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Liar, Liar … Well, Healthcare Pants on Fire
So, we've been told over and over again that under the healthcare reform plans currently defended and pushed by the President and Congress that we can keep what we've got if we like it. No one will take your health insurance bennies away. Not under our employer-based, for-profit system.
Well, tell that to the latest batch of employees in Chicago
to have their insurance benefits cut right out from under them – they
sure didn't get to keep what they had.
The workers at SK Tools had no choice. Their health
insurance benefits were cancelled. Sick family member? Too damn
bad. Need a doctor. Tough luck. The company representatives
say the recession has hurt them, and they have no choice. The company is
also asking for 20 percent cuts in hourly wages. Wow.
Now, the workers have voted to strike. And there will perhaps be some resolution for this bunch of employees. Folks will cry out, perhaps even President Obama will step in, and this situation will probably get resolved – though folks will suffer in the interim.
But the larger issue remains. Just how gullible are we when we trust that any private company will be forced to keep any benefit plan it chooses not to keep?
Employers will still be able to change up healthcare plans to meet the company's needs – and if that means you have to see another doctor or pay a higher co-pay or drive to a more distant in-network provider, that will not be your decision. And health insurance companies will still be able to change their provider lists and covered services and all sorts of other things without any input from policyholders.
So, America, it just isn't true that you can keep what you have if you like it when it comes to private, employer-based healthcare benefits. It's a big, fat lie. And the company noted in the article above provides but one example. There will be many more.
The House bill on healthcare reform, the Senate plan for healthcare reform and the President's plan for healthcare reform – none of these actually guarantee that you can keep what you have if you like it, because tomorrow your employer or your insurance company may change what you like to suit their bottom line. That's the truth.
If this big lie about healthcare reform rolls off their messaging engines like melting butter on a warm slice of bread, what else do you suppose they are lying about? Come on. Get real. We won't have what we want in terms of truly having the freedom to choose and keep or change our doctors, our providers and our own treatments until we break free from the lies and produce reform that guarantees a progressively financed, single high-quality standard of care for everybody. Everybody in, nobody out.
Then you can keep what you like. Your choices. Your decisions. Your health. Your healthcare. Your money. Period.
It's not just the right-wing selling myths in this discussion. We need to admit that and work to be as honest as we can. Too many lives depend on this. There will be no death panels to order Grandma's demise, but there are also no guarantees that you can keep what you have if you like it under this system. Both things are lies.
We can provide one another the healthcare security that we're being misled to believe is in the current reform plans. But we will have to help our fellow Americans to understand that a publicly financed, privately delivered healthcare system – like Medicare – for all of us is the most reasoned, most economical and most freedom-protecting choice.
And that's the truth.
26 Comments so far
Show AllJust as Obama continues to enable corporations that are too big to fail, Obama continues to promote the continuation of an employer-based medical insurance system, concurrent with his supply-side governing strategy that is resulting in 14,000 Americans losing their job each day.
here is something to think about
how much will national health care cost us???
NOTHING.......ZERO......ZIP
in fact it will save us
RIGHT NOW
OUR GOVERNMENT spends $3300.00 dollars per person per year on health care.........then the rest of us pay thousands more
in ENGLAND where they have national health care....their GOVERNMENT spends $2900.00 per person on healthcare
and THEY have universal coverage
so we ALREADY pay for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE..... we just are not receiving it.....
why not???
We USans are not receiving half the healthcare value that citizens of other countries receive because the "divine right of kings" exists in the modern USA to over-ride the people's common sense. USans fail to demand and get best value in healthcare not because best value is inconsistent with their principles but because they are instructed to violate their own principles and accept the illegal price-fixing in the healthcare sector like in other sectors such as the military, where no-bid contracts prevail, also in the finance sector where casino royale created massive inflation past several years in virtually all commodities. Most US markets are terrible failures because the consumer fails to demand and get best value. For example, in transport, USans pay five to ten times per mile as citizens of other countries pay on average.
The overall US economy ranks near the bottom in terms of efficiency. That is if you look at the labor and energy input into the US economy, and compare that with the productive output, the result is very low. Of course this depends on your values. If you value only material opiates, US efficiency is not bad. If you value work for the sake of work, not bad. But if you value real health and happiness, and minimal impact on people/planet, then US performance is pathetic. USans have to start demanding from the markets what enhances health/happiness. For things you truly need, demand best value. For things you don't need, no demand at all.
