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TechnoratiMedicare for All: Yes We Can
More Americans die of lack of health insurance than terrorism, homicide, drunk driving and HIV combined.
Grandma could be dead from lack of health insurance before she turns 65 and gets Medicare - 80 percent of first-time grandparents are in their 40s and 50s.
America is the only country that rations the right to health care to those 65 and older.
Lack of health insurance kills 45,000 American adults a year, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. One out of three Americans under age 65 had no private or public health insurance for some or all of 2007-2008.
You can't go the emergency room for the screening that will catch cancer or heart disease early, or ongoing treatment to manage chronic kidney disease or asthma. And even emergency care is different for the insured and uninsured. Studies show uninsured car crash victims receive less care in the hospital, for example.
Even with health insurance, many Americans are a medical crisis away from bankruptcy. Research shows 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical, a share up 50 percent since 2001. Most of the medically bankrupt had health insurance - the kind insuring profits, not health care.
Health insurance executives don't worry about going bankrupt from getting sick. Forbes reports that CIGNA's CEO made $121 million in the last five years and Humana's CEO made $57 million.
We're harmed by health industry and political leaders following the Hypocritic Oath: Promise a lot, and deliver as little as possible.
Wendell Potter, CIGNA's chief of corporate communications until quitting in 2008, testified to Congress, "The status quo for most Americans is that health insurance bureaucrats stand between them and their doctors right now, and maximizing profit is the mandate." He said, "Every time you hear about the shortcomings of what they call 'government-run' health care, remember this: what we have now ... and what the insurers are determined to keep in place, is Wall Street-run health care."
Premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance jumped 131 percent between 1999 and 2009 - from $5,791 to $13,375 - hurting businesses, employees and families.
Contrary to myth, the United States does not have the world's best health care. We're No. 1 in health care spending, but No. 50 in life expectancy, just before Albania, according to the CIA World Factbook. In Japan, people live four years longer than Americans. Canadians live three years longer. Forty-three countries have better infant mortality rates.
One or two health insurance companies dominate most metropolitan areas in the United States.
Health industry lobbyists and campaign contributors have gotten between you and your congressperson so they can keep getting between you and your doctor. There are 3,098 health sector lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill - nearly six for every member of Congress.
As Business Week put it in August, "Health insurers are winning." They "have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable."
President Obama should listen to his doctor. Dr. David Scheiner was Obama's doctor for 22 years in Chicago. On the July 30 anniversary of Medicare, Scheiner said, "I have never encountered an instance where Medicare has prevented proper medical care ... Insurance companies frequently interfere and block appropriate care."
Scheiner belongs to Physicians for a National Health Program, which, like a majority of Americans, favors Medicare for All - 58 percent favored "Having a national health plan in which all Americans would get their insurance through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for-all" in the July 2009 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, for example.
Tell President Obama and Congress, Yes we can have Medicare for All. Rep. Anthony Weiner's amendment would substitute the text of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (HR 676), which has 86 co-sponsors, for House legislation HR 3200. Like the even worse Baucus bill in the Senate, HR 3200 would feed for-profit insurers more customers without providing the universal health care Medicare could provide at much lower cost.
It's time to stop peddling health reform snake oil.
Medicare for All won't kill Grandma, but it may save her children and grandchildren.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service
45 Comments so far
Show AllNo we wont! Obama answers to those who gave him the big donations in 2008, not us $25 people! Goldman Sachs was his biggest contributor in 2008, and Obama turned out to be very good for them!
Unless your name is J.P. Morgan Chase or Goldman Sachs, you are going to be told that what needs to be done for the public good is "just not politically possible right now, it just doesn't have the votes. We can't let the perfect get in the way of big money contributors, er, I mean the good."
"Grandma could be dead from lack of health insurance before she turns 65 and gets Medicare - 80 percent of first-time grandparents are in their 40s and 50s......Lack of health insurance kills 45,000 American adults a year, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health."
