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TechnoratiWhy Isn’t 122 Dead Americans Every Day a National Health Emergency?
Why does H1N1 call for a Presidential designation as a national emergency while the preventable deaths of 45,000 Americans every year (122 every day) is not?
Swine flu leads the news. You can die from swine flu, or should we say H1N1, even if you have no underlying health conditions. Young people have died, and pregnant women are at risk. People are lining up to be vaccinated. Health professionals are at risk due to poor preparations at some health facilities. As many as 1,000 deaths have occurred due to this flu outbreak. It's scary out there.
But the swine flu is no match for the killing going on at the hands of the for-profit healthcare system in these United States. We bury kids, pregnant moms, babies, teens, young fathers, mid-lifers and older folks too without even batting an eye in the chambers of power in this nation.
Some have termed it the spine flu as they say it is the failure of our leadership to stand up to the money interests promoting and protecting this system. But it is worse than simply failing to stand up to the for-profit insurance industry, the big pharmaceutical companies, the large hospital conglomerates, the medical equipment profiteers and the financial service industry salivating at the prospects of more suffering and more want for healthcare in this nation.
There is no lack of spinal fortitude in this lot of legislators or in the Oval Office. They stand up to the American people just fine. We voted for a man who told us he knows healthcare is a basic human right yet we have a President who is not willing to issue a cease fire in this profit-driven healthcare war upon his own citizens. We swept in with him large numbers of Congressional members who said they got it -- they would stop the carnage at the hands of the broken system.
But we are told to wait. It's hard -- they say -- to get their bipartisan reform done. Blue Dogs might be upset. The Republicans want to protect the free market of death-care, and the Democrats want to stay in office. So they all stand up all right, they stand up for their own self-interests and the death count rises ever higher each day.
Yet, they dribble and dawdle and bumble and act as though it's just too damned difficult to immediately stop the losses. Extend Medicare like coverage to all, right now, and then haggle about the details later boys and girls.
Issue an executive order, President Obama. Declare a national emergency. No one else denied care when it is available. Save the lives of as many as you can right now. It could be that simple. Really.
It is a national health emergency in this nation when pregnant 24-year-olds like Jenny Fritts of Indiana are turned away for appropriate care because she doesn't have a way to pay for it and she dies along with her baby. It is a national emergency when teenagers like Nataline Sarkisyan are denied lifesaving treatments until protests grow loud enough to pressure the insurance industry and she dies due to that delay and the need to protest.
So, if the hospital that killed Jenny Fritts had treated her (and her unborn child) and was then worried about the money to cover her care, is that something we can fix? That's an issue we have time to haggle over. But the time to save Jenny came and went. We allowed her to be killed. And because we all know these deaths are happening every single day in every single state in this nation, we are all to be held to account.
The media doesn't help either. They are leading the news with the swine flu fears but completely ignoring the kids and moms and dads and neighbors dying underfoot for a lack of healthcare of any kind when they need it. Shameful excuse for journalism in most cases, I'm afraid.
A public health emergency is defined as "an occurrence or imminent threat of an illness or health condition, caused by bioterrism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or novel and highly fatal infectious agent or biological toxin, that poses a substantial risk of a significant number of human fatalities or incidents of permanent or long-term disability. Such illness or health condition includes, but is not limited to, an illness or health condition resulting from a national disaster."
What do we not understand about the appropriate role of our elected and democratic government to protect us from such a threat killing 122 of us every day? As far as I am concerned, the whole lot of them is not fulfilling their legal duties to me or to the rest of the citizens of this nation. They are failing in the most fundamental way to protect for the common welfare and common good of this nation.
Declare the emergency, Mr. President. Back him up, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid. Treat the sick. There is time to fight the payment battle. Healthcare is a basic human right in America.
90 Comments so far
Show AllJust this morning when I came into the office a friend of ours described the fatal illnesses of two of her close relatives, both in their 40's. One was a woman suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, who evidently hadn't been getting treatment for those conditions. Another was a man bitten by a brown recluse spider.
I live in rural South Texas. While I can't be sure lack of care due to insufficient funds takes all the blame, such losses are a BIG DEAL. Swine flu, in contrast, is a minor irritant.
WHY ISN'T 122 DEAD AMERICANS EVERY DAY NOT A NATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY? Simply a no- brainer answer; because they are mostly the poor and middle class people that cannot afford health care that are dying! I can guarantee you that if that many wealthy people could not get health care and were dying every day...IT WOULD BE A NATIONAL EMERGENCY!
Sorry- off topic- but it concerns your health:
This comment is from a British citizen:
MOBILE USE IS LINKED TO BRAIN TUMOURS
26.10.09, 8:02pm
I was involved with design of safety features used to protect users of CRT monitors from electrical/magnetic radiation fields. The standard for CRT monitors aws called TCO'92 and was strongly enforced. So I have some experience in this field.
Now to the cell phones: There is standard called TCO'01 (means from year of2001) that calls for limit of SAR (Specific Absorption Rate per unit of brain tissue) of 0.8 W/Kg (watts per Kg of brain tissue)
EU decided to use limit of 2.0 W/Kg! This limit originated in 1997/99; US limit is 1.6 W/Kg!
In 2007, there was TCO'07 released for Head Sets. The maximum limit is 0.04 W/Kg!
Therefore we have here "old" standard from 1997 which allows the Cell Phone manufacturers to make units that will "bombard" user's brain with 50 times more radiation energy than Headphone wearer will get in the same time period.
Some examples:
the best one, Motorola MPx200 will deliver max. of 0.2 W/Kg ("only" 5 times more than the "baddest" headphone).
Motorola V120C will hit you with 1.55 W/Kg
In Europe, Sony Ericson T650 will give you up to 1.80 W/Kg
go to: sarvalues.com for more info
End of comment.
So the bottom line is this:
CELL PHONES - limit of SAR (Specific Absorption Rate per unit of brain tissue) of 0.8 W/Kg (watts per Kg of brain tissue).
HEADSET CELL PHONES - The maximum limit is 0.04 W/Kg.
Check your cell phone's output. Three types of brain cancer and a salivary gland cancer are all associated with a decade long study undertaken by the WHO (world health organization) in about 13,000 people in different countries.
As a former air traffic controller, I know something about head sets. However, the ones we wore were plugged into a jack by the radar screen. This allowed us to transmit with a foot pedal or press a button on our waist unit. the head set didn't have any transmitting hardware so it was safe. It was made by Plantronics. At any rate, what you want in a head set cell phone is one where the transmitter is at least three feet away from you. I know those long wires aren't pretty but they might save you from brain cancer. As to a regular cell phone, unless you can plug a head set into it and keep it at least three feet away, THROW IT OUT!
This IS off-topic.
There are plenty of news items on this where you could have posted this.
All you've done here is to clutter and derail a productive discussion.
Why don't you do us a favor and delete this.
Vanmungo,
You are one sorry excuse for a human being. Your craven desire for recognition has been noticed. Donna is going game the fuck out of you. You really don't get it, do you? Donna is a politician. Look it up and stop running off at the mouth so much. It's cluttering up this forum.
I am not a politician. Not enough money or good enough connections or strong enough support to ever hold office as the system stands now.
I do believe that we will need to see more dead and suffering at the hands of this broken healthcare system before we make significant change. The profit motivation still trumps all at this point.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Vanmungo,
Please help me and the others who may still be reading this comment thread to know what you see as the path to single-payer given where we are right now.
Next steps? What should single-payer advocates do, in your opinion?
Your knowledge and perspective may be helpful to many. Thanks much.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Donna--
I'm disappointed. You requested my constructive input--presumably in good faith-- and I painstakingly provided it, also in good faith.
Yet you have not replied or acknowledged my response.
I hope you will have a chance to read my original respond, just below, and offer your opinion.
Van
Saw your response and the call to action you shared... was also waiting to see how many people might weigh in on the plan. But this message board may not provide the best place for that. I think all the groups mentioned might have opinions and plans as well. Again, I can only speak for myself and many folks in this movement think the time for marching has come and gone. Others think the current reform cycle will have to play itself out before next steps will be heard.