Thanks Donna Smith--you told it as it is--it's easy to see. So
there you are clean and concise--don't accept anything else--they will just have to slow down their wars and other bullshit programs and do the peoples' business--OK?--you got that, civil servants?
Of course this is the truth, but the truth isn't on the table. Obama, Baucus, Grassley and Co. have banished the truth from the entire pseudo-debate. This administration, like all its predecessors in recent memory, is in the business of Lies All the Time About Everything. Respecting the truth would put an end to their tyrannical power overnight.
Good point, Donna Smith. Here's a sample:
The Oregonian is reporting that Blue Cross Blue Shield will increase premiums 15% this year after raising them 26% last year. (By the way, the company says they are losing money on individual premiums.)
BCBS had asked for a 19% increase. The article states that most insurers haven't filed yet for this year's increase, but last year most were in the double digits in 2008:
**The overall average rate increase was 14.2 percent. That included a 17.7 percent increase for individual plans and 11.2 percent jump for small businesses.
Individual rates climbed, for example, 16.9 percent for PacificSource Health Plans, 14.5 percent for Providence Health Plan, and 7 percent for the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Northwest.**
But you can keep your plan, BCBS hopes you do.
It seems like "the truth is missing" is the highlight in most of the CD articles today. Language has been subverted and twisted into doing the exact opposite of what it is intended to do; Clarify things. Who, especially in the major media, government, the military, or business can you believe? I would claim almost nobody speaking in an official capacity. We have nurtured and encouraged untruthfulness for decades now. Human nature, or have we made conscious decisions to go down this road?
Words are just a means to an end now. Our God has become quarterly profits. Show me the history of truthfulness from our corporate CEOs. Our president. A congressman. A military officer. The CIA director. Rush Limbaugh. Wolf Blitzer. O'Reilly. Look into the eyes of Dick Cheney, Richard Pearle, Paul Wolfowitz, David Addindton, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzolez, Alan Greenspan, Henry Paulson......Truth? Honesty? Integrity? Wake up folks! If you are tuned in to the "official" news, and science, and medicine, and politics, and corporate advertisements, then be assured, you are rarely treated to the truth.
I am for the complete abolishment of the idea of corporate personhood. It has no place in a humanistic, science-based modern culture. It completely distorts the very idea of freedom. Corporations will continue to wield disproportionate power over people. That to me, is what it is all about. Get rid of the power of corporations, and, I believe, we are halfway back to freedom and equality.
Donna Smith. You have been a consistent voice of reason and compassion throughout this health care debate. I applaud, and sincerely thank you for your efforts. A health care insurance industry should be eliminated from any civilized country as quickly as humanly possible. Single payer Now.
http://marchforhealthcare.com
"We will be marching on September 13th @ 12:00 PM in every city across the country for affordable healthcare."
The next thing on the neocon agenda is to take away the tax break that employers get for providing health insurance for the employees. It's what big insurance wants. McCain promised it. Obama has avoided the issue, but we know who he serves. Upon losing that tax break, employers will stop funding health insurance. Then there will be no more bargaining for group rates. The insurance companies will hold all the marbles. It's what is coming, like it or not, if the demopublican republicrat monoparty keeps its stranglehold on government.
Correction Bliss Doubt:
During the campaign Obama criticized McCain for suggesting that employer-provided insurance be taxed.
Shortly after cutting a recent clandestine deal with Billy Tauzin to continue the ban on negotiating drug prices, Obama told the world that he was open to the idea of taxing employer-provided insurance.
During the campaign Obama also criticized Tauzin's 2003 Medicare Drug Extortion Act that initiated the ban on negotiating drug prices.
Can we trust Obama any further than we can throw him?
McCain also spoke of removing the tax incentive that employers have to provide health insurance to employees. I wasn't aware that McCain wanted to tax the insurance as income too. I guess both he and Obama have both worked both ends of the issue, in all ways answering to big insurance companies. Obama also criticized Hillary Clinton for wanting to make buying health insurance mandatory, and to impose a fine for failure to buy it. Then since being elected, he's stolen her bad idea, and McCain's bad ideas too.
what is more important in this discussion than the following facts:
how much will national health care cost us????