In addition to the some 150,000 that die each year from drug interactions these statistics virtually guarantee that the new Wall Street financial instrument on Life Insurance Policies will be another profitable scheme for the predators.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/26-1
Forget about the hit squads; the banking/insurance lobbyists only need to convince congress that "health coverage for all" would interfere with profits from their new "gambling" instrument which places its bets on premature death.
Will there be a battle between "health care" insurers and "life insurers" or will they merge?
Profits - profits - profits!
" One cannot climb two mountains at the same time. Each step would be further from the first," my very own quote.
We cannot jump from one program to a totally different one in a flash. But we can make vast worthwhile changes to benefit all the people. The insurance kings should not be the rulers of the change but the ones changed.
Bill Brown Pine City, MN
People need to remember that HR676 (single payer) is not Medicare. It is subtitled Expanded and Improved Medicare for All. That means Medicare is a basic jumping off point. It is improved to correct some of its current deficiencies and expanded to cover everyone.
Also remember that programs only require the national will to succeed. Countries with a lot less wealth than we have manage to provide better health care for everyone for less money. Why? Simply because they made it a priority.
Naturally, since a lot of our money is being spent on propping up failed banks and funding pointless wars, we need to reshape our priorities.
The so called Public Option that Congress is debating isn't worth the time being wasted talking about it. the health Mafia had any meaningful reform killed even before the whole process began. Congress isn't about to threaten the huge profits of the health Mafia no matter what Obama and the rest of them say in public. In the end rates will go up and so will taxes.
Now if everyone would pay about 40%+ taxes that would not be a problem. Good luck selling that.
Pay the government system and get health care, or pay the private system and get "recission."
Not just Yes We Can, Yes We Must
"Why?"
"Anything other than single payer won't be able to deliver health care for all."
"The reason being?"
"Insurance company greed."
"Then we'll try again."
"With no chance for success, what with right-wingers screaming 'See, told ya so, told ya so, government's the problem, not the solution', and the public once again falling for it."
"Anything else?"
"We rise up & see to it that Congress passes and President Obama signs a single payer bill, whereupon, empowered by our victory over the powers that be, no problem, our doing the same when it comes to troops out now, putting the interest of Main Street before those of Wall Street, not to mention our government finally getting serious about reversing global warming."
"Otherwise?"
"Perpetual wars + global warming + economic collapse = doomsday."
Yourstruly
Your observation concerning "Insurance company greed" points to the heart of the matter in this country. That very relevant comment is noted in T.J. Reid's chapter "France: The Vital Card" in his extremely well written book The Healing Of America: A Global Quest For Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. In that chapter, Reid makes a very important distinction between health insurance in the US and how it is implemented in France when he writes that:
"Because the insurance plans-the caisses d'assurance maladie, or "sickness insurance funds"-are nonprofit entities [in France], their main concern is not providing a return to investors but, rather, paying for people's health care. Consequently, the French system eliminates some aspects of health insurance that Americans hate the most. French insurance funds can't turn you down for coverage when you lose or change your job. [When a French worker loses her job, she keeps the same insurance plan; the government pays the employer's share of the premium]. They can't deny a claim; once the doctor submits a bill, insurance has to pay it."
More amazing details, at least from an American perspective.
"There's no deductible; French insurance pays from the first euro billed. The long delays in reimbursement that are common for American insurance companies are illegal in France. Doctors and hospitals are generally paid within a week, and the patients must be reimbursed for their costs at the end of each month. Since the French insurance funds don't spend any money on marketing, on filtering out unwelcome customers, on reviewing and denying claims, or on paying dividends to stockholders, they are significantly more efficient businesses than American insurance companies." Reid also points out that "the profit-making health insurance giants in the United States generally spend about 20 percent of all premium income on administrative expenses; the French insurance plans routinely keep administrative costs below 5 percent."
This is why, among other reasons, that France was ranked #1 in terms of quality health care by the WHO. Does anyone get the feeling, after reading this, that perhaps you may be living in the wrong country and that the country that you and I are living in must be one of the most backward-thinking, especially given the fact that the US is supposed to be the best and richest country in the world?
That commie socialized fascist gummint health care in France is awful, ain't it?