What I would like to see happen in the movement is not likely. Not enough people suffering enough yet. Not enough people who can step out of themselves long enough to work for one another -- yet. Selfishness and greed is not isolated to one political party, one industry, one movement or one organization. And until more people care enough we will not see single-payer adopted.
The tide is turning. But the wave that will crash through this mess is still a long way out to sea.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Donna--
Thank you for your comments.
You say that some people feel that the time for marching is over. But the marching has not even begun yet! The major groups involved in single payer have NEVER cooperated to stage a single, potent, large march on Washington. Properly planned and executed, such a massive march could give the single-payer movement the same kind of unifying force and impetus that the march in Washington did for the Civil Rights movement in 1963, that the various massive marches on Washington did for the movement against the Vietnam War did in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It worked for those movements, it can work for single payer--but, let's be clear--it hasn't been tried yet by the single payer leadership!
As was the case with the civil rights and antiwar movements, a massive march on Washington can transform the single-payer movement from a series of scattered, ad hoc, and therefore impotent initiatives into a potent national movement.
For the past year the energies of the single-payer movement have been scattered in an ad hoc, uncoordinated series of initiatives--Clark Newhall urges faxing and e-mails, Russell Mokhiber films himself stalking members of Congress, Mad as Hell doctors traipse around the country, this or that group amateurishly calls for a demonstration two weeks in advance and it predictably fizzles, another group urges support for half-measures like Kucinich's long march through the states, etc., etc. There is no national coordination, focus, and unity--just a series small pop-gun shots that go unheard rather than a single, potent cannon blast that a national march on Washington could provide.
It is a galvanizing tactic lying there waiting to be tried. All that has to happen is for the leaders of the single-payer movement to wean themselves from their dependence on the Democratic Party, to begin to think and act INDEPENDENTLY, and to make it happen.
We don't have to wait for events to make it happen for us. This kind of passivity will guarantee defeat. We can MAKE it happen. The objective conditions are already there. Some 45,000 people per year are already dying. Hundreds of thousands are being bankrupted by medical bills. The private insurers are bleeding the economy white. Both parties are dancing to the tune of the private insurers and Big Pharma. If ever the time were ripe for an independent mass action, it is NOW.
Forgive me for being cynical, but I suspect that the main brake on undertaking this strategy is the preponderance of Democratic Party influence in the single-payer movement. Far too much time has been wasted seeking the election of mainstream Democrats who have betrayed single payer--or Obama, who expressly vowed to crush it during his campaign! These forces have been largely sitting around winking and nodding and hoping to sweet-talk bought-off Democrats into doing the right thing. You can see what this orientation has gotten us: absolutely nothing.
I'm sure these Democratic Party loyalists are disinclined to march on Washington for fear of giving offense to the Democratic Party establishment. It's time to shed that fear of, and dispel those illusions about, the Democrats. Those fears and illusions have crippled the single-payer movement.
A massive march on Washington for Medicare for All is the way forward. I hope that you will press for it within the CNA and PDA and in the movement in general.
Van
It's none of my business but I might suggest you not have preconcieved notions about the ability for people to responnd to your posts in what *you* deem a timely manner. See you in 24 or so.
-
Donna--
I'm SO glad you asked this question. I'm delighted to have a chance to address it directly.
Right much of the activism of the single-payer movement seems splintered and thus somewhat dissipated. There needs to be a single, galvanizing, national event that can provide focus, unity, coherency, visibility, and impetus to the national movement for single payer, which has the potential to be one of the great populist protest movements of our time if properly harnessed and focused.
As you well know, whatever bill emerges from Congress as this point will be woefully inadequate, probably even a step backward. It will be more urgent than ever to mobilize mass action for single-payer Medicare for all.
I was involved in organizing some of the huge national antiwar demonstrations of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I have a good deal of experience in planning and pushing those kinds of public events; I strongly feel that the diverse and scattered single-payer forces need a national rallying focus in the form of just such a massive outpouring in Washington D.C. (with perhaps an echoing event the same day in San Francisco for those who can't travel to the East Coast) for some time in the spring--mid-April to early May would be ideal in several respects: there's plenty of time to build it, the weather will be mild enough to attract a large turnout (people tend not to want to march in the cold of winter), students are not yet preoccupied with finals (so campus organizing and outreach could work full throttle), etc.
If the movement as a whole had a national focus like this, it could serve as a catalyst, unifying and energizing the national movement and supercharging education and outreach--all of it building toward that one massive outpouring.
So--I think it's time to muster a national mass demonstration: no doubt. But it must be painstakingly planned WELL IN ADVANCE. You can't just toss a date out for a month or two from now and expect anything of significance to happen.
My experience in building demonstrations for the antiwar movement--some of which exceeded 500,000 people--leads me to recommend the following basic steps:
1. Picking a date:
To maximize turnout, you need to consider the following:
(a) It has to be a Saturday--otherwise you get killed on turnout because people have to work during the week; Sunday isn't a good idea because people need enough time to get back to work the next morning.
(b) It should be scheduled for about mid-April to early May: that ensures a mild enough climate to attract the maximum number of people, and it also enables you to tap the peak potential of student activism: you have enough time to build the action on campuses, and students are not yet preoccupied with thoughts of the holidays or finals.
2. Forging a broad coalition:
For a massive undertaking such as this--and we have to aim to make it as massive as possible--the best strategy is not go-it-alone, but forging a united front with as many groups as possible: the Mokhiber/Nader Single Payer Action, Healthcare-Now, CNA, PDA, etc., etc.--all of the groups of Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care and beyond: patients groups, doctors, unions, nurses, etc., etc.. This is the only way you're going to muster sufficient manpower, money, and publicity. You and the CNA seem ideally situated to initiate talks to forge such a coalition.
The member groups need only agree on a few basic principles:
one giant demonstration in Washington (and perhaps SF as well, for the same day) for a Saturday around mid-to-late April; a clearly formulated and easily propagated demand, such as "Medicare for All!" or "No Fake Reform--Medicare for All!" (most Americans, alas, don't know the meaning of the term "single-payer," so "Medicare for All" might be a better tool for organizing/educating); and the creation of a steering committee composed of leaders of the member groups, but with an open structure designed to attract new participants--both individuals and groups (unions, etc.).
This is also key: there has to be a firm determination to keep the demand simple and focused on Medicare for all: some people will want to start injecting slogans on global warming, union rights, rights for Palestinians, getting out of Afghanistan, etc. As worthy as some of these issues might be, you can't address all the world's problems in a single demonstration: you would need to attract and unite EVERYONE who agrees on "Medicare for all" despite possible differences on other issues--that's the reason NOT to raise those other issues, which could splinter the coalition.
3. Keep it peaceful and legal:
If you want tens of thousands of people on the street, you need a permit and the clear organizing principle of a peaceful, legal demonstration. Many people who would be willing to march for single payer would not be willing to risk arrest for a felony. It might be useful to consider direct action or civil disobedience, but such an action should be organized separately--ideally, on the following day, as a separate activity, organized by a separate entity. If the civil disobedience and arrests take place before the mass demonstration, it will scare potential participants away.
4. Speakers list: inclusive, nonsectarian
Don't get into needless squabbles about the speakers' list: it should be easy enough to muster an impressive roster. Any national politicians from either party who can be recruited as endorsers/speakers will enhance turnout and press coverage: Kucinich, Conyers, Sanders, etc. But also physicians, nurses, patients, independent activists, TV and movie stars, etc.
These are my initial thoughts. I would be interested in working with you on this if you want to pursue this idea.
My e-mail address is vanmungo@yahoo.com
Van
A giant March on Washington is a good classic idea. I worked on many around Vietnam and Civil Rights. It can be successful only if there is grass roots support everywhere, which I think we may have. It requires building a new level of cooperation and maturity by groups and individuals. It takes a strong and tactful leadership keep the effort on track and come up with one or more central demands. It takes months to pull the support together, to do the organization, make the calls, get the commitments, to raise the funds, get the busses etc., thus you propose it for the spring.
Medicare for All is the most powerful and cogent concept. I believe we should raise it continually and let the weasels do their own work in trying to take bites out of it. It makes such good sense. The only attack capable of winning the popular mind is the cost, which gives us the chance to raise the savings gained by national health, the savings possible by ending wars and the revenue recovery possible by re-instating a fair tax level on the super wealthy.
