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Lack of Universal Health Care Is a Mass Killer
In my 20 years of practice as a family physician, I have encountered dozens of cases where the main contributing factor to a person’s death was the lack of health insurance for most of their lives.
The lack of universal health care is a mass killer in this country.
Nearly 45,000 deaths in the United States each year are attributable to the lack of health insurance, according to a Harvard University study released in September.
That astonishing figure, which appears in the American Journal of Public Health, is a big uptick from the Institute of Medicine’s finding seven years ago that 18,000 people die each year because they lack insurance and thus have less access to care.
The Harvard Medical School researchers found that an uninsured person’s risk of death is 40 percent higher than his or her privately insured counterpart. Looked at another way, every 12 minutes a person dies unnecessarily because he or she doesn’t have health coverage.
As startling as this 45,000 figure is, I fear it underestimates the problem.
In my 20 years of practice as a family physician, I have encountered dozens of cases where the main contributing factor to a person’s death was the lack of health insurance for most of their lives.
I recall one family that lost three members this way.
George was 21 when he died of complications of juvenile diabetes that he’d had since the age of 2. Whenever George worked for a while, he lost his Medicaid. This meant he could no longer afford to test his blood sugars, they would get out of control, he would get sick, have to stop working, he would spend down, then qualify for Medicaid again. This went on for the three years I knew him.
His older sister Tina also had juvenile diabetes from the age of 6. Her situation was the same — working, losing insurance, getting sicker, not working, getting Medicaid etc. Tina was pregnant at the time of George’s death. Her poorly controlled diabetes made her a very high risk for complications in pregnancy. The baby was born three months prematurely and died in the intensive care unit one month later. Tina’s health worsened after that and within one year she died in post-op after heart bypass surgery. She was 25.
Then there’s Russell — also a diabetic, also on and off insurance. He died at age 37 of diabetic kidney failure. He was uninsured for years.
Another case — Vivian — had warning signs for cancer for years. She finally qualified for insurance but died two weeks into the workup of a pulmonary embolus (a complication of pelvic cancers).
I am only one clinician, and yet I have witnessed dozens of cases of people who died of preventable illnesses — preventable illnesses that could have been treated had these patients possessed uninterrupted, seamless coverage for needed treatments over their lives.
Take my experiences and multiply them 700,000 times for the number of physicians in this country and you arrive at a lot more than 45,000 deaths a year due to lack of insurance.
It is time that our nation join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee seamless health care coverage to every man, woman and child in America.
In other words, it’s time to enact single-payer health care — Medicare for All.
- Posted in
33 Comments so far
Show AllInsurance is one part of the problem but in all my years I underwent treatment, it was more than just insurance. I have run across doctors who were greedy and nurses who were poorly trained. This year, when I was nearly losing my life to illness, I had all the insurance I could use but in addition to a few certain restrictions, the doctors who were playing foul were just plain greedy and rude. I can only be thankful my wife and those who supported me fought the system to get a few good replacement doctors. Even then, my wife turned to alternative practitioners which I still get to visit. Insurance rarely covers those kinds of doctors. I will have to ask my wife and friends about this later today but in case they don't know, do the current single payer health care plans cover for alternative practitioners and alternative medicine?
what single payer health care plan
HR676 and S703. I dunno of any other single payer policy out there.
Presumably it would cover the same stuff as existing medicare.
Unfortunately, there will never be enough public money in the world to cover every medical procedure and practice unless they are shown by research to be effective. Any snake oil salesman could declare himself an "alternative practitioner" and dispense useless or even harmful remedies and get public funds.
I agree that doctors don't do a good job in building patient relationships. This is largely due to the onerous paperwork and limited reimbursement doctors recieve for insurance company's fee-for-service (as opposed to fee-per-hour) driven system - which unfortunately Medicare uses too.
"Any snake oil salesman could declare himself an "alternative practitioner" and dispense useless or even harmful remedies and get public funds."
