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TechnoratiThe Next Phase of Healthcare Apartheid
At this point, only spinners who've succumbed to their own vertigo could use the word "robust" to describe the public option in the healthcare bill that the House Democratic leadership has sent to the floor.
"A main argument was that a public plan would save people money," the New York Times has noted. But the insurance industry -- claiming to want a level playing field -- has gotten the Obama administration to bulldoze the plan. "After House Democratic leaders unveiled their health care bill [on October 29], the Congressional Budget Office said the public plan would cost more than private plans and only 6 million people would sign up."
At its best, "the public option" was a weak remedy for the disastrous ailments of the healthcare system in the United States. But whatever virtues the public option may have offered were stripped from the bill en route to the House floor.
What remains is a Rube Goldberg contraption that will launch this country into a new phase of healthcare apartheid.
People who scrape together enough money to buy health insurance will discover that they're riding in the back of the nation's healthcare bus. The most "affordable" policies will be the ones with the highest deductibles and the worst coverage.
We're hearing that large numbers of lower-income Americans will be provided with Medicaid coverage in the next decade. Translation: If funding holds up, they'll get to hang onto a bottom rung of the healthcare ladder. Many will not be able to get the medical help they need, from primary care providers or specialists.
Not long ago, we were told that the Obama administration was aiming for a public option that could provide coverage to one out of every four Americans. Now the figure is around one out of every fifty.
Not long ago, the idea was that taxpayer-funded subsidies were to be used only for the public option. But now the entire concept has been hijacked by and for the private insurance industry. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it on October 8, private insurance companies "are going to get 50 million new consumers, many of them subsidized by the taxpayers."
Pelosi was making the argument that the least the insurance industry could do, in return, would be to accept a higher level of taxation. But her comment was a telling acknowledgment that all the "public option" proposals now provide a massive funnel from the U.S. Treasury to the insurance conglomerates. The individual mandate is a monumental giveaway to private insurance firms.
The specter of "healthcare reform" that requires individuals to stretch their personal finances for often-abysmal insurance coverage is the worst of all worlds -- government intrusion for corporate benefit without any guarantees of decent health coverage.
In effect, the individual-mandate requirement tells people that obtaining health coverage is ultimately their own responsibility -- and the quality of the coverage is beside the point. In essence, when it comes to guaranteeing quality healthcare for all, the gist of the policy is: "Let's not, and say we did."
The predictable result is reinforcement of vast -- and often deadly -- inequities in access to healthcare.
With Washington making such a corporate mess of "healthcare reform," the best way to get what we need -- healthcare for all as a human right -- will be to enact single-payer healthcare in one state after another.
But the House Democratic leadership has not been content to serve up a grimly pathetic "healthcare reform" bill. Speaker Pelosi has used her political leverage to quash Congressman Dennis Kucinich's amendment -- approved months ago by the Education and Labor Committee -- that would grant waivers so that states could create their own single-payer system. Pelosi removed the Kucinich amendment from the House bill.
The California legislature has twice passed a strong single-payer bill, both times vetoed by the state's current execrable governor. The official position of the California Democratic Party is unequivocally in favor of single-payer healthcare. And yet Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, did what she could to sabotage the single-payer position of her own party in her own state.
Sickening.
80 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://www.indypendent.org/2009/11/12/you-must-go-to-jail/
The current situation is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!! It's way past time to SHOW our government, the robber baron insurance companies, and the plundering Corporatocracy who really OWNS this country - we the people.
It's time for a National Stand Down from Work Day - to show them that without us, they are doomed! If one day doesn't do it, perhaps a week or two, or a month!!! We don't need to wait til the next rigged election to TAKE ACTION.
This is the only WEAPON we have left to us! They certainly aren't listening to us - they treat us as NOTHING!
I exercize, eat wholesome foods and consequently am in excellent health. Why should I support any health plan, government or private, which throws me into a pool with a bunch of people who are obese and eat junk food? Perhaps co-payments should vary depending upon ones percentage of body fat. I propose to start a HMO for health club members.
Is a capitalist Congress going to ever reduce the
excessive profits in a capitalist medical industry?
Brilliant bye bye miss american pie.
The levies are gone.
What had Robamabot done for New Orleans?
Not even a flyover.