At the same time I think it would be a mistake to desist from trying to influence the Congressional vote which is coming up very soon? A barrage of smaller actions, like calls, emails, visits and pickets at Congressional offices is needed. I believe that NOT organizing the population to push legislators to a decent health care proposal would be a mistake, an unintended capitulation.
I support the immediate next steps in the struggle which I see as the amendments by Sanders and Weiner to change the actual proposed bills from a mandated ripoff by the insurance companies into something that will undermine their extortionist stranglehold. Without those amendments, these bills are oppressive to working people, forcing them to pay large sums of protection money to the insurance companies on pain of fines and other punishment. Barbaric.
Activity for a public option has already pushed a hopeless situation to one in which legislators cannot hide out and snuggle up with their money from the health care industry. They are being outed. They have had to face the voting public's awareness and offer them something. The activities have been building, with sit-ins, sing-ins, all kinds of creative actions, which to me is a sign of a fresh and growing resistance, some of it coming from new places.
I would intensify efforts to educate the public about the content of these amendments and to build support while educating about the feasibility and need for Medicare for all. This issue is not going away.
I do not think it is hypocrisy to have a complicated view of what is necessary and to reveal it openly to others.
Joe
Joe--
Thanks for your comments.
I do not think focusing on a large national march and doing calls, e-mails, etc., are mutually exclusive. I think that they are complementary--the march can provide a an energizing focus to lend impetus and greater effectiveness to the calls and e-mails.
Donna says that some people feel that the time for marching is over. But the marching has not even begun yet! The major groups involved in single payer have NEVER cooperated to stage a single, potent, large march on Washington.
The movement cries out for such an action, just as the civil rights movement did, just as the movement against the Vietnam war did. It can turn the single-payer movement from a series of scattered, ad hoc, and therefore impotent initiatives into a potent national movement.
It is a galvanizing tactic lying there waiting to be tried. All that has to happen is for the leaders of the single-payer movement to wean themselves from their dependence on the Democratic Party, to begin to think and act INDEPENDENTLY, and to make it happen.
If you agree, Joe, we should both begin calling and e-mailing the leaders of all the major single-payer groups to urge them to plan such a march for the spring.
Van
1. Where did the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistic come from? I've seen data that casts a large shadow on this number. Not just that it is too large, that there is no scientific support for this or any other number.
2. genierae - Healthcare has been a for-profit endeavor for centuries. People provide services for pay. That's a profit.
3. Kitty Lady Oregon - "Republican Death Policies" are really the result of an employer-based insurance system that began during WWII, and has been modified, strangled, regulated, perverted, contorted, and generally messed with by BOTH parties (and the odd socialist) for 60 years.
4. Bob the Health... - Your 101,000 deaths due to preventable diseases comes to just about 4.2% of deaths annually in the USA. I couldn't get the details because the site is apparently down. Preventable disease almost always includes diseases due to smoking and obesity and since the American Cancer Society attributes 160,000 deaths a year to smoking-associated cancers alone, the numbers just don't add up. Also, 178,000 die from medical or hospital error each year. One could argue that medical treatment kills more than lack of treatment each year. Specious, of course, but real.
5. The Mad Loon - The money to be made by denying coverage is due to the contrived monopoly nature of insurance. With more consumer choice and mobility (the ability to chose plans based on consumer desires rather than employer expenses), the money-making motive would shift to providing low-cost, high-value services in order to compete for consumer dollars.
6. HR676 is not the panacea for health care. It does not address issues of mis-aligned provider and demand ratios, lack of medical services at all in many rural areas, state-run anti-competitive "Certificate of Need" laws, and many other issues constricting the medical services in this country. Paying the bill is only half of the equation. You must get the services provided in the first place.
"1. Where did the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistic come from? I've seen data that casts a large shadow on this number. Not just that it is too large, that there is no scientific support for this or any other number."
You are correct, the study is bogus. They simply noted whether or not the individuals in the sample had insurance at the beginning of the study, and correlated that with death where it occured. No where did they track whether or not thay had insurance later, and they didn't even note the *actual cause* of death in any of the cases. Correlation is not causation.
The study is sound.
It was published in one of the leading peer-reviewed public-health journals in the world.
These claims of methodological flaws are invented out of whole cloth--they have no merit.
Anyone can read the study for him/herself and see that the study is sound:
http://pnhp.org/excessdeaths/health-insurance-and-mortality-in-US-adults.pdf
"The study is sound."
Sez who?
"It was published in one of the leading peer-reviewed public-health journals in the world."
So what?
"These claims of methodological flaws are invented out of whole cloth--they have no merit."
Is this your way of trying to hide from the *very specific* problems I pointed out earlier? Please, try and focus: There are ommisions that I alluded to, namely that there were no specific causes of deaths noted, and that there were no notations of insured status other than at the initiation of the study. I'll wait.
Your critique is just parroted boilerplate from right-wing Web sites that recycle these same talking points for windup-doll right-wingers such as yourself.
For a balanced, serious discussion of the methodology that went into this study and similar one, and an evaluation of the results, see the following analysis from factcheck.org, which pretty much credits the results of the study:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/dying-from-lack-of-insurance/
*sigh*
Please review "ad hominem". The wiki article is fine. Also check the Nizkor project site. Good luck, I'll try to get back in 24 hours.
You haven't read these studies--you're just parroting right-wing boilerplate critiques that any chimp can find in a two-second google search. I doubt that you've even read the studies.
Instead of sighing, why don't you read the serious evaluation of the Harvard Study from factcheck.org.
I doubt that you'll bother--you have your ideological fixations--they're so petrified as this point as to be immune from facts:
You have not seriously grappled with these studies--I doubt you have even read them.
You do not even think for yourself. Your critique is just parroted boilerplate from right-wing Web sites that recycle these same talking points for windup-doll right-wingers such as yourself.
For a balanced, serious discussion of the methodology that went into this study and similar ones, and an evaluation of the results, see the following analysis from factcheck.org, which pretty much credits the results of the study:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/dying-from-lack-of-insurance/
The fact check article does not address the problem with the study not noting the actual cause of death, and the insured status *after* the initial evaluation of the subjects into the study. Like I already said.
You aren't going to ignore this point for like a fourth or fifth time here, are you? :-) Over and over you ignore and repeat your mistakes. Focus. I am trying to help you here dude.
The fact-check article does address this point--you evidently have not read it.
Here's a more fundamental point, which you evade time after time:
Your amateur personal opnions and rote recitations of right-wing Web boilerplate are worthless--like having an Ipod set to endless repeat. There's no more thought involved in your posts than that.
Have you ever seen a serious scholarly study that refutes the results of the WHO study? A study that shows that the U.S. health-care system is NOT the worst in the industrialized world?
I have never seen a peer-reviewed critique of the WHO study that seriously challenges its conclusions.
Your presonal reservations about the methodology--or those you have gleaned from right-wing Web sites that any chimp can access--are not based on serious scholarly evaluation.
You ask why we should accept the results of an exhaustive study by the leading public-health scholars in the world, yet you ask us to take your rote talking points seriously--you, who have no scholarly credentials whatsoever.
So here's the deal: I repeat--if you can produce a peer-reviewed study that challenges the results of the WHO study or the Harvard study, I will read and consider them.
I don't think that I or anyone else out here should waste anymore time with fringe boilerplate gleaned from far-right Web sites whose conclusions have not been scrutinized or evaluated by scholarly peer-reviewed panels.
Let's see some PEER-REVIEWED critique. If you have none, then you have none.
Put up or shut up.
"The fact-check article does address this point--you evidently have not read it."
You refuse to make any specific citation, as is *your* burden.
"You ask why we should accept the results of an exhaustive study by the leading public-health scholars in the world,"
I revealed problems with the study that you continue to ignore.
*if you can produce a peer-reviewed study that challenges the results of the WHO study or the Harvard study, I will read and consider them."
Unneeded, as long as the previously mentioned problems that I mentioned stand, since you have ignored the specifics.
Study up on Critical Thinking dude. The basic Logical Fallacies are a good start. Try the Nizkor Project or Wikipedia. Please. It will change your life, and you will thank me one day. Good night.