But that's the same thing most big drug companies are doing with the FDA. 25 years ago, it took truly valid research to get a drug approved by the FDA. Today, the FDA is corrupt that almost any big drug company can invent a harmful pill and get a free pass from the FDA with little checking or restrictions. I don't doubt that there could be bad alternative practitioners but the odds of coming across such are less than 1% whereas the chances of coming across bad doctors tied to the profiteers and wanting to be as greedy as them are 50% I would guess based on experience.
"Unfortunately, there will never be enough public money in the world to cover every medical procedure and practice unless they are shown by research to be effective."
There will be enough public money as soon as military spending is trimmed down by at least 40%. That might take a while.
Obama, you have betrayed us. Plenty of money to kill. Need health care? This country can't afford it. We the people owe this country nothing. Especially since Reagan our country has seen a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Every new program contributes somehow to this.
Health care is expensive, and apparently reserved for the rich.
Soon food and water will be expensive. Are we going to sit around and complain while we starve or die from diseases caused by dirty food, water, and air?
Much of what passes for medical research today is designed to give the drug companies the data they want to increase their profits at any costs, while funding to finance research treatments that don't benefit the drug companies is scarce. Even if it would benefit the public.
This has lead to conventional medicine being the third leading cause of death in the US, follow the money and you'll see how we ended up 37th on the WHO list. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4
Hi pjd412. I see you are terribly concerned about "snake-oil salesmen" who want public funds. JWVerez points out that Big Pharma is the "snake-oil" purveryor of choice. Much of the AMA are also "snake-oil" purveyors. Do you really want the gov't to be "The Decider" on what is appropriate medical care? Doctors don't do a good job at building patient relationships because of the selection process for medical school. Not a priority.
Part of the answer is medical savings accounts for everyone so you spend your primary care money however you want. Give them to Medicare recipients so they don't have to get "approval" before they can see a doctor.
I hope you read/will read my response to your coment on 9/30 "Mad As Hell" docs.
Snake oil has been shown to contain high amounts of omega 3 fatty acids.
I agree that there are problems with a corporation-compromised FDA. So we must fix the FDA. If by "government" you mean world renowned scientific institutions like the NIH; yes, I do trust them.
The government=bad thinking of the libertarians seems to have soaked into a lot of liberals quite badly. Resources are limited, government can't cover everything. You are free to go to any alternate practitioner, but don't expect government to cover things of unproven efficacy.
Are "alternate practitioners" covered in, say the British NHS, of Canadian or Australian Medicare?
Someone once commmented on this site that, in Canada, peple went to herbalists, chiropractors and others. That's all I know.
The way to fix the FDA is to support HR 3394, HR 3395 and HR 3396 which take away some of the FDA power and force it to comply with free speech court rulings against it to which it has not complied. Alternatives that have been proven to be safe should be available and be allowed to make truthful claims.
As I stated above, everyone should pay cash for primary care with higher insurance deductibles. I would not expect the gov't to be paying for this. I've paid for my own health care for 30 years. I am not wealthy. For most of this time my income was less thatn $25,000/yr. The only problem is most people would need the guidance of a physician, at least in the beginning, and most physicians either are unaware of these methods and treatments because of their suppression by FDA and AMA or they are intimidated by state medical societies who take/suspend licenses of physicians who use "unapproved" treatments EVEN WHEN THEIR PATIENTS ARE CURED AND TESTIFY FOR THEM. The tide is starting to turn but the battle lines are being drawn.
So part of my point is that most are not free to go to any alternative practitioner because they are scarce by design. And information about safe, effective OTC treatments are suppressed. I have read, but not confirmed, that "Hillary Care" of the 90's actually fined a doctor $10,000 for using "unapproved" treatments EVEN IF THEIR PATIENTS PAID FOR IT THEMSELVES. The recent Food Safety bill contained a clause that put criminal penalties on making a health claim not approved by the FDA. And if that information was out there, health care costs might rise at first but would decrease dramatically. A huge percent of drugs and surgeries, as well as some chemotherapies are completely unnecessary. There are many medical practices that take cash only. They have cut costs by 30-50% and make as much, or more, money. If you have not searched "FDA bans pyridoxamine" you should.