Errol,
Appreciate the lowdown on health care in France. Actually Medicare is pretty close to that, what with overhead at less than 5% & no hassling. It's mind-boggling to see seniors at these right-wing rallies complaining about possible government control of health care when, apparently unbeknownst to them, they're on Medicare?
A much bigger problem and barrier to health is the fact that we don't even have a 'health care system' at present. Medical care isn't health care--it is non-fundamental, often ineffective, symptom-oriented, and pharmaceutically-based and dominated. It is more of a disease management and pharmaceutical profiteering system. although the insurance companies are sucking money and health out of us with a high tax for the priviledge of having an inefficient, amoral, and complex bureaucracy ripping us off, pharmaceuticals are killing over 100,000 of us yearly according to 2 articles in JAMA, the interesting and usually conservative organ of the AMA.
Drugs cause problems. They deplete nutrients while not adding any. To have an actual 'health care system' doctors would have to recommend and the insurance cover nutritional therapy which is many more times effective for the whole variety of major illnesses, would cost a fraction of what the expensive meds do, and is tens of thousands of times safer, if you even believe the somewhat dubious government statistics.
For example, almost everyone in the US is deficient in Vitamin D-3 the sunshine hormone. 90+% according to doctors who have tested their patients. Yet how many of us are getting a therapeutic supplemental dose of 3,000-5,000IU of D-3 per day or a larger dose periodically?
Medicine is over 50 years behind in adopting important discoveries the field of vitamin and nutritional therapy. How bout working for a real HEALTH CARE SYSTEM BASED ON HEALTHY TREATMENT WITH NUTRITIONAL THERAPY AS A CORE? An idea whose time has always been here and keeps coming around until it sinks in.....
Sioux Rose
UBAND: You raise very important points. The last thing I want is for a medical treatment plan to be forced on me that is to healing what the military is to "peace keeping" forces. In addition to your excellent references to the nutritional factor, I'd also add lifestyle incentives aimed at altering self-destructive habits. A nation that pushes sugar-laden "food" stuffs onto a naive, often sedentary population, along with a great many chemical contrivances that mask symptoms without ever modifying cause factors (leaving the body its own toxic dump in the process), added to glamourizing smoking and all sorts of aggresssive, often times speed-driven behaviors (as depicted in films) sets up behaviors that CAUSE many of the illnesses, or dis-eases that then require treatment, if not costly, long-term "maintenance" programs. Naturally Diabetes fits that designation, at least its newest dietary-led incarnation. It could well be said that this is the "Disaster Capitalism" model directed at health and how it is mismanaged (for profit) by the sort of society operating on the basis of rabid capitalism sans conscience.
Often in this forum one encounters the grand debate between the power and obligations of the individual set against the duties and potential benefits of the collective society. What works best is when these two "forces" work in tandem. Thus to task individuals with maintaining healthy, balanced lifestyles when all around them (a phenomenon grossly aided and abetted by the media culture and its advertisers) is broadcast everything contrary to that ideal notion is a recipe for collective suicide, if in slow motion. BOTH the society AND its individual members need to embrace dietary changes and lifestyle improvements, those designed to facilitate and support well-being. However, a nation that puts guns first, prizes those in uniform and by extension consistently seeks UNIFORM solutions to matters better resolved through diverse approaches, is not apt to be one set to honor such things as beauty, balance, or the remotest concept of a shared social framework from which to nurture enhanced health for all.
Meanwhile, like others in this forum, I eat no meat, keep a simple diet, get exercise, try to ward off the abundant levels of stress impacting all sentient beings these days, and then hope to have enough good karma to ward off whatever infirmities these approaches fail to offset.
CNN's Sanjay Gupta told Michael Moore that Medicare for all wouldn't be possible because it is going to go broke. MM replied something like "no wonder when we waste 200 billion plus on counterproductive wars".
If other countries have free universal healthcare without copays, etc., why don't US? Is it because of the greedy insurance corporations or is it because US law allows all banks and corporations to legally bribe politicians?
The oligarchs have US right were they want...begging for our rights from the politicians they buy. Unless we get money out of politics, its going to be time for a French Revolution and the guillotine.