Here's the crank right-wing Web site from which you plagiarized your "critical thinking":
http://radioviceonline.com/fact-check-45000-die-because-they-lack-insurance-not-so-muc/
You offer no critical thinking--only regurgitated talking points that you have copied from right-wing crank Web sites.
Produce even one peer-reviewed study that challenges the conclusions of the WHO study or the Harvard study.
Just one.
Show that your reading extends beyond crank Web conservative propaganda.
Put up or shut up.
Your criticisms are fictional.
There are no such methodological flaws in the essay.
I doubt that you are professionally qualified to comment on its methodologies.
The study was deemed sound by the professional experts at a peer-reviewed journal.
Do you seriously doubt that, in a country in which 50 million people lack health insurance, that tens of thousands of people get sick and die because they postpone or avoid necessary but costly medical treatments?
Is that your point?
You seem to cling to a dogmatic, empirically absurd belief that the United States has the best health system in the world, despite the existence of a vast scholarly literature that finds that it is the worst in the industrialized world by a host of criteria.
You have yet to cite a single creditable study that refutes the findings of the WHO study or the Harvard study--or a single creditable, nonideological source that deems the fragmented, overpriced, chaotic, gap-ridden U.S. health-care system to be the best in the world.
It's easy to carp pedantically about imperfections--real or imagined--in the methodology of serious, painstaking scholarly studies.
For someone of your ideological bent, it's much harder to produce countering studies of your own--because there are none.
*There are no such methodological flaws in the essay.*
For your review:
They simply noted whether or not the individuals in the sample had insurance at the beginning of the study, and correlated that with death where it occurred. No where did they track whether or not they had insurance later, and they didn't even note the *actual cause* of death in any of the cases. Correlation is not causation.
"I doubt that you are professionally qualified to comment on its methodologies."
I don't have to be, I simply have to understand Critical Thinking and basic logic.
"The study was deemed sound by the professional experts at a peer-reviewed journal."
You seem to have a complete misunderstanding of what "peer review" actually means. Please review. Try the wikipedia article.
"Do you seriously doubt that, in a country in which 50 million people lack health insurance, that tens of thousands of people get sick and die because they postpone or avoid necessary but costly medical treatments?"
Without sufficient reason to believe it true, yes. That is always the correct default position. They taught you that in college.
"You seem to cling to a dogmatic, empirically absurd belief that the United States has the best health system in the world,"
Since I never said anything like that, there is no reason for you to think so. I think there are various problems with healthcare in the US, but that has nothing to do with our discussion so far. Stay focused on what is before you
"You have yet to cite a single creditable study that refutes the findings of the WHO study or the Harvard study"
No need. The onus is on those who make a claim to prove it, not for me to refute it.
"For someone of your ideological bent,"
Do not be distracted by what is not essential to our discussion. I will try to get back to you in 24 hours or so. Thank you.
You have all the critical-thinking skills of a CD player set on endless repeat. Mercifully, at some point we hope that your battery will run out.
Everything you are saying here is right-wing boilerplate culled from crank conservative Web sites. You have not come up with a single serious or original thought of your own. One could easily cite the sources from which your have mindlessly plagiarized your "thinking"--but why embarrass you?
Have you ever seen a serious scholarly study that refutes the results of the WHO study? A study that shows that the U.S. health-care system is NOT the worst in the industrialized world?
I have never seen a peer-reviewed critique of the WHO study that seriously challenges its conclusions.
Your presonal reservations about the methodology--or those you have gleaned from right-wing Web sites that any chimp can access--are not based on serious scholarly evaluation.
You ask why we should accept the results of an exhaustive study by the leading public-health scholars in the world, yet you ask us to take your rote talking points seriously--you, who have no scholarly credentials whatsoever.
So here's the deal: I repeat--if you can produce a peer-reviewed study that challenges the results of the WHO study or the Harvard study, I will read and consider them.
I don't think that I or anyone else out here should waste anymore time with fringe boilerplate gleaned from far-right Web sites whose conclusions have not been scrutinized or evaluated by scholarly peer-reviewed panels.
Let's see some PEER-REVIEWED critique. If you have none, then you have none.
Put up or shut up.
"You have all the critical-thinking skills of a CD player set on endless repeat. "
Whatever.
"Mercifully, at some point we hope that your battery will run out."
So that you will be then off the hook for the following issues not yet addressed by you:
"They simply noted whether or not the individuals in the sample had insurance at the beginning of the study, and correlated that with death where it occurred. Nowhere did they track whether or not they had insurance later, and they didn't even note the *actual cause* of death in any of the cases. Correlation is not causation."
Focus dude. It's right there, still on the table, ignored for like the fourth or fifth time by you. *yawn*.
"Have you ever seen a serious scholarly study that refutes the results of the WHO study? A study that shows that the U.S. health-care system is NOT the worst in the industrialized world?"
Translation: I will just continue to ignore the issues regarding the open questions about the metadata for that study, along with how the eight specific criteria were weighted and compiled into an aggregate ranking. Test: are you able to list those eight criteria yet? Is this like at least the third or fourth time I've asked you about the eight specific criteria used in the WHO study with you ignoring them? LOL!
"So here's the deal: I repeat--if you can produce a peer-reviewed study that challenges the results of the WHO study or the Harvard study, I will read and consider them."
Behold, above, a neophyte who completely misunderstands Critical Thinking: The onus is on those who claim something to be true to prove it to be true. You will eventually learn this and thank me one day. Good night. :-)
Here's the crank right-wing Web site from which you plagiarized your "critical thinking":
http://radioviceonline.com/fact-check-45000-die-because-they-lack-insurance-not-so-muc/
"Here's the crank right-wing Web site from which you plagiarized your "critical thinking" "
Thanks. Were you actually going to offer any criticism about this article or are you sticking with the above Ad Hominem Logical Fallacy? BTW, the site actually *cites* the Harvard study in question and an additional one. Did you have any specific criticisms of the Kronick study? Thank you.
Serious, scientific, peer-reviewed studies that dispute your far-right loon ideology are always "flawed."
Crank right-wing Web sites that any chimp with a modem could publish are deemed by you to be paragons of "critical thinking."
You're just a friggin' GENIUS.
Let's see those peer-reviewed, scholarly studies that support your critiques--no more crank right-wing moron Web sites.
Put up or shut up.
For you, critical thinking is regurgitating, almost verbatim, the boilerplate from right-wing Web sites.
That's not critical thinking--that's rote recitation--the opposite of thinking.
So what about those peer-reviewed studies challenging the results of the WHO and Harvard studies. I place my confidence in serious, peer-reviewed scholarship, not crank right-wing Web sites from which you copy and paste your "thinking."
Let's see your peer-reviewed studies.
Put up or shut up.
"So what about those peer-reviewed studies challenging the results of the WHO and Harvard studies."
We went through this before but I'll tell you just one more time: There is no requirement to counter a flawed study "A" with another study "B" in order to criticize study "A". All you have to do is criticize it. The issue is only if the criticism is legitimate or not.
Have you read anything ever about what "Critical Thinkibg" is since I first suggested it to you months ago?? Do you know what Logical Fallacies are? You use them all the time. Do you undestand what peer review is? There are lot's of sites to read up on the basics of these subjects. If you spent just twenty minutes on each of these three areas you will be far better for it, and it's clear you nver took this advice from last time. Good luck!
Serious, scientific, peer-reviewed studies that dispute your far-right loon ideology are always "flawed."
Crank right-wing Web sites that any chimp with a modem could publish are deemed by you to be paragons of "critical thinking."
You're just a friggin' GENIUS.
Your arguments are absurd.
First, about the 45,000--that number comes from a painstaking Harvard study:
http://www.harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-l...
Second, "Healthcare has been a for-profit endeavor for centuries." There was also slavery for centuries. Also child labor. Also second-class status for women and people of color. Yeah--there's nothing like the good old days, right?
Returning to the present--the best and most cost-efficient health care systems in the industrialized world are nonprofit. A major study by the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. system 37th in the world, dead last among industrialized nations and only two notches ahead of Cuba. The U.S. health-care costs are double, on average, those of other industrialized countries, measured both per capita and as a percentage of GDP--and they get better outcomes (better life expectancy and lower infant-mortality rates) and they guarantee coverage to ALL.
