that benefitted and continue to reap the spoils from the slavery system, stepped up and paid their dues.
The black man is continally discrimminated against economically and socially by institutional means , we are over represented in the armed forces, jail and harrassment by the man because he addicted us to drugs then outlawed them. Blacks are discrimminated against by being under represented in law, medicine, high school and college graduation, literacy, IQ tests and home ownership.
So please get back to work, you owe us our stolen birthright of equality.
"I'm afraid you do not understand my screen name."
You got that right. Considering what you espouse, your screen name is an oxymoron.
Your rhetoric sounds like you are neither black, nor a socialist...
Your screen name sounds like a spoof of Black_Anarch's handle...
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe you are either black nor socialist. You strike me as a fraud, a poser, and a phony teabagging troll.
I am Canadian.
I believe that with Single Payer Universal Care, I am freer then are Americans. I can quit my job and find another. I can move province to province and still be covered.
Along with that freedom , I am better off economically which in and of itself aform of freedom.
All measurements show that Canadians as a whole are healthier. Indeed we have the third longest "Healthy life expectancy" on the Planet.
So you tell me how I would be better off with a pure market driven health care system having no interference from Government?
We had that prior to the 1960's, and believe you me those that lived in BOTH worlds up here in Canada feel the National system was "liberating".
How nice to hear from someone who actually admits benefitting at the expense of their fellow citizens.
How nice that citizens are willing to help their fellow citizens.
How nice that citizens are willing to help their fellow citizens.
=================================================================================
Let me fix that for you.
How convenient that most citizens are forced to help the chosen citizens by the government.
If people were willing there would be no need for govt intervention in the first place.
That didn't fix it for me. Are you saying that public life (embodied in the government) is something alien with no relation (other than "forcing" them to do things) to the citizens? That everyone in Canada would prefer a kind of Hobbesian state of nature if they had their choice? Of course, public life is a kind of a contract. You can learn that in "Remedial Political Science".
READ MY LIPS SLOWLY
WHAT PART DO YOU FAIL TO GRASP?
If citizens were helping citizens entirely voluntarily that would obviously negate the need for govt implementing the process of coercion.
OK, so you are saying the citizens don't want single payer health coverage? If a poll were taken, it would show that citizens reject it? If citizens say they want it, that it is beneficial both for themselves and for society, would you still consider that the government is coercing them?
>>How convenient that most citizens are forced to help the chosen citizens by the government.
Let me change that for YOU.
The Government IS the people. It is not some alien entity. Governments are formed BY People to Govern in a manner that best provides for their collective well being.
If you want NO Government Somalia is an excellent example.
When people get together to form Governments , it with the understanding that in order for that Government to provide for the collective well being of the people it will need revenues.
I fail to understand how anyone can be against FORCED taxes to ensure that all Citizens have access to health care, yet have no problems with FORCED taxes to have a Military, or a Ports service or Highways or Law enforcement.
If the problem is thaT a particular Government fails to represent the best interests of the people, then the issue is with THAT Government and not with ALL Government.
Now peoples of many Countries have decided that having access to health Care is a Right and these peoples are willing to be taxed to ensure fellow ccitizens have that access.
This was not something Governments FORCED on them. It is something they demanded their Governments provide them. This is the platfrom Tommy Douglas ran on when he introduced it in Saskatchewan.
Should any Governmnet in Canada decide to dismantle it and leav it to the individual to provide, they would LOSE an election.
It was the PEOPLE that forced the GOVERNMENT to implement single payer Universal Care.
"...those same corporations...have driven their profits...from 5 per cent to 20 percent"
Twenty % seems to be a magic number for the assorted monopolies we serve. A few years ago, a news story reported that Knight Ridder had to lay people off because their profit margin fell from 20% to 13%. Talk about a sense of entitlement.
We need Jim Hightower's constitutional amendment "A corporation is not a person" and we need Instant Runoff Voting. We also need to move to natural medicine instead of the current allopathic model. Only then will costs come down and common sense will rule.
AARP is apparently one of the anti-single payerr strongholds. A story on how that organization functions could possibly be an eye opener
This Country Needs an Outburst of Common Sense
It is more likely that Klaatu and his robot, Gort, will land in Warshington and tell the human race to shape up or see the Earth reduced to a burned out cinder. An outburst of common sense in the current United States is tantamount to alchemy.
Common Sense? They are too busy Privatizing that with the rest of the Commons.
"read that buying or renting members of Congress"
No "outburst of common sense" is going to fix a system that is totally corrupt and rotten to the core. You might as well await the Mafia's sudden conversion to altruistic generosity.
You have only two choices. Either change the system of "highest bidder democracy" itself or accept its inevitable results.
Sarah Palin has yipped off that the under the Obama plan, her precious 'son' (yeah, there are STILL doubts that Trig is actually her daughters *first* child) Trig would have to appear before a 'death panel'.
Between her fanning the flames, and the Republicans and the insurance companies stoking the fires, something tragic is almost guaranteed to happen.
Walk in peace.
I propose a voter initiative and referendum on Single Payer.
ezeflyer August 9th, 2009 2:22 pm.............Ask NYC CAN what happens to the possibility of voter initiatives and referendums....70,000 signatures rejected by some paid off bureaucrat.
BTW, good idea...now, what's the next move?
dbl post
http://ni4d.us/
I don't think America's health care crisis can be solved, even if we get single-payer.