I have lots to say about the F&NB of the IOM of the NIH but they are also controlled by Big Pharma and the AMA. They defended processed food in the face of incontrovertible evidence for decades, much like the whole tobacco thing by the tobacco companies. The dangers of trans-fats were well known in scientific circles in the 70's. I learned of the problems with margarines and vegetable oils from Prevention Magazine in the late 70's. They were labelled "quacks" and the truth denied until it became undeniable. Enough of them. You are free to trust them, I don't.
I don't know what to say about gov't=bad and you previously mentioned evil gov't.
It depends on what bad/evil means. If you include bringing death and destruction across the globe since the time of McKinley, the Drug War and resulting prison system, the subsidies to oil, gas, nuclear, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Wall St, the S&Lscam/bailout then I guess I do think there is great propensity for evil in this gov't. I don't think you have to be a libertarian to see what is right in front of your eyes.
I know if you do just a bit of research (try searching "Dr Mark Hyman and functional medicine") you will start to see what's going on.
Sioux Rose
CASSANDRA: Thank you for so often taking a principled stand in favor of holistic health and its tools in this forum. As an uninsured woman in her 50's, who elected to do home birth, breast feed children, and stay away from meat and most high-processed foods, I ONLY opt for integrative medicine. So far I've been able to keep any condition at bay, or treated with massage, chiropractic, and dietary changes. The dental issues are another matter, one I am slowly contending with.
I know Kevin Trudeau personally and he was sued by the FDA for making claims about the ways to cure cancer. One is NOT allowed to use this verbiage on television. Although Kevin's book on "Cures they don't want you to know about" sold fairly well, it doesn't include substantial references for many of the claims he makes. Nonetheless, he was smart enough to advise people to get the hell off diet soda (aspertame is dangerous) and away from trans-fat "foods."
Conditions like the new wave of Diabetes are very likely caused by the high fructose content of so many food items. It's so profitable keeping people on maintenance plans as opposed to providing an actual cure, that big pharma prefers this approach. It's like renting people the capacity to remain in their own bodies! The model is awful, and I also see chemotherapy being used far too often. Given the influence of Mars over this nation, many medical approaches simulate declaring war on the human body. This, of course, being the antithesis of assisting the body in its capacity to heal itself, IF properly nourished and LOVED.
I think Mars is the appropriate model. There was an article online, no longer available, by a physician who compared the stupidity of the War on Terror to the stupidity of excessive antibiotic use, or the War on Bacteria. And the medical model has begat the medical practitioner model, which is not to murder us but to enslave us. You call it "renting people the capacity to remain in their own bodies."
You're right about diabetes but that and so many more problems could be fixed or much improved if people just walked every day. I haven't read Kevin Trudeau's books but I once heard him talking about digestive problems and he knew what he was talking about. You're also right about the body's ability to heal itself if you give it what it needs. I always thought the Christian Scientists had it almost right. They just forgot the part about "God helps those who help themselves" It takes prayer but it also takes effort on your part to put your body, mind and spirit in balance.
This is an issue close to my heart. In the late 70's I chose an extreme healing alternative (Steve McQueen's choice)to heal I don't know what except I could digest almost nothing. Here I am today, a little older than you with no digestive problems, no headaches for 25 years and see only a chiropractor. Since then, I've never taken a prescription drug except once an antibiotic and have not had so much as a cold in over 5 years. I was a weak, sickly kid. People who weren't weak, sickly kids would be easy to fix.
Regarding teeth, I have no idea what's wrong with your teeth but there are at least 2 things that help teeth. Have you checked out xylitol gum and toothpaste (don't use it for food prep) or vitamin d? You can be home tested for vitamin d at
vitamindcouncil.org for $65. The going lab rate is around $200. If you go to that site I think you will enjoy the biography of the site director, Dr. Cannell.
So glad there are a few here who "get it" about the medical monopoly. I seem to be on a mission to try to increase that number.
" The lack of universal health care is a mass killer in this country ". Hey! Pistol packin mama from Alaska, why are you worried about death panels when the U.S. healthcare system has had them for many years-----they are called: INSURANCE COMPANIES!
And there still won't be Universal health care regardless what happens now. If the Democrats are sucessful in their betrayal of the American people, then the Ins. Co.'s and Hospitals, the medical providers and drug companies become richer and you get overall care that is less for everyone.