Police and fire protection were once for-profit entities as well. Fortunately, the U.S. has edged forward into civilization far enough to regard those protections of human life as basic, guaranteed social services. The rest of the civilized world has extended that recognition--that basic protection of human life--to medical care as well.
Isn't it time that you--and the rest of the country--move into the twentieth century now that we're in the twenty-first?
You say that my arguments are absurd, then answer the first question (Thanks for the cite. I'll read it soon.) and agree with the fact of the second!
Would you care to address any of the other points as well? It seems you have a fair understanding. Can you guess what Bob is talking about?
You cannot derive from my post, my position on healthcare. I asked some questions and pointed out some flaws in arguments. As a teacher, I do this everyday to strengthen my students' writing and arguing abilities and to clear their thinking. An invalid argument is still invalid, even when it argues the correct point.
As for which century I inhabit, I am not bound by either the 20th century vision of socialized medical treatment and payment, or the proposed 21st century perversion of the "insurance" systems. Indeed, my own solutions would not pass any legislature, would not leave anyone without basic or trauma care, and would not involve coercion of the clients. (Left and Right are both WRONG on this issue.) A topic for another day.
Oy--
I didn't agree with any of the babble you wrote.
You doubted that the 45,000 figure came from a creditable scientific source, so I refuted that.
You pointed out that there is a long tradition of for-profit medicine--but your inference is that something that's been around that long is necessarily a good thing. I pointed out that there are lots of barbarities that have been around for hundreds of years, and part of human progress was overcoming them.
The rest of your points are nonsense, based on total ignorance of comparative world health systems. Read the WHO study comparing world health systems, find out why they rated the U.S. last in the industrialized world, and then get back to us.
" Read the WHO study comparing world health systems,"
Please, *you* read it yourself, and notice where the WHO study is for a *single* year (1997). Ask why there have been no other similar studies since. Please address the open metadata questions regarding the study, which involves so many different reporting countries, such that we can be *sure* that the quantitative comparisons are really apples to apples. It should be right there in the study, yes?
"find out why they rated the U.S. last in the industrialized world, and then get back to us."
Yes, please describe for us the multiple criteria used (hint: eight)and cut through the opacity of the methodology to explain how the *multiple criteria were weighted* to come up with an aggregate ranking. And please discuss the single item of the eight where the US ranked the worst, dragging down it's overall ranking, and whether or not that item has a political facet about it. Thanks in advance.
The "study" in question raises many more questions than it answers, we can conclude this simply by applying "Critical Thinking" instead of goulish "Wishful Thinking".
The study was undertaken by the leading public-health scholars in the world.
There have been no studies since because this one was definitive, and is taken as such by authorities in the public-health field.
The data were gathered and vetted by top scholars--nothing was simply taken on faith from outside reports.
If you read the WHO report, you'll see why the U.S. ranks last in the industrialized world: it has the most appallingly unjust and uneven access to quality health care for its population. It conclusions have been borne out by subsequent research: 1/6 of which has no insurance (some 50 million) and 45,000 of whom die every year because they cannot afford timely medical care (according to a recent Harvard study). All the other countries of the industrialized world have better health outcomes than the U.S.--better life expectancy and lower infant mortality, while guarnteeing coverage to all.
By contrast, everyone in every other industrialized country is covered from birth to death, automatically, in the same way people are covered for police and fire protection.
By the standards of most of the civilized world, a country that allows 45,000 people to die each year--the equivalent of 15 9/11s every year--is not fully civilized.
On the other hand, you might think that this barbaric system is the best in the world. If so, I'd like to hear your reasoning.
What's your point?
"The study was undertaken by the leading public-health scholars in the world."
"leading public-health scholars" is a nebulous construct. According to who? You?
"There have been no studies since because this one was definitive, and is taken as such by authorities in the public-health field."
Please explain exactly why *this* study is "definitive", and is "taken as such by authorities in the public-health field".
"If you read the report, you'll see why the U.S. ranks last in the industrialized world:"
I *did* read the report, and I am waiting for you to explian how the WHO *weighted_the_the_eight_individual_criteria* in order to come up with an aggregate score for all fo the industrialized countries. You have not done that as I asked earlier, making me think that you didn't read the report. Can you even name those criteria? They are right in the reference you cited. I'll wait.
I hinted that there were eight criteria, can you name them? I'll wait.
"and 45,000 of whom die every year because they cannot afford timely medical care (according to a recent Harvard study)."
Which I explained was bogus in another thread, I'll wait for your response to that.
"What's your point?"
That you have been unable to apply your Critical Thinking skills to either of the two "studies" in question. My guess is you "like" their conclusions since they seem to you to support your POV, but that is illogical. I await your response, thank you for your time.
Your critique is just parroted boilerplate from right-wing Web sites that recycle these same talking points for windup-doll right-wingers such as yourself.
For a balanced, serious discussion of the methodology that went into this study and similar ones, and an evaluation of the results, see the following analysis from factcheck.org, which pretty much credits the results of the study:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/dying-from-lack-of-insurance/
"For a balanced, serious discussion of the methodology "
Yes it was balanced, thank you. Did you miss tha part about whether a direct causal link can be established by the type of research in question?
"pretty much credits the results of the study"
Not if you think the "results" means a direct casual link. Sorry!
Serious, scientific, peer-reviewed studies that dispute your far-right loon ideology are always "flawed."
Crank right-wing Web sites that any chimp with a modem could publish are deemed by you to be paragons of "critical thinking."
You're just a friggin' GENIUS.
So far, no peer-reviewed papers from you that challenge the conclusions of the WHO or Harvard studies.
Whassamatter--ya' still firin' blanks, ya twit?
"Serious, scientific, peer-reviewed studies that dispute your far-right loon ideology are always "flawed.""
You do not understand the Logical Falacy "Ad Hominem" commited above. You committed this repeatedly when we had this discussion a few months back. You've had a lot of time to take twenty minites out of your bust schedule to learn about it. I am sorry you refuse to help yourself, so i will stop trying to help you.
"So far, no peer-reviewed papers from you that challenge the conclusions of the WHO or Harvard studies."
There is *no* such requirement, I told you this already. Any study can be criticized or questioned without the artificial need of presenting a different study. If you can find such a requirement anywhere, post it here with a proper citation and I will apologize for my error but you won't find one. You OTOH cannot shirk your responsibilities for responding to questions I posted earlier by inventing such a rewuirement out of thin air. That is all you have done here. Those questions stand. Maybe if *you* actually read the study like you told another poster to do, you would understand those questions. But you of course did not read it.
"ya twit?"
Name calling. Commonly confused with Ad Hominem but no logical fallacy here, just rudeness.
I left some spelling errors so you could have fun ammusing yourself with them, just like last time. Have fun Dum-Dum!
You imagine yourself to be a large, brave, critical intellect.
But you do nothing but plagiarize crap from second-rate right-wing Web sites--and then gratuitously and ignorantly denigrate first-rate, peer-reviewed scholarship to boot--not based on your own critical thinking, but based on plagiarized talking points the origin of which I have documented.
You can barely put a coherent sentence together.
You are clearly delusional about your intellectual prowess.
I bet you maxed out at about 1100 on your SATs and attended some joke of a state-school factory for college.
Do I have all that about right?
:-)
Do you seriously doubt that, in a country in which 50 million people lack health insurance, that tens of thousands of people get sick and die because they postpone or avoid necessary but costly medical treatments?
Is that your point?
You seem to cling to a dogmatic, empirically absurd belief that the United States has the best health system in the world, despite the existence of a vast scholarly literature that finds that it is the worst in the industrialized world by a host of criteria.
You have yet to cite a single creditable study that refutes the findings of the WHO study or the Harvard study--or a single creditable, nonideological source that deems the fragmented, overpriced, chaotic, gap-ridden U.S. health-care system to be the best in the world.
It's easy to carp pedantically about imperfections--real or imagined--in the methodology of serious, painstaking scholarly studies.
For someone of your ideological bent, it's much harder to produce countering studies of your own--because there are none.
"Do you seriously doubt that, in a country in which 50 million people lack health insurance, that tens of thousands of people get sick and die because they postpone or avoid necessary but costly medical treatments?"