Sioux Rose
Tough to set up those guillotines when 100 uniformed guards are aiming tasers at all "inspired" parties; however, I totally agree with (and applaud) the rest of your post. And thank you again for deconstructing the dummies' delusions about socialism. Your list posted the other day would make for a compelling poster to place up at community locations (like the local library?).
"The Dummies' guide to socialism-style U.S.A" (?) I believe there's a whole set of computer books published that use a similar title directed at dummies.
People who say Medicare is going broke are full of crap, frankly. Those are 20 to 30 year projections. That projection can be turned around by just changing a few rules, like taxation rates, for one. Things like that go broke because of a willful desire for them to do so, or from neglect. The national will, or priorities, determine what programs thrive or suffer.
On point!
Sanjay Gupta was Obama's choice for Surgeon General, remember?
i had a pretty heavy surgery a few days ago. ALL they cared about was money.
Instead of serpents on the caduceus, they should wrap money around the staff.
rainbows & flowers rule.
Sioux Rose
AZJOE: You seem to be in good spirits. May your recovery be easy and blessed.
Hello Sioux Rose, hello. life is a blessing so my spirit is warmed, i did cream my foot and must stay off it, for forever or months, whichever comes 1st. but it'll be fine. as i type my daughter is cleaning my place? i'm breaking the other foot tomorrow!
rainbows rainbows
and butterflies
forever
I had one in July. Be Well! Scary stuff. Wait till the bills start piling in, oh and I had I thought good Ins. BS!
Bills? What bills? I'm on Medicare. :)
I hope you are recuperating well.
thanks ezeflyer, SEAGLASS below, it's interesting going thgrough it as health care is being discussed, analyzed..... yikes!
A well written article which I usually attempt to impart upon the people I meet here in the small towns of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately my plea usually ends up falling upon deaf ears as it seems that everyone and their mother in this part of the country seems to be a libertarian. The experience that I and my wife had this morning with our veterinarian seems to typify this type of thinking. After I informed him, as T.R. Reid points out in his most excellent book The Healing of America, that about 20,000 Americans die each year in this country because they were unable to receive quality health care and that tens of thousands of Americans are forced into bankruptcy because of their medical bills, his response was that it was not his concern. When I remarked that he did not seem to be at all compassionate about their plight he bluntly told us that he was not.
He, like so many other Americans, seems to believe, as a character from a Dickens novel might observe, that if people had to die then they should do it quickly in order to decrease the surplus population. As well meaning as this article is, it really appears that so many Americans simply do not give a damn that so may of their fellow citizens have to needlessly die and go bankrupt while those deaths and those bankruptcies simply do not happen [as T.J. Reid notes]in any other advanced industrialized country on this planet. I will probably continue to press for the need for a single payer system in the area where I live despite the fact that it will draw the wrath of the countless Americans who could care less if their fellow citizens live or die.
Erroll
Loved the Dickens analogy! Yes I know some of the same folks. But I do believe most Americans do care. Its just that every time its brought up, Carter, Clinton, Obama, they try and push through complicated crap like the proposals from Congress now. Rewarding the same old suspects and increasing profits while reducing care.
Not once has anyone proposed Single Payer thats simple to understand and works for everyone.
When I have talked to folks about this, even my Republican friends....they (almost) all say the same thing....then why aren't they proposing that instead of this crap. Most don't know the difference between the Canadian system and the Britsh system. They think they are both socialized medecine.
"I will probably continue to press for the need for a single payer system in the area where I live"
I hope not "probably"....don't give it up....keep pushing and good on ya!
Unfortunately, the lead sentence of this article tends to adopt the confusing syntax of the adversaries.
The fatal defect is not a lack of HEALTH INSURANCE and more of that commodity is certainly not a solution. The problem is that profit-driven insurance actually has value-negative limiting impacts on the delivery of required HEALTH CARE.
Single Payer Health Care or Single Term.
Public option is not an option.
Great message that we need to deliver to Obama!