If they fail as they should, we get less in any case.
The snake oil salesman has already left town.
Medicare For All, also known as single-payer health insurance, is favored by a majority of Americans.
How can we convince our Members of Congress to enact what the people want?
Let them know that unless they support Medicare For All, you won't support them.
Take the Medicare For All Pledge today:
http://bit.ly/medicareforallpledge
greenferret writes:
"How can we convince our Members of Congress to enact what the people want?"
--> Send 'em some severed ears, maybe, and enclose a note that says "Lissen here"?
Wait: the surveillance state being what it is, it's probably better -- even though the severed-ear trick comes straight from network teevee -- to amend that: send 'em PICTURES of severed ears.
Among the unforgiveable baloney out of DC is the claim that Medicaid "savings" -- while a zillion poor people are to be mandated into Medicaid at the very same time! -- will somehow save a lot of medical money.
Is anybody who hasn't BEEN on Medicaid -- politicians, the well-employed, the blasted teevee commentators, rich liberals, seem to be under the serious misapprehension that Medicaid is akin to Single Payer -- aware of what a murderous mess it is for anybody who tries to use it to get actual medical care?
People should study up on Medicaid, funder of pill-mill "community clinics" run by impenetrable non-profits -- no second opinions, years-long waits for referrals, posthumous Estate Benefits Recovery Act claims (for charges which are hidden during the recipient's lifetime, and cannot be repaid DURING his/her lifetime) after the recipient's died of having his/her heart disease, cancer, or whatever "treated", most likely, with pain pills and/or psycho-meds.
Medicaid, especially for people between 55 and 65 (psst: a medically-challenging time for many WOMEN, in particular) IS exactly the "Death Panel" the uber-liberals in DC assure the citizenry doesn't exist.
In the meantime, some pols at least are asking questions around the edges:
States Resist Medicaid Growth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/04/AR2009100403185.html?hpid=topnews
Who is so stupid as not to see the obvious? Life is worthless; profits are priceless.
The SYSTEM USA is a mass killer, eating even its own children.
Uninsured people have a 140% chance of dying?
"The Harvard Medical School researchers found that an uninsured person’s risk of death is 40 percent higher than his or her privately insured counterpart."
Smiles all!
History clearly shows that you cannot deprive a ruling group of any part of its property without a bloody fight. Consider: slaveowners in the antebellum South held property in human beings: they chose to secede and fight a vicious war rather than allow the government to "regulate" their use of their slaves. The slaveowners wanted to go West with their property and they feared that the Republican Party wasn't going to allow this. The slaveowners decided to "get government off their backs" by declaring a confederacy. They preferred that thousands die rather than give up the principle of using their property as they saw fit....
Fast forward to today. Insurance companies will do anything to hold onto their property--that is, their right to make profits off private plans. They don't feel any responsibility for the uninsured: if profits can't be made from covering the uninsured then they are someone else's concern. Even if the uninsured die of preventible diseases, insurance companies don't care--they are only loyal to the botttom line. And like the slaveowners they intend to defend their interests.They will do everything they can to make sure that "health reform" is no real reform. Alas, Obama is their servant: he does not have it in him to deprive the insurance companies of their property. And so the carnage of needless death is sure to continue...
..A very sobering article. Thanks for it, Dr. Richter.
For some great while now, the argument, debate, screaming and shouting, intelligently- and compassionately-reasoned pleas and articles and demands, along with the barking insane, brain-dead, puerile displays of ignorance and sheer horseshit have all raged and swirled round this subject.
Dr. Richter is absolutely right in proclaiming that lack of universal health care is a mass killer, and that it is high time the U.S. join the rest of the industrialized world and establish universal health care.
But alas, this is the least enlightened country on earth, too full of ignorant, selfish lunatics who seem in many cases to regard as an affront to what they think is 'American' and the peculiarly American brand of masculinized culture (i.e. the psychopathic focus upon, embrace and love of, and hollow macho insistence upon outrageous hyper-militarization) the idea that the U.S. alter its headlong race to oblivion and CREATE A NEW NATIONAL PARADIGM THAT HOLDS PEOPLE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY. It just drives them insane with hatred, apparently, this idea that the country DO THE RIGHT GODDAMN THING AND SOCIALIZE MEDICINE AND HEALTH CARE.