The study in question says nothing specifically about whether anyone "get sick and die because they postpone or avoid necessary but costly medical treatments". Please focus.
"Is that your point?"
My point is for you and me and everyone to use Critical Thinking when we are confronting any kind of study claiming this or that. Google "Critical Thinking" and you will find some good resources.
"You seem to cling to a dogmatic, empirically absurd belief that the United States has the best health system in the world, despite the existence of a vast scholarly literature that finds that it is the worst in the industrialized world by a host of criteria."
Complete fiction on your part. Demonstrably, I have simply questioned what you have said about two studies. Stay focused.
"You have yet to cite a single creditable study that refutes the findings of the WHO study or the Harvard study--or a single creditable, nonideological source that deems the fragmented, overpriced, chaotic, gap-ridden U.S. health-care system to be the best in the world."
It is a logical fallacy on your part to ask me to cite proof of any *omission* that I have raised by a study under discussion, please don't ask me to do that again.
"It's easy to carp pedantically about imperfections--real or imagined--in the methodology of serious, painstaking scholarly studies."
It is *essential* to do so. I will try to get back to you in 24 hours or so. Thank you.
You have not seriously grappled with these studies--I doubt you have even read them.
You do not even think for yourself. Your critique is just parroted boilerplate from right-wing Web sites that recycle these same talking points for windup-doll right-wingers such as yourself.
For a balanced, serious discussion of the methodology that went into this study and similar ones, and an evaluation of the results, see the following analysis from factcheck.org, which pretty much credits the results of the study:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/dying-from-lack-of-insurance/
"I doubt you have even read them"
Clearly you haven't, and you have had time since last night to answer the questions you have refused so far:
What were the eight criteria used to come up with the rankings in the WHO study? This one should be very easy, just read the press release.
Exactly how were these criteria weighed against each other to come up with the aggregate rankings?
Where is the metadata that would help inform us of how quantifiable data gathered from many disparate governments could be fairly compared?
Why have there been no similar studies in over a decade where any reasonable person would expect some shifting in the rankings over so much time?
"I doubt you have even read them"
LOL! Clearly I know *much* more about this study than you ever will, unless you decide to, um, *read* it. LOL!
I now predict that you will claim I am parroting right wing talking points in asking the above questions. I demand that you post a reference for that claim, in advance of your making the claim.
I'm trying to help you dude. When you *finally* get around to studying what Logic and Critical Thinking are, your life will be changed, and you will always remember jakenewton for prodding you into it. Good luck my friend.
All the relevent pdfs are on my hard drive and i have read them. Clearly, you have not.
I repeat:
"Please, *you* read it yourself, and notice where the WHO study is for a *single* year (1997). Ask why there have been no other similar studies since. Please address the open metadata questions regarding the study, which involves so many different reporting countries, such that we can be *sure* that the quantitative comparisons are really apples to apples. It should be right there in the study, yes?"
" please describe for us the multiple criteria used (hint: eight)and cut through the opacity of the methodology to explain how the *multiple criteria were weighted* to come up with an aggregate ranking. And please discuss the single item of the eight where the US ranked the worst, dragging down it's overall ranking, and whether or not that item has a political facet about it. "
"The "study" in question raises many more questions than it answers, we can conclude this simply by applying "Critical Thinking" instead of goulish "Wishful Thinking"."
You ignored all that before, please do not repeat your error. I have little time to repeat myself for your welfare. Address the problem of the metadata as I described and the weighting of the multiple criteria for overall ranking. If you don't do that, you will look foolish homeboy. :-)
I addressed all these points months ago in another thread when you first raised them there.
Here's a more fundamental point, which you evade time after time:
Your amateur personal opnions and rote recitations of right-wing Web boilerplate are worthless--like having an Ipod set to endless repeat. There's no more thought involved in your posts than that.
Have you ever seen a serious scholarly study that refutes the results of the WHO study? A study that shows that the U.S. health-care system is NOT the worst in the industrialized world?
I have never seen a peer-reviewed critique of the WHO study that seriously challenges its conclusions.
Your presonal reservations about the methodology--or those you have gleaned from right-wing Web sites that any chimp can access--are not based on serious scholarly evaluation.
You ask why we should accept the results of an exhaustive study by the leading public-health scholars in the world, yet you ask us to take your rote talking points seriously--you, who have no scholarly credentials whatsoever.
So here's the deal: I repeat--if you can produce a peer-reviewed study that challenges the results of the WHO study or the Harvard study, I will read and consider them.
I don't think that I or anyone else out here should waste anymore time with fringe boilerplate gleaned from far-right Web sites whose conclusions have not been scrutinized or evaluated by scholarly peer-reviewed panels.
Let's see some PEER-REVIEWED critique. If you have none, then you have none.
Put up or shut up.
So only people who drank the same kool-aid as you are allowed to have an opinion?
Bye.
Waltdimm,
Vanmungo the ego maniac needs a straight jacket. His reactions "your argment is absurd, babble, etc" are all designed to belittle and intimidate. He just wants to fight. Just recommend a good psychiatrist to him whenever he starts with the bullshit. Arguing point by point is useless with him. I think he "did" too many mushrooms. His brain is fried.
No one said you weren't entitled to your opinion--you're even entitled to spread inaccuracies, but that doesn't make them true.
The WHO report is not "Kool-Aid." It's the most paintstaking, scholarly comparison available of global health systems.
You should read it before you venture any more comments.
You can google it and find the complete text, with charts and summaries, on line.
It's not an emergency because those 122 dead Americans are not elite Americans, they're schmuck Americans, disposable Americans, the kind that nobody cares whether they live or die. Now, if those 122 were Hollywood's elite...oy! The screams and the rivers of crocodile tears would be enough to sweep the world in their path.
An American dies unnecessarily every 5 minutes due to the U.S. inability to minimize deaths due to preventable diseases.
That's 101,000 unnecessary deaths each year: 277 per day.
That's up to 101,000 Americans undergoing unnecessary pain and suffering due to preventable diseases currently; that is, we should also consider their unnecessary pain and suffering prior to their unnecessary deaths.
You can see the details here ...
http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/Real_People
Why all the deaths? A major reason is that people don't get to the doctor ...
Why don't they get to the doctor? They can't afford it or they are afraid of getting a major medical bill. People in other free-market countries never receive a major medical bill.
Bob Haiducek, Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate
You can sign up here to help stop the holocaust:
http://www.medicareforall.org
The reason is simple just as there is money to be made by denying people healhcare there is money to be made from swine flu or any other trumped up crisis. Does anyone else find it suspicious that they had the cure ready so quickly.
Hi Donna, don't look now but the GOP is already cashing in on the pitfalls of Obamacare:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009
/oct/26/glimmering-new-dawn-for-the-gop/#
If only HR676 were on the table would the GOP have no chance of making a comeback.
Giving trillions to Wall Street Casino banks and corporations that caused the meldown was a national emergency, but saving 45,000 plebeian lives is apparently not.
The reason that no one in power cares about the uninsured 45 million or more who are sibject to the Republican death policies is that most of them are poor and they do not vote as often as more affluent people.
Nobody cares about the poor if they have the power.
Kitty--Death Policies are bipartisan, not just limited to Republicans.
These are bipartisan "death" policies. The Democrats are just as culpable as the Republicans, as their fake "reform" proposals show.
To imply that this is mainly a problem spawned by Republicans is to distort reality so badly as to lead people into a cul de sac in fighting for real reform: single payer Medicare for all, which is just as adamantly opposed by Obama and most Democrats as it is by the Republicans.
re; comments above:
President Grover Cleveland– said in the 1880s!!:
"As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."...
Income inequality in the US is now the most extreme of all countries. The 2008 OECD report, “Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries,” concludes that the US is the country with the highest inequality and poverty rate across the OECD and that since 2000 nowhere has there been such a stark rise in income inequality as in the US. The OECD finds that in the US the distribution of wealth is even more unequal than the distribution of income.