NOTHING.......ZERO......ZIP
in fact it will save us
RIGHT NOW
OUR GOVERNMENT spends $3300.00 dollars per person per year on health care.........then the rest of us pay thousands more
in ENGLAND where they have national health care....their GOVERNMENT spends $2900.00 per person on healthcare
and THEY have universal coverage
so we ALREADY pay for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE..... we just are not receiving it.....
why not???
The people making policy are generously insured at mostly taxpayers' expense.
Every American, insured or otherwise, should be encouraged to invest 10 minutes and go to ehealthinsurance.com. There they will be asked to plug in very limited information ... and then study for themselves what it would cost them (premiums, co-pays, deductibles, RX medications out-of-pocket expenses) if they had to purchase insurance in their locations from the 'competitive free market'. Once enrolled (if 'eligible'), the next step will be to receive benefits documents so ambiguous that no one really comprehends them. This sets up the policy-holder for future recissions, cancellations, and the withholding of benefits. Surprise!
The insurance industry leaves a trail of enough documentation of egregious business practices to give the incorruptible Members of Congress plenty of reason to eliminate it as a factor in universal healthcare coverage. It is apparent that 15,000 or more Capitol Hill staff are too busy doing other things to capture and expose it. And that's the travesty!
They knew, but ignored credit card and sub-prime loan rip-offs for years before the financial services industry imploded the economy. There is no way in hell that a few of them (at least those I have contacted personally) don't know what's buried, but accessible, through limited research on scores of major players within the healthcare industry.
The "health insurance reform debate" has been one heck of a dog and pony show. Solid Off-Broadway theater. Whoever supposed that the executives and directors of large corporations and their lobbyist employees could not succeed at theater were wrong! And yes!, purely fictional plays packed with lies can be successful to some extent!
William Shakespeare, who would not have dreamed of writing a play so packed with lies, may be turning in his grave right about now.
Hooray once again for Donna!! I've been waiting for someone to call out Obama on this lie.
His talking point should read: "IF it's OK with your employer, and IF your insurer doesn't unilaterally eliminate the plan you're enrolled in ... you can keep what you've got."
And if he wanted to be really candid, he'd add: "But the fact is, is [sic] that you really don't have a damn bit of control over your health care."
Why anyone would accept this risk over the assurance of government-guaranteed health care is absolutely beyond comprehension.
I want to second that. I've been saying this to myself a long time and, as a matter of fact, my brother, who has coverage through his employer, is going to lose said coverage next year. He is nervous. His employer is switching plans. Suddenly my brother is in favor of Medicare for All. It's amazing what happens when people "get it." Also, in spite of the fact that me, his very own sister, is uninsured (self-employed without a gold-plated income), he had been totally against "government-run" health care, and it was just too bad that there were people like me out there.
Obama has done an atrocious job on health care and explaining the real situation in this country. He is obtuse and wordy. I'm not sure that this isn't by design. I'm not even sure he really wants true reform. He just wants a bill that says health care reform and he can staple it to his resume and say look what I did that no other POTUS has been able to do in 70 years. The joke's on America.
While I would agree that a Single Payer system will give the most Care for the least dollar and far less than we are spending now like half as much, and what we need to be doing I still want to live in a reality based world.
In the House bill (that is the only "reform bill" complete enough to talk about), small employers (under 250K in wages) get to dump everyone without penalty, but few can manage to pay for health care now so it is not really much loss.
Larger employers have to pay an increasing fine for not covering no matter what they do presently. I can imagine a hundred loopholes and unintended consequences, but that is the rule.
Everyone else (including small employers) can buy into a plan that is basic or basic with extras at one price fits all for any particular plan. I am not sure how they will make sure any such plans are offered. Again a big improvement over currently but you can bet the employer will get the Cadillac plan and his workers will only be able to afford basic, where now the employer has to take whatever plan he gets for everyone.
The big argument is whether there is also a Medicare or Medicare light package also available in that group of plans.
The tricky bit will come if either the "Medicare" plan is good enough to force out Insurance and become single payer, or worse is bad enough that only those who cannot afford to do better will take it, and it becomes a dumping ground for the poor.
There are many other good things in the bill, no copays or donut hole for real Medicare, and the normal sensible stuff like no exclusions everyone the same price and no caps where they quit paying after you really need it.
If the public option is good enough or can be made good enough it can become single payer for all practical purposes, indeed that is the point the Gang Of Pirates is making, and they want to keep bleeding us.
However the idea that those who do not want a Government plan can support something way more expensive, cuts the legs from the argument by the naysayers.