-30-
Long long time ago
I still remember
How those stories used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make my mama dance
And may be she'd be happy for a while
But September gives me shivers
In every speech he delivers
Bad news on Capitol Hill
I couldn't read one more bill
I can't remember if I cried
When I really saw his dark side
Something touched me deep inside
The day health care died
So bye, bye Hope and Change oh my
Cast my vote at the booth but t'was all a big lie
Chicago boys drinking whiskey and rye
Singing this will be the day that you die
This will be the day that you die
Do you remember waiting in that line
With no insurance, you got that fine
If Cigna tells you so?
Do you believe in the corporate role
Can profits save your mortal soul
I've no more to give after all they stole
I knew they worked you to the bone
In the night I heard you softly moan
But you never really let me on
Always smiling when you woke me up at dawn
I was a lonely kid trying to make a buck
Cos my mama, she died on that pick-up truck
And I knew I was out of luck
The day healthcare died
I started singing... Bye bye Hope and Change oh my
Cast my vote at the booth but t'was all a big lie
Chicago boys drinking whiskey and rye
Singing this will be the day that you die
This will be the day that you die
Now for eight years we got nothing but pain
And we waited for some healing rain
But that's not how it came to be...
When the House caved in to Wall Street
Homes lay rotting on Main Street
Bail outs for some, pink slips for you an me...
And while the left lay beaten down
The right wing took their thorny crown
The Congress was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Moore read a book of Marx
The House knocked that right out of the park
The homeless shivered in the dark
The day health care died
And we were singing... Bye bye Hope and Change oh my
Cast my vote at the booth but t'was all a big lie
Chicago boys drinking whiskey and rye
Singing this will be the day that you die
This will be the day that you die
Cuts to Medicare won't pass muster
Unmanned drones better take shelter
Was high on hope now falling fast
Politics as usual, it's come to pass
Voters protesting in a mass
Cops with batons from a distant past
Post-election air was sweet perfume
While the bankers played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance!
'Cos the voters tried to take the field
And the corporations refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day health care died
And there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
No time left to start again
So Barack be nimble, Barack be quick
Don't go for that half-way fix
Those are lies you won't ever mend
Oh, as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No statesman born in Hell
Could break that Satan's spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
Teddy looked down upon our plight
Rush Limbaugh was shrieking in delight
The day health care died
He was singing... Bye bye Hope and Change oh my
Cast my vote at the booth but t'was all a big lie
Chicago boys drinking whiskey and rye
Singing this will be the day that you die
This will be the day that you die
I met a girl who lost her sight
Thanks in part to the insurer's might
She smiled and sent me on my way...
I hobbled along to the old drug store
An armed guard stopped me at the door
Asked me if I had insurance, if I could pay...
In the iphone, the apps got banned
Single Payer - not on this land
But not a word was spoken, People's will was broken
And the three men I admire the most
Marx, Engels and Trotsky's Ghost
They took the last train to the coast
The day healthcare died
http://tinyurl.com/ye79az9
To old goat---
I apologize for having failed to acknowledge your presence here. I've been reading your comments. I always take them under consideration but just rarely have nothing to say in reply. But this time I am intrigued by the idea of everyone having "a nervous breakdown and going on Medicaid."
Trust me, not a day goes by without my having a "nervous breakdown." I just don't expect the government to pay for it merely because they caused it! Worse, I have a brother in law who is a defense attorney but he wouldn't understand what I am talking about. He is too busy playing the odds at casinos and the stock market.
I suspect you are trying to "force the market," in this case but wouldn't that require you to lose all your "property" to qualify for Medicaid? Leaving your progeny with nothing??? Thus the disaggregation of inherited wealth regardless of the effort to obtain it?
WOW! I just realized that it took me two generations to re-inherit a Quit-Claim Deed. Medicaid strikes me as a stripping of property. I used to think otherwise.
Health care. An oxymoron. Don't get sick, but if you do, carry a gun. Those people are ruthless. On the other hand, if all of us went nuts all at once, that would probably be a good thing. It sure would screw up the "system." Name the date!
I'm also for a Day of not showing up for work.
But the real question is why it has come to this. I hate my own thoughts on these issues and ask myself what has become of this country.