"On October 21, 2009, Business Week highlighted a new report from the United Nations Development Program concluded that the US ranked third among states with the worst income inequality. As number one and number two, Hong Kong and Singapore, are both essentially city states, not countries, the US actually has the shame of being the country with the most inequality in the distribution of income." ....(reported by J.P. Roberts)
The U.S. is then, no longer a democracy, but an oligarchy; and thus the 45,000 dead are casualties in the very real war of the haves against the have-nots and the have-lesses
I cannot take responsibility for anyone but myself -- and I do absolutely stand to account for my personal part in allowing my government to ignore and even expand the suffering of millions of my fellow citizens.
Unless we reach the point where healthcare truly is a human right for all in this nation, we all will have failed. As I mistep on this journey, I will learn better how to challenge those in power.
I am proud beyond words to work for the RNs of CNA/NNOC. It is the miracle of their touch in my life that affords me any ability to move this process. And I cannot imagine we'd be doing better in this discussion under McCain/Palin.
To all those who wait for some measure of justice in this broken system and have less access to be heard, I stand accountable. I will continue working as hard as I know how to work to change the system.
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
Donna--
We all admire your work--and that of the CNA--in the fight for single payer, and you have our gratitude.
But if you and the CNA are going to spend your time and resources electing officials who are avowedly opposed to single payer, you're wasting your own and everyone else's time; it's just self-defeating.
It's a completely bankrupt argument to trundle out the old bugabnoo about how much worse things would be under McCain. The point is that--on health care and a host of other issues--things are no better under the leadership of the Democrats.
McCain and the Republicans essentially proposed doing nothing about health care. Obama and the Democrats proposed a fake reform that will be WORSE than the status quo, incorporating nearly all of its problems and combining them with an individual mandate that will force people to buy the extortionate, lousy product of the private insurers.
Yet many progressives endorsed Obama and the Democrats knowing full well that this is what they had in store for us.
We cannot afford to repeat that kind of mistake in 2010 and 2012. We must insist that we will endorse ONLY candidates who are prepared to FIGHT for single payer--not just pay it tepid, forked-tongue lip service in the manner of most CPC members.
If that means supporting independent candidacies, so be it.
The CNA and Michael Moore understood this truth in 2000 when they supported Ralph Nader, a true champion of the public interest and an unflagging, uncompromising supporter of single payer. Both Moore and the CNA unlearned that lesson in 2004 and 2008, when they supported candidates who expressly opposed single payer and clearly intended to do the bidding of the health lobby.
Let's hope that you, the CNA, and Michael Moore--along with a host of other prominent progressive who drank the Obama Kool-Aid--will relearn that truth in 2010 and 2012.
Hello Vanmungo,
As an organizer for the California Nurses Association Donna Smith works directly with thousands of people, and has put the necessity of Single Payer Healthcare before millions. If you want to criticize her for backing Obama, who could never have been president unless he was mobbed up with the corporate kleptocracy, you are not wrong.
But I have to ask you, what kind of work have YOU done so that we can go from mourning to organizing? Against the money, power and ruthlessness of the capitalists we are not going to elect a Nader or a Kucinich or anyone else until we learn to stand together and organize.
Nurses are always in the lead in health care demonstrations. Bringing people physically together is a more vital task than engaging in criticism.
This is not a personal issue, nor one of showing off your merit badges for single-payer activism. I already made a point of acknowledging Donna's activism on behalf of single payer and expressing gratitude for it--so you are needlessly beating a dead horse here.
Perhaps your real objective is to create a diversion from a politically necessary discussion.
We are certainly not going to turn back "the money, power and ruthlessness of the capitalists" by devoting huge amounts of time and money to drumming up support for their hirelings and shills like Obama, as the CNA and countless other progressive individuals and groups mistakenly did in 2004 and 2008--much to their evident chagrin now as Obama replicates the Bush agenda on issue after issue.
This knee-jerk campaigning is not just about Donna or the CNA--they are simply major instances of a pandemic of self-defeating sniffing after corporate Democrats among self-designated progressives. This mindless attitude has become hugely destructive of the progressive agenda in this country. It's time for everyone to reckon with this mass hypnosis of pretending that the lo-cal rhetorical gobbledygook purveyed by Democrats on the campaign stump bears any relation to reality.
Even the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party, the CPC, has taken a dive on health care--not just on single payer, but on fighting for a decent public option as well, as you would know if you had read this analysis from Kip Sullivan of PNHP:
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/28/does-the-congressional-progressive-caucus-care-about-its-public-option...
You seem too eager by half to silence criticism of this fatal Democratic tropism among progressives--almost as eager to suppress dissent as Bush (and now Obama) was when he pushed through the Patriot Act--with the ardent support of most Democrats, of course.
Vigorous debate and critique is the lifeblood of radical thought and action. If that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, and you want to go around suppressing criticism, perhaps you'd be happier in the Revernd Moon's church or in North Korea.
Here's the brutal reality--a good percentage of the CNA's work on behalf of single payer is ANNULLED when they invest major time and resources in promoting politicians who are EXPRESSLY OPPOSED to their agenda--as Obama has been all along, as most Democrats are to this day. It won't to do whine about who would be even worse--least worst won't get us anywhere in facing down the social, economic, and climatic calamities facing the human race.
Obama's treachery on health care is no surprise--the essentials of Obamacare were public knowledge all the way through his campaign. So progressives like you have to decide if you want to be soldiers in the army of truth, no matter where that leads, or "players" who get to sup and hang out on the fringes of power with the Democrats. Constant whirlwinds of activism won't accomplish anything if it allows itelf to get sucked into the vortex of the Democratic party. Faint-heartedness about calling ALL Democrats to account is a form of complicity with them.
Sorry for all the presumptuous criticism; if this were the old Soviet Union, you could just have me shuttled off to a psychiatric hospital in the dead of night. Since we haven't quite reached that point yet, I guess you'll just have to answer on substance instead of plying your petty ad hom diversions.
Hello Vanmungo, Wow!
Really, it's not an as hominem argument, it's a question of strategy, of how to build a real left constituency. If the left can win some battles toward Single Payer it will be a huge step toward building our constituency, and it is not impossible.
The big test for Democrats in Congress is this: will they allow a state option for Single Payer, as has been demanded by Dennis Kucinich? It is up to us to support Kucinich on this, and if it passes, it will be up to us to organize state by state, with help and leadership coming from our friends the nurses. In California, Single Payer has already passed both houses of the legislature twice, and been vetoed twice by Arnold the Governator. So there is hope, IF we keep working.
And speaking of hope, a recent Field Polls tells us that 74% of Californians want to raise taxes on millionaires. That's how you PAY for Single Payer (and a recovered economy). How do you turn a poll into legislation, against the media onslaught? You organize like crazy. With the nurses. If the Left can organize a Single Payer victory in one state, our obviously superior system will spread, as it did in Canada. Not only will the Left be able to claim credit, but in the process we will have built up a network of alliances which can be activated for other campaigns, movements and even parties.
The philosophical (and I suspect temperamental) difference between us is this. I prefer to deal with what you call the "fatal Democratic tropism among progressives," (nice phrase) through successful campaigns and alliances. Most progressives are already aware of the defects of the Democratic Party, but they don't see the mass movement which must be the foundation of an alternative. If we can build that movement, the criticisms of the Democratic Party will no longer have to be psychologically suppressed; they will come bubbling out.
I'm sorry that I helped you to feel that you were under attack, and I should have put the issue in less personal terms. But really, if you react to a mild contradiction with suspicions that I might want to bundle you off to a Soviet mental hospital, I think that you are going to have to get a better grip on your emotions before you will be much use in building a movement. Or perhaps look up Mao's essay "On Handling Contradictions Among the People" (not that I'm a Maoist).
You're really the charmer aren't you--after professing regret for making your remarks too personal, you recommend that I "get a better grip on [my] emotions." See? I was exactly on point--just like a Soviet psychiatric functionary, you impute mental disorder to someone who disagrees with your (Democratic) party line.
The analogy was an apt one--your initial reply to me was far too eager to silence criticism. I'm sure you regret that, too, in your incomparably insincere and snarky way.
As for the content of your rejoinder, such as it is: this Kucinich state-by-state tack is just another doomed-to-fail farce to siphon off energy from the real fight. There are only nine provinces in Canada. There are fifty U.S. states--trying to pass single payer on that long, winding road should take only, say, about thirty years, during which 45,000 people per year will still perish from lack of ability to afford a doctor (not to mention that the states are mostly broke anyway). Your leisurely, doomed approach to this matter no doubt reflects that fact that you probably already have very comfy coverage and feel no personal pressure to press for Medicare for ALL--now.