We own the hospitals
We own the equipment
We own the products used
We have companies bid for a contract to supply and maintain the above.
ALL THE ABOVE CAN BE USED BY TAXPAYERS AT NO CHARGE!
There, I never touched the doctor / patient relationship!
The above will save money no matter which plan we choose!
The USA needs a single payer system of health care, but don't call it Medicare for all. I happen to know my mom when she was alive those last few years was getting Medicare a few years back before she died and had to have supplemental private health insurance to cover much of her medical bills. Medicare was initially a good thing intended to cover all medical expenses for the elderly, but over time since then the health insurance industry and likely the pharmaceutical industry have put more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Old people getting Medicare know this first hand. Furthermore, not everybody age 65 is eligible for Medicare. Only those who have enough credits with Social Security get it and Social Security. Others may get Medicaid if they're flat broke, but those in between fall through the cracks, and don't get either. This is especially true of people who are self employed such as myself. I may not get either Social Security or Medicare nor Medicaid. Single payer or even a multi payer system as a compromise such as France or Germany's would eliminate that problem. Also other industrial nations provide pensions for all at a certain age through their central governments. These policies insure the elderly don't have to go begging in old age or depend on their children by insuring that the elderly are provided with said pensions and medical treatment no matter what their circumstances have been as should be the case. Too much of this country's help for people is based on degrading means tested BS which in effect says it's the fault of the individual not the corrupt system which doesn't provide for the elderly and others. We don't need this BS.
Oh, and yes, we can start from scratch since we are doing such a lousy job for our people while the politicians live like royalty along with their super rich power elite pimps.
AD
AD
An excellent point. I'm embarrased to admit I really hadn't thought of the fact that on Medicare you need a privately purchased supplement or gap coverage. So Medicare for all which sounds good really isn't. Proves you have to think things totally through even when you think you already know.
Thanks for the 2x4 to the head to wake me up!
"Oh, and yes, we can start from scratch since we are doing such a lousy job for our people while the politicians live like royalty along with their super rich power elite pimps."
Starting from scratch would be the best idea, but you are correct I believe, Single Payer is the only answer for the Country. With all the different types with plenty of information, we should be able to design a system that works as well as anyone.
But you DON'T need any such supplement. I speak from 7 years of current personal experience. I have A&B and that's it. It covers me as well as any employer plan ever did (apart from dental--that's the only big shortcoming).
The confusion comes from a scam called "Medicare Advantage" which is a private insurance product. When you buy it, thinking it will cover what Medicare does not, you lose some of your Medicare coverage... and then you get screwed by the usual plethora of private insurance procedures.
Agreed all 'round.
I just wish people were better informed so that they don't, as H8 did, put out misinformation.
Misinformation? You'll have to come up with a better explanation and a few more details than you stated. I'd be glad of the information if I'm wrong.
Try this for starters. http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009093923/who-s-getting-advantage-medicare-advantage
I believe Obama's idea of doing away with Medicare Advantage to save money is a good one, even though it's gotten a lot of criticism from both sides of the aisle: people on the left think it means cutting Medicare to pay for people without insurance; people on the right think he's cutting a good program with 9 million enrollees.
The truth is private insurers have been allowed to worm their way into the Medicare system and they are up to the same old tricks, providing less service for more money, even though they promised something different, and pocketing huge profits.
"So Medicare for all which sounds good really isn't."
Not so fast. See my comment at 11:44pm 9/26.
Yeah, I agree, I probably meant single payer not Medicare.
A lot of good points in this article. Health care is not a marketable product. I think, at one of the hearings, Kucinich asked that question to some health care execs and all of them said that providing health care is not a market and it can't be one.
If one looks at the latest polls, most people agree that Medicare for all is the best solution. They've had it. HR676 has its problems (too restrictive for one) but it's still the best of the bills floating around Congress.
The problem is, the people don't get to chose. We have no representation in government, we are simply serfs and that is a larger and more important issue in itself.
"Tell Obama?"
Didn't he already take the "hearing aid" out of his ears?