America is a country of fat-asses who eat sh*tty fast food a lot, don't walk anywhere, and sit on their butts watching 4 or more hours of TV a day. Until we solve the fundamental problem of diet and exercise we can't really solve the health care problem.
I give my highest rating to this wonderful program from reporter T.R. Reid, SICK AROUND THE WORLD:
It's a Five Star Must Watch!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/
** Watch as he travels around the world and uses the healthcare system in five Industrialized countries: Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland. Informative and Entertaining.
Thanks for the link :-)
Does it really take a genius to have come up with a plan for health reform, outline the details, show it to the public, and say, "This is the plan."
Nothing remotely like that has been done, so what can you expect, other than lies and distortions?
If those with the power to do so really want to accomplish reform, they have been incredibly inept at getting it done.
If only articles such as this, or PBS's Bill Moyer's Journal (the Wendell Potter interview) could make it onto the network airwaves. The public is woefully uninformed and easily bamboozled.
The corporate stranglehold on medical care and the flow of information to the population seems absolute. Corporate control of members of congress is iron-clad. A fair hearing -- it's like yelling (or p**sing) into the wind.
I am an almost gray-haired Medicare recipient (my primary insurance). I dislike the complicated, byzantine insurance reform* now contemplated by Congress and the Obama administration. I would welcome into my Medicare insurance every resident of our country from his/her time of birth! Of course that is much too simple a solution to even have occurred to my representative, senator, and president.
Here is my plan:
1. The age of Medicare eligibility will be changed from 65 to the date of birth.
2. Participation in the Parts A and B of the "new" Medicare will be voluntary.
3. No person shall be denied participation in the new Medicare on account of prior medical problems.
4. Congress shall determine the "contents" (what is insured) of A and B (it already does for me anyway).
5. Congress shall determine the premiums for the new Medicare (it already does for mine anyway).
6. Congress shall set up a fund to pay premiums for persons who cannot afford participating in the new Medicare.
7. Other health insurance programs such as CHIP shall be absorbed by the new Medicare.
8. Medical doctors may not refuse to accept "Medicarers" as their patients.
* I make a distinction between health insurance reform and health care reform.
Your new plan isn't really new, except for a few details. It's called HR676, the US National Health Insurance Act, introduced by John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich 5 years ago, currently with 90+ cosponsors. This is the bill Physicians for a National Health Plan and many other groups have been pushing for, for a long time. It's the only solution out there that pays its own way and gets everyone covered with quality care for less money overall. Get on board, get your congress person to support it.
Reparations are fine, well established in civil law = actual & punitive damages. But perpetrator and victim must be identified.
No Am slave owners nor slaves are still living. Many peoples thru history and world have been enslaved and gone on to success. Slavery is very alive and prospering in Africa, Arabian and South Asian countries. Lets concentrate on ending current slavery.
I saw Sicko and anybody who takes that for scholarship is drinking the Kool Aide.
Any public funded program is effectively asking or billing your neighbor for payment. Public money for roads etc is different than from many to one person.
Removing personal responsibility from economic expenses (single payer will not have co-pays etc) reduces the incentive to choose wisely.
Separating health care from employment is good. People can be employed/unemployed w/o regard to ins. All would be free to pursue their best interests/dreams.
Ins should be an individual purchase from any InsCo w/o regard to State border. Ins should be purchased as along a cafateria line picking and paying for only the coverage you want for the coming year. "You make your choices and take your chances". I think ins policies are unilateral in that the policy is enforce as long as the policy holder makes the required payments?
The Swiss model is to provide vouchers for lower income folk to purchase private sector ins.
W/o multiple choices we can't know if the price for anything is the most efficient.
"Public money for roads etc is different than from many to one person."
Really? Why is that? Is it because everybody uses the roads? Fine, everyone can be on the government health plan.
Or is it because, even if you don't use the road, you use goods and services delivered via the roads? Well, you'd benefit from others being on a public health plan, even if you weren't on it. Better healthcare would mean fewer outbreaks of communicable diseases, due to earlier treatment of those afflicted. It would reduce productivity lost due to employee absences for preventable illnesses. It would mean a healthier society as a whole.
So tell me, is it really different from a road, something we all contribute to for the benefit of all?
Well said, ctrl-z.
"We desperately need a government-run health care program that can, by good old American competition, force private health insurers to get off their pirate ships and back in the real world. The 46 million or so uninsured Americans need somewhere to get their health needs tended. The millions more in dire danger of losing their jobs and their private insurance need some alternative immediately available."-
Spot on. This is the message that desperately needs to get out. $1.4 Million/day is what is bringing these gray haired mobs out in force. They remind me of meth addicts on a week long binge, screaming at the shadow people they hallucinate into existence. They are mentally ill and very sad subjects.
They are outraged that a black man is in the White House and that disconnect has literally "broken their brains" as a recent guest on the Rachel Maddow Show reported.
"This Country Needs an Outburst of Common Sense" -- I talk to a wide range of people about news stories at a local TV station site and at a local newspaper site. I wouldn't hold my breath on waiting for common sense. There are still FAR too many people who get their opinions from talk radio. So they don't start with common sense and they show no interest in acquiring any.
"this country" and "common sense"......funny.
Come the advent of single-payer, we'll be sorry or equally miserable.