This state-by-state gambit is a variation of the half-hearted "public option" approach--give half the game away before the game even begins, the idea being, I suppose, that if you propose something half-assed right away, the corporate malefactors will be so bowled over by your reasonableness and politesse that they will just melt in gratitude and say, "Great idea!" The reality is that, like a feral beast, they will smell your weakness and attack you with redoubled ferocity--which is exactly what has happened in the Democrats' health-care debacle that is now unfolding--or unraveling--before our eyes.
I am just as concerned as you to build effective alliances and campaigns--but my idea of a successful campaign is not to entrust its fate to the tender mercies of politicians who owe their eminence, their self-importance, their very livelihood, to the campaign largesse of the health lobby. That is a recipe for defeat, as we can now all see--all of us who are not in severe chronic denial about the Democrats, that is.
You postulate widespread dissafection with the Democrats, but your posts are redolent of reluctance to call them out and knock heads with them when they arrantly betray you; you're anxious, wringing your hands about the people with the clarity of vision to do just that--you first impulse is to silence them. Far from wishing to see a bubbling up of criticism of the Dems, you instinctively try to smother it.
The Democrats, like their corporate sponsors, also smell your fear, you know. You have no idea what it takes to make them afraid of you--and it's not handing them your vote with no strings attached every two years. That's not a political strategist--that's a sucker.
How long have you been in the throes of this pathological denial about the Democrats and the realities of power politics? Since turnabout is fair play, I'm tempted to recommend professional counseling for your emotional disarray--but that would be descending to your level: the swamp of Beltway wannabes masquerading as progressives.
Hey nutball Vanmungo!
there are some great psychiatrists in Nashua. Go see one before you hurt yourself or someone else.
Stop with the ego-games. You are sick. You have crossed the line from genius to insanity. Think, you moron, think. Your knee jerk aggression to anyone that presents an argument to you is a symptom of mental disease, not just an obvious craving for attention and dominance. How in the fuck do you expect to get people to agree on anything if all you do is insult people who disagree with you? Is being polite a problem for you? Then you are sick.
Yeah, I realize I'm not being polite. Sometimes, with stubborn wackos, you need to dispense with some manners. Is that your excuse? It won't fly. You are consistent in your strident and abrasive comments. You need mental health counseling.
He's OK. he's just struggling with some basics.
Very powerful, and accurate, vm.
It remains to be seen which will kill more people, the H1N1 or the M1A1.
It remains to be seen which will kill more people, the H1N1 or the M1A1.
Donna--
You write, "We voted for a man who told us he knows healthcare is a basic human right. . . ."
This seems to me disingenuous in the extreme. You and the CNA and countless other progressive knew full well that Obama was opposed to single payer--he said so explicitly--and favored a "reform" program much like the one he is now pushing: no price controls on premiums or deductibles, individual mandates, no significant expansion of coverage--in short, a step backward rather than forward.
Yet you and the CNA and Michael Moore urged a vote for this man and his wretched "reform" proposal, and you all exuded joy at his inauguration.
Don't you bear some degree of responsibility for fostering false hopes in Obama and other Democrats who you knew full well were neck-deep in health-lobby money, who you knew full well were pushing the very fake reform you now indignantly denounce?
You want accountability from Obama and his fellow Democrats who have perpetrated this vast consumer fraud on the American people? Fine. Then we demand accountability from you as well. Are you going to continue to urge people to vote for these mountebanks, or are you and the CNA and your close friend Michael Moore= going to withhold any future endorsements unless the candidates come out EXPLICITLY for Medicare for all?
It's easy to criticize the failings of others. Are you prepared to engage in some self-criticism about your and the CNA's role in tethering the progressive movement to people who clearly had every intention of sabotaging real reform?
You owe us a clear accounting on this.
Well, Donna, the sad truth of the matter is that Congress doesn't EVER care about those it kills outright or allows to die slowly through what I call "Death Policies," of which the purposeful lack of a universal healthcare system is just one. Since most are Liars and sociopaths of some sort, congresscritters do NOT have the moral capabilities to even acknowledge their role in the carnage, let alone fight to change even the most obvious wrongs. I need only name three examples to illustrate: Tobacco, Big Auto, Petrochemicals. Combined, the three are responsible for millions of deaths globally, yet very little has really been done to regulate their propensity to kill. The War Industry is in its own category of immense stupidity, yet it has priority over EVERYTHING.
Turning Capitol Hill into a morgue that stockpiles all those who've died from Death Policies would at least put them in a place where they could be seen by those who killed them. Perhaps everyday truckloads of coffins should be offloaded until the Capitol building is besieged to the point where they can no longer be ignored. The culture of Profit over People MUST cease; but few in congress favor that.
It's hard to believe that we can afford to send thousands of our young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan to die in battle, yet we cannot afford to provide healthcare to those like Jenny Fritts. And so many people keep try to say we are a Christian nation. We are nothing close to that!
I remember back in the early '90s, I had a discussion with my boss about for-profit healthcare. This was when it was just beginning to take hold, and I was horrified that this was being allowed. No one should make a profit off of sickness and disease. That is obscene and it should have been stopped right then. Now, 45,000 are allowed to die every year, and each one is first degree murder, my friends. I have no faith in the will of most Americans to stop this lunacy. In their present state they are numb to the needs of others, and only when it comes to their own doorstep, do they react. I wish it were not so. One million concerned citizens, plopped down in the middle of D.C., could do a lot of good.
I completely agree with Donna's assessment.
Joe
I was visiting some very conservative relatives over the weekend; conversation turned to the "government now telling businesses how much they can pay employees". This was regarding the TARP-related caps on executive salaries and bonuses. I tried to counter by explaining these executives and their minions nearly destroyed the country. My relatives both have long-term illnesses - one has Parkinson's, the other is diabetic. Both are on Medicare, and are being successfully treated. In their minds, these diseases were the result of hard work and temperate living. Everyone else, however, is obviously a deadbeat. Sad.
Too much common sense, Donna Smith. That's the problem. I finally watched "Sicko" all the way through the other day. I am uninsured, so I know where I stand in this mess -- I am the choir. But I was in tears and feeling sick watching this movie -- another reason I hadn't watched it before. I don't know how anyone could watch even parts of this movie and not want to get rid of our current system.
Has Obama bothered to watch "Sicko"? By his actions you would certainly not think so. He couldn't even be bothered to come to the Local Area Access clinics in LA in August, even though he was invited in an open letter by Wendell Potter. He was too busy holding another canned town hall meeting a couple of states over and touring our national parks and posing with the family for more celebrity photo shoots.
A national health care emergency should have been declared on January 21, 2009.
...As bad, millions will be left uninsured or underinsured as Washington cuts back on its obligation to provide universal quality care as a human right. Instead, final legislation will be class-based on the ability to pay with growing millions of poor and lower income people offered sub-standard care, millions left out entirely, and a time coming when only those who can afford it will be covered, no others. That's Obamacare's bottom line, but expect no public discourse to explain it.,,,S.J. Lendman...
The problem is that we are thinking and acting as though it were a time of peace, when actually we are right in the middle of a real war, a war of the haves against he have-nots or have-lesses, where the winners win and the losers are allowed to die...
The origin of the war is the state of steadily increasing scarcity across the earth,-a state that did not and does not have to be, but is becoming more and more an operational reality. The 45,000 dead from lack of insurance are just some of the casualties.
Competition functions to create scarcity, scarcity demands there be winners and losers,..there MUST be...
Real scarcity means that no meaningful health care plan can be permitted.....
Abundance is of the earth and nature's ecological integrative functioning, both physical and meta-physical. It has nothing to do with the industry/oil created confusion that is modern civilization. Another way of saying it is to say that life's functioning within the universe is syntropic, not entropic...
who cares, americans obviously don't care.
they aren't willing to go beyond calling their elected officials.
and our society chastises us for non-violent civil disobedience.
who cares.
As Snobama has told us: "Its a uniquely American system".