Jason Grant Garza here ... read the article before commenting please ... I was DENIED EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES WHILE ON MEDICARE! My doctor at the time was and still is the current PUBLIC HEALTH DIRECTOR of whom I told the law was broken (20 year old law EMTALA) ... did he protect me, testify in court, abandon me, what?
I complained to the hospital ... rec'd risk management. Complained to MEDICARE ... same. Had to go to court where I was NOT ALLOWED TO TESTIFY because apparently thier EXPERT witness (TESILIED) while denying me DUE PROCESS.
Got a signed confession where I received NOTHING ...
Continued since NONE of my questions were answered ... how xould this happen with me telling everyone ... and if the TRUTH didn't matter ... what does? Still can't get any answers ... careful what you wish for GOVERNMENT CARE ... I still await mine after paying in, being dead right, left for dead. etc.
I'm sorry that Jason had a bad experience with medicare, although I'm not sure what happened. Was he denied care? or was the problem with billing for the care? It is a shame that Jason is not pleased with his treatment---but it is also a shame that the insurance companies do this on a daily basis.
The question before us is, can we get a medical system that serves the needs of the people? Studies over four years in California indicated that this could be done ONLY WITH A SYSTEM ADMINISTRATED BY THE GOVERNMENT. This is due to the fact that the for profit insurance companies have very high administrative costs and profits motives that consume nearly 40% of all health care funds. Only with the removal of these for profit entities, and their replacement with a governmental system that costs 3%, will there be funds to pay for health care for all of us.
Polls show that the majority of the American public want Medicare for all, Single Payer----------but in Congress it is a no show. Why and how could this be? Don't we live in a democracy where our representatives vote in our interests? The quick answer for that is "NO". Our representative are obviously voting in the interests of their paymasters.
So, what can we do? VOTE THE BUMS OUT! If your 'rep' voted for the bankster bailout and the surge in Afghanistan and will not sign on to HR 676 for health care for all---then that person must be voted out of office. In this way the people can take control of our government. Get over that false concept of voting for the lesser evil. Get over your belief that one corporate party is better than the other one. Obviously we are being screwed. This ain't no democracy. You vote again for the same puppets for the wealthy, we will never restore our democracy or improve the standard of living of the working people. VOTE THE CORRUPT OUT OF CONGRESS!
Jason Grant Garza here ... one bad incident does not a system of failure make ... great statement filled with hope unless of coarse it is an illusion. One bad incident ... says who? When a system is setup not to check, guard, hold accountable ... HOW in the world do you know its a bad system? By the way, even if you do know its a bad system (like Guantanamo) ... still the system exists, continues, and transforms ... question is will the TORTURED be treated with CONTRTION or CASE CLOSED ... we're sorry. Yes, in the ideal world where things are fair and people just ... this would have been investigated; however, "IN A TIME OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT TELLING THE TRUTH BECOMES A REVOLUNTARY ACT." George Orwell.
What makes a system of failure is UNACCOUNTABLITY, INHUMANITY, and ILLUSION ... all which are abundantly clear. Ask the Guantanamo prisoners, ask the California overcrowed prisoners ... one bad incident, ha, ha, ha. Maybe the bad incident is the failure of reason and logic; however, since I am the victor I will write the history and continue to tell the truth ... where's the shame or outrage ... however, FOOL ME ONCE SHAME ON YOU ... FOOL ME TWICE ... NOT ON MY DEAD LIFE ...
Now ask yourself to what end would this be if I had NOT continued ... did it stop the city or anyone else from testilying in federal court to have my case dismissed ONLY TO SIGN A CONFESSION LATER ON ADMITTING FAULT AND GUILT? Did any of these perps continue after the "scorhed earth .. no prisoner left behind defense." One incident might NOT make a bad system; however, that is not the pattern here ... this was NOT one incident ... read the article ... it was all the incidents of going forward and NOT being helped through all the agencies in charge of complaince ... JACHO, LICENSING and CERTIFICATION, the FEDERAL COURT SYSTEM, SFGH, DPH, DHS, H&HS, MEDICARE, OIG, shall I continue?
One bad incident does not a system of failure make.