Yet something has to give. This is UNSUSTAINABLE. There is no Center. It is an illusion. Your sentience is an illusion. How about "protoplasm without purpose"? How's that for a nihilistic thought?
Get the hell out of war. Disband all military. The world is now actually capable of recreating itself.
-30-
Norman Solomon owes everyone an explanation of the reason he urged everyone to vote for the likes of Obama and Pelosi. It gets a bit wearying hearing him bemoan the treachery of these mainstream Democrats; he evidently suffers bouts of amnesia during every election cycle and urges all voters to vote for the Democrats he subsequently denounces as scoundrels and traitors.
Oh, yeah, I forgot--if McCain had won, we'd all be living in caves, chasing wild boars with spears. Do I have that about right, Norman?
We live in a toxic society, sociopathologies reign... lets all have nervous breakdowns and go on medicaid
Robamabot was in the news today braying that the American Medical Association (AMA) and AARP have just endorsed the prevailing bill pending in the House. That should tell you all you need to know. AARP is nothing if not an insurance scam disguised as a non-profit senior advocate.
Meanwhile dmgreeaz asks above:
"If a public option is so bad, then why aren't those on Medicare turning it down?"
You can't turn it down. If you are on Social Security they deduct $96.40 a month from your check as a Medicare premium, while as Kitty Lady Oregon notes above:
"I have Medicare and cannot find a doctor who will accept it, consequently I have no primary care doctor."
So you paid into Medicare every day you worked, then when you retire you pay into it, but can't get a doctor to accept it.
What a country. I'm 66 and the last time I saw a doctor was when I fainted and was rushed to an ER. Well over a decade ago. That destroyed my credit rating for 7 lean years and they never did tell me what was "wrong" with me.
I think this health care issue actually is a point on which tea-baggers and progressives can find common ground. The level of fraud being perpetrated is on a par with the bank bailout, and yes, it makes me sick. Insurance companies produce nothing of intrinsic value to the people.
We need a revolution.
-30-
You may appreciate a comment I posted elsewhere to an article entitled "Obama trumpets AARP, AMA healthcare endorsements":
Obama Blows, All Right!
_________________________
Wow! The AARP AND the AMA are cool with No Insurer Left Behind legislation?
Now that THIS vanguard has come in from the cold and stormed the battlements, Team Obama ought to bring out the really BIG endorsements: coroners, funeral directors, and insurance corporation CEOs!
Yes, we can!
I mean, realistically now-- Thanksgiving is but a fortnight away; is there anybody who ISN'T up for a turkey?
· Yr Obd't Servant
AARP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of one of the big health insurance corporations (United Healthcare?) or vice-versa. Hence the AARP's pushing that great Insurance-lobby giveaway that's Medicare part D. AARP hasn't been a lobbying group on behalf of seniors for years.
Medicare works well only with additional Medigap insurance plus prescription drug insurance. If you have good Medigap insurance, a Medicare recipient is accepted anywhere. Medicare needs extra funding to pay the gap between what it pays and what doctors will accept. If, as is rumored, Obama's grand plan is financed partly with cuts in Medicare, that is simply robbing Peter to pay Paul and there will be a lot more unhappy campers than even now. I have been on Medicare with a good Medigap policy for 22 years and have never had a problem with either. Of course, it helps that I have had exceptionally good health and have worked to keep it that way.
"Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, did what she could to sabotage the single-payer position of her own party in her own state. Sickening."
Hey San Franciscans, you had a chance to replace Pelosi with Cindy Sheehan, but deep down, you wanted to continue with business as usual. You wanted to continue having undocumented migrant labor polishing and dusting the wonderful properties you hold there in the city by the bay, ehh? At something like $3/hr, right? Yes!! Pelosi will ensure you get to keep exploiting cheap labor in maintaining your property. So you voted her back into office! And you don't care what kind of healthcare apartheid develops in the USA because you've covered your own asses, ehh? You sell one of those properties, and the profits cover all your family's expenses for life ehh? Spectacular!
Actually SF has a pretty good public option for uninsured residents.
Pelosi is a political whore, no doubt, but your anti-SF rant is both weirdly hateful and totally irrelevant.