Changing the paradigm will take, possibly, generations. And it will not be changed without doing something about the food and nutrition problem, agribusiness, etc., or without changing the paradigm of a national identity inextricably linked to an androcratic, male-supremacist culture of constant war, violence, glorification of weapons and brute force.
All of these things and more are part of the same problem, and this country will go down in flames unless it all changes, and unless the people rise up (assuming enough properly educated ones can be found) and march in the millions on Washington and hold the entire place ransom until universal health care is a reality. If enough people would mobilize to SPEND NOTHING for a week, they could bring Washington to its scabby knees. If one million people refuse to allow their children to enter the military, you probably would not have to burn anything down to effect change.
What is truly nauseating is the degree of fictional garbage people in America throw around about the nature of the 'greatness' of their country and the 'founding fathers' and 'power of pride' emblazoned across Stars and Stripes on bumper stickers, and this goddamn 'support our troops'mind-control shit, and all this patriotism and jingoism, which collectively become bullshit in the face of the wholesale betrayal of the common people by the elites, CEOs, puppet politicians, worship of money and cowardice in the face of the phamaceutical and insurance companies.
If the American people think their country is so great, and it was so great when they threw out the British and went their own way, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM NOW??? I mean, aside from their moral cowardice and their defeatism, and their mind-contolled state vis-a-vis capitalism and democracy?
The military, police forces, fire departments, most public libraries and Christ only knows what else aside from Medicare and Medicaid, are socialized. Apparently a majority of the population is A-OK with this goddamn hideously well-financed military bullshit. Until these people get their thick heads out of their grotesquely American arses and FORCE the down-sizing of the military and its theft of the wealth and the commonwealth, which requires them to give up their cherished delusions about what things like America and manhood are all about, the country is fucking doomed.
You want to start to fix this? DO NOT PAY INSURANCE PREMIUMS AND REFUSE, EN MASSE, TO GO TO WAR. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and get used to the idea that you're finished as a viable country.
I fear, Dr., Richter, that we've only seen the tip of the iceberg of corpses as people continue to worship a country and system that not only has failed and is rotting from the inside, but likely never existed in the first place.
The United States is a catastrophe, and unless the people rise up and do something about it, they are all going down with it. The universe is not going to tolerate much more shit out of this place called 'America'.
I quote a recent comment:
>>>America: The Grim Truth
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed.
All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.
If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.<<<
What a sad sad state...
Dealing with insurance companies, whose main objective is to make money by denying claims, is a major source of stress for policyholders, as well as doctors. Stress in turn is a major contributor to heart disease. ----How many more dead are not being counted? ---What additional costs in terms of money and misery have there been due to this unnecessary stress?
The 45,000 dead per year due to lack of coverage is a national disgrace but the final bill should put a serious dent in that abomination. Good! However, the additional dead due to the stress from being jerked around while we are sick and toyed with when we are recovering will continue unless a public plan is in place that is not based on profits. There is no escape from that reality except to the graveyard. As it looks now, this spineless, bought and paid for Congress will be leading some of us there!
The lack of universal health care is a mass killer in this country.
Every year our Corporate terrorists kill more Americans than Osama and the GOP could dream of.
2740 Americans died on 9/11.
45,000 Americans die every year because of a lack of insurance, meaning the insurance industry 16 times better at killing Americans that al Qaeda.
The real "death panels" are the boardrooms of Aetna, Humana, and Cigna.
45000 die because we have the most ruthless civilization since the age of enlightenment. Al Qaeda is a straw identity.
“Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
Members of Congress clearly represent corporate interests' over the interests' of the American People, whom they are elected to represent.
Why should our tax dollars pay their salaries?
Why are the American People mandated to subsidize these useless, obstructionist Members of Congress?
Why should Members of Congress enjoy the best socialized health care OUR MONEY can buy, but we cannot?
And why should Members of Congress be allowed to receive massive amounts of money from lobbyists in exchange for favorable legislation, while betraying the best interests' of the American people?