"Just how gullible are we when we trust that any private company will be forced to keep any benefit plan it chooses not to keep?"
Good question. What makes corporations honor promises (i.e. labor-management contracts)?
The courts.
Who has the money to fight all the way to the Supreme Court?
The corporations.
Is our current Supreme Court corporate friendly?
(Does a wild bear go poo in the woods?)
If a corporation can get away with reneging on a promise in order to make a bigger profit, will they do it?
(Does a wild bear go poo in the woods?)
Try this iteration of the same question:
Just how gullible are we when we trust that any private company will be forced to keep any labor-management contract it chooses not to keep?
And don't forget that corporate bankruptcies are games played in courts simply to avoid labor-management contract obligations in everything from pensions to fringe benefits. The judges are "influenced" to rule reduced pensions and benefits. Of course the top execs have long since cashed in.
Believe NOTHING from a corporation in the current judicial system except cash compensation NOW. That's the way the execs operate. The CEOs behave like they can't be trusted. So don't trust them. That big factory or office building with thousands or hundreds of cubicles with computers in them means NOTHING. Wake the fuck up!
True, many insurance contracts are not worth the paper they are printed on.
In a nice perfect world I would probably support a single payer option/system, but to let our government take over the whole healthcare system, no way. I do not trust the government. Our government cannot run a smaller VA system efficiently or Medicare which is full of corruption and mismanagement. Our government screwed up the cash for clunkers program and we would want to trust government with our healthcare, too scary for me. If I do not like my current healthcare insurance, I can pick another one out of the 1,300 companies already in existence, which 60% of the companies are nonprofit.
At this point I have a lot more faith in government run programs, nonprofit, than I have in "too big to fail" insurance and pharma gougers. In the townhall meetings that have been so often disrupted by wingnuts, people were asked to raise their hands if they were medicare users. When people raised their hands, the next question was "are you happy with the program", and people would respond positively. The next question was "are you aware that medicare is a government run program", and it turned out that people often didn't realize that it was.
The DMV is the icon of a slow, uncaring bureaucracy, but medicare isn't the DMV. I am quite aware that there are terrible problems with the VA health system though.
To me, the whole point of having a public option is to have the ability to negotiate volume rates with insurance and pharma, and without that, I think that a public option could indeed become dreadfully expensive. Would it be more expensive than insurance company bailouts and pharma subsidies though?
Medicare may "work" but it is going broke. No one or no thing can spend more than it takes in and don't forget, Medicare takes in around 3% of all payroll under the $106,000 cut off.
Other countries have significant limits as to what they will pay for. Australia has a limited list of drugs; in Britain, people who have severe strokes are "sent home with their families", here they go to nursing homes for expensive rehab which some nursing homes use as a profit center. Everybody can't have everything all the time.
I agree with newtont94, 7:49am. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Fix the system first, by allowing everyone to have medical savings account. Right now you have to first have health insurance. Give them to Medicaid recipients and permit them for Medicare recipients. Once everyone is paying cash for primary care, those costs will fall. If you get the FDA out of the picture and relegalize all those supplements they've taken off the market so they won't compete with expensive drugs, costs will fall further. Medical freedom of choice will divert even more from mainstream medicine. Then you can talk about single payer catastrophic care (like New Zealand).
We are not going to get anything worth anything out of this. You can change the system from the bottom up by supporting the efforts to control the FDA and by learning about functional medicine/integrative medicine/natural medicine/nutritional medicine and asking your doctor to treat you in that manner or finding one who will.
Although you have to know what you're looking for, you can go to acamnet.org and find a local physician or other practitioner.
hey ,wheres all this gonna come from ? this countrys broke MORONS
In addition to being simple and succinct, the phrase, 'Medical Security,' brings to mind two of the most familiar and successful (and sacred) government programs: Medicare and Social Security. Perhaps referring to 'Medical Security' in future discussions of health care reform can help to alleviate the fear of change and reform.
~ WHEN $ATAN WAS HEARD LAUGHING IN THE PEOPLES HALLS OF U.$. CONGRESS ~
THIS OLD WORLD ORDER OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT OF OUR POORER AMERICANS NEEDS ENLIGHTENED POLITICAL MINDS AND HEARTS TO VIEW GOD DIFFERENTLY THEN $$$... NO MATTER WHAT THEIR POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION ???