Why then shouldn't corporations be mandated to pay for congressional salaries, health care, travel, security and all other expenses since it's the corporate interests', not the American Peoples' interests', that are being represented by Congress?
"Why are the American People mandated to subsidize these useless, obstructionist Members of Congress?"
USans go along with elite crimes because they are classically conditioned through the elite media to salivate when they hear the greed bell. When it's time to vote new elites into public service, they're dripping saliva all over the ballot while they check the name of one of two competing elite candidates.
It started in 1776 with a Capitalist dictatorship called the U.S. Republic, where only those with wealth could vote or run for office. Then every step of the way the rich kept control of power by many things, like those most wealthy in unpopulated states having greater voting power in Congress, elections funded mainly by the rich, and a Democrate party created as a smoke screen to hide their make believe government.
Election Campaign Reform being the only solution, and our capitalist politicians never going to do it, I guess Revolution is a must if we ever want freedom.
Sioux Rose
GREYDOG: Ain't that the truth! Good post!
MEDICINE NEVER REGULATED
A medical industry that has never been regulated since day-one, operated in total secrecy since before the Civil War even, and the result double the cost for us and double excessive wealth for the filthy greedy rich.
Surely all Obama had to go was kick in some regulation starting last January and all reform would have been easy and quick. What is really going on?
Make these phone calls and spread the word by email to your friends.
Boycott Tyson Foods of Arkansas who gave Mike Ross D-Arkansas
$37,000 for his campaigns. Call lobbyist for Tyson Foods Chuck
Penry 202 393 3921 and tell him politely that you refuse to
buy Tyson chicken until Mike Ross D-Arkansas the leader of the
Blue Dogs on health care gets the entire house and senate
conservative Democrats to help get HR 676 enacted into law.
Tell others to call. Send me email after you call to
info@democratz.org
Boycott American Express who gave Max Baucus $50,000 for his
campaigns. Call Joanna Lambert at 212 640 9668 and politely
tell her you will not use any American Express cards until
Max Baucus gets HR 676 enacted into law. Email me after you call.
Call GOP contributor Rite Aid Pharmacies at 800 325 3737 and
tell the person to get the CEO to get congress to enact HR 676
Single payer health care and enact a new Medicare Prescription
drug benefit in Medicare Part B covering 80% of the cost of
drugs with no extra premiums, no extra deductibles, no means
tests, no coverage gaps, and remove the means test for Medicare
Part B and until that happens, you won't buy ANYTHING from
Rite Aid Pharmacies.
In 2008 Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniels Whiskey and
Southern Comfort gave Mitch McConnell money for his campaigns.
CALL Brown-Forman AT 502-585-1100 and tell the person who
answers to get the CEO to GET Mitch McConnell to execute no
Republican filibusters and enact the Employee free choice act
into law or you don't buy Jack Daniel's whiskey and Southern
Comfort anymore!
Call GOP contributor Wendy's restaurants at 800 443 7266 and
tell the person who answers that you want their CEO to get
congress to enact a $10/HR MIN. WAGE into law and until this
happens you will not go to a Wendy's Restaurant.
Call GOP contributor and war contractor General Electric
Corporation at 800 386 1215 or 203 373 2211 and tell the
person who answers, to tell the GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt that
you want him to get the President to end the war in Iraq
and Afghanistan and until that happens you will not buy
any GE products and that you will tell your friends about this.
I have read many of the comments and I am intrigued by the idea that the government would be the most qualified to handle the health care situation (crisis?) I mean they have done so well at handling the elderly with Social Security and Medicare. I think how the government handling of infrastructure has been beyond compare, and obviously the results of the government swooping in to solve the problems in hurricane ravaged areas solved those problems. Aside from the fact that the government’s job is to protect the USA from aggressors and threats both foreign and domestic, the expense of doing so is shall I say taxing? So why would we give the kid that has yet to score a point the ball? Is there a problem with health care? Yes. Asking the thief to guard the gold just because he’s the only one with a gun….Nuts!! Slow down everyone if we get this wrong, we will not have the opportunity to get it right, look at social security.