WHEN WILL OUR WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS ABATE THEIR ASSAULT ON POORER AMERICANS WITH THEIR MONETARY CONTROL OF OUR IVORY TOWER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER ???
THERE ARE NOT MANY MORE DISTRACTIONS LEFT WHICH ARE AVAILABLE FOR OUR WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS TO HIDE BEHIND IN NOT TAKING PROPER CARE OF ALL OUR AMERICANS IN A HUMANE FASHION !!!
RALPH NADER ATTEMPTED TO EDUCATE AMERICAN VOTERS ABOUT U.S. CORPORATE POWER IN AMERICA AND HOW THEY CONTROL OUR CONGRESSIONAL PEOPLE THROUGH THEIR POCKET BOOK (POLITICAL DONATIONS). WITHOUT THE DOUGH $$$ THESE U.S. CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD DO NOT GET RE~ELECTED TO CONGRESS.TO STAY IN POLITICAL OFFICE IN AMERICA,ONE HAS TO BARTER YOUR VOTES IN CONGRESS AND REPRESENT POWER INTERESTS IN RETURN FOR THE BUCK$.
POORER AMERICANS HAVE NEVER HAD THE $$$ LOBBY TO INFLUENCE THIS CORRUPT POLITICAL CONCEPT (of horse trading political votes for political contributions) TO ACHIEVE PROPER HEALTH ~CARE OR LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR ALL OUR MIDDLE ~ CLASS AND WORKING POOR AMERICANS.
AMERICAN IVORY TOWER U.S.CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD HAVE PASSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION IN WASHINGTON DC TO SPEND 50 BILLION AMERICAN TAX $$$ ON THE INTERNATIONAL FIGHT AGAINST AIDS OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS WHILE THEIR OWN AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING TOLD BY THIS SAME U.S.CONGRESS THAT NATIONAL HEALTH CARE AND PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR CITIZENS IS UNAFFORDABLE.
*** WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS (WHO ARE ONLY 1% OF OUR USA POPULATION) SADLY ALSO CONTROL HOW OUR U.S.CONGRESS SPENDS THEIR BUDGET TRILLION$ AND HAVE OBVIOUSLY FOUND MORE WORTHY INTERNATIONAL CITIZENS THEN OUR OWN DESPERATE AND NEEDY POOR TO ASSIST !!!
~Poorer Americans Nationwide only get 400 million $$$ per year for legal representation allocated them by CONGRESS~
Middle Class and Working Poor Americans are unable to afford proper legal representation in their Civil, Criminal and Family Courts of law all across America causing tremendous hardships nationwide,but these great minds and callous hearts in our American Congress have found others Worldwide more needy then their own citizens who are being falsely incarcerated,wrongfuly executed,losing their homes or apartments,losing child custody or visitation with their children etc?
Not being afforded proper legal representation or by our U.S. Congress has created a total breakdown of the American judicial system for our poorer Americans because the our U.S. Courts punish all of us little people if we are not assisted with proprer legal counsel. It is a known fact that our average Middle Class and Working Poor Americans without proper legal representation in all of our American Courts of law lose their legal cases to the better financed who are able to afford lawyers.
Lawyers For Poor Americans is now actively in the hunt for International Countries and Leaders Worldwide to help raise 5 Billion Dollar$ for our slighted poorer Americans who have had their own American Congress turn their backs on their desperate needs in not affording them proper legal representation.
Troy Davis and Mumia Abu - Jamal are 2 perfect examples of American citizens who never had proper legal representation or defense investigations afforded them by our U.S. Congressional Leaders Of The Free World in their initial criminal trials in (Georgia and Pennsylvania) who might very well have to pay the ultimate price of possibly being completely innocent and falsely executed in the near future.
These two poorer Americans are among tens of thousands of legal cases nationwide that never were afforded proper legal representation or proper Defense Ivestigations at their initial trials.We the public really have no idea if these men are innocent or guilty until they both are given fair legal representation at their new future trials.
Improper murder trials and needless deaths due to lack of healthcare take place in Third World Countries all the time.*** Why should average Middle~Class and Working Poor Americans in the Wealthiest Country Of The World be treated as if they are living a Third World Life Style ??
lawyersforpooreramericans@yahoo.com (424-247-2013)
So, far, all the reasons that have been given to support a Health Care Reform Plan, can be accomplished by changing and creating new laws, without imposing a massive, Big Daddy government program.
I don't know one person who is in favor of the Administrations reform Plan.