There is nothing wrong with calling out on the SF voters for being selfish and voting for Big Insurance/Pharma shills such as Pelosi over supporters of single payer such as Cindy Sheehan. SF may have a good public option but the message SF voters sent to the rest of us was "I got mine, screw you, a-la-la-la !". Sorry but the voters of SF who voted Pelosi last year are also responsible for blindly reelecting her.
I have Medicare and cannot find a doctor who will accept it, consequently I have no primary care doctor. This is what it will come to.
The "Health Care Reform" is simply an insurance company profit enhancement bill.
If a public option is so bad, then why aren't those on Medicare turning it down? Why is it inhumane to have the elderly uninsured but it's O.K. for the rest of the population?
Step 1 - De-couple employment and insurance, starting with Congress.
Please understand, my hubby and I are on medicare. We like it. It isn't bad. We paid for it in our younger working years. The only complaint we have is that don-nut hole with part D for medication. So we stay off prescription drugs the best we can. If you look at the Advantage Plans that insurance companies offer you eventually read the fine print that says "covered if it is "covered by medicare." So what's the point then. Might as well just stay in the original medicare since the insurance companies don't offer anything of substance. Medicare isn't perfect but it's good enough. We know that young whippersnappers would like us to hurry and exit the planet. Can't blame them much. Our culture pits young and old against each other.
YES!
The way it is will never change for most of us. And that's the way it is. We do what we can with what we have. But we see many times that people just think we are no-count and brush us by with big plans for this and that. Over on another thread someone was even saying us elders are going to live in shanties by the railroad track and be picking up coal. Like as if that was something smart to say. It was just putting us down for being poor. But we don't see ourselves that way at all. We are with that song__I will survive. And also that other song, You can't take away my dignity. I'm sorry this whole thing has just hit me the wrong way.
How many times do I have to preview this comment?
As usual Norman Solomon is right on the mark. I know first hand how worthless and how much of an apartheid mess it is, being of working class background and now a small businessman. But working class people, small business people, small familiy farmers, and all the rest of the real people in this country don't seem to count for much except just to pay higher taxes for the super rich to keep riding their damn gravy train at our expense. Oh, and we get to fight their damn wars for them too. But Solomon just tells it like it is on this and so many issues.
AD
Given that some 90% of the rest of the planet has much greater equity than we have in the USA, it begins to look like USans are disproportionately feeding the mouth of the global elite. That is, when you look at the global elite and ask where they get their wealth, it is disproportionately off the backs of USans. We are the key slave population, though it's voluntary slavery. There comes a time when we have to consider our civic duty in the global community, and stop feeding this monster, for the sake of everybody.
As usual Norman Solomon is right on the mark. I know first hand how worthless and how much of an apartheid mess it is, being of working class background and now a small businessman. But working class people, small business people, small familiy farmers, and all the rest of the real people in this country don't seem to count for much except just to pay the taxes for the super rich to keep riding their damn gravy train at our expense. Oh, and we get to fight their damn wars for them too. But Solomon just tells it like it is on this and so many issues.
AD
As usual Norman Solomon is right on the mark. I know first hand how worthless and how much of an apartheid mess it is, being of working class background and now a small businessman. But working class people, small business people, small familiy farmers, and all the rest of the real people in this country don't seem to count for much except just to pay the taxes for the super rich to keep riding their damn gravy train at our expense. Oh, and we get to fight their damn wars for them too. But Solomon just tells it like it is on this and so many issues.
AD
As usual Norman Solomon is right on the mark. I know first hand how worthless and how much of an apartheid mess it is, being of working class background and now a small businessman. But working class people, small business people, small familiy farmers, and all the rest of the real people in this country don't seem to count for much except just to pay the taxes for the super rich to keep riding their damn gravy train at our expense. Oh, and we get to fight their damn wars for them too. But Solomon just tells it like it is on this and so many issues.
AD
AGG writes:
"I am extremely suspicious of that article about Wall Street ease of access to the H1N1 vaccine. It sounds too much like a psyops operation to get people to scream for a vaccine that the government then reluctantly provides for them ... "
Here's another source:
Flu shots for Wall Street stirs ire in New York
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5A44QI20091105
tremaine writes:
"I like most Americans don't really know all that much about exactly how deficient Medicaid is. I think we will have to learn given the expansion of it, so thanks for the introduction."
I believe there's a misconception, among politicians and liberals, that Medicaid is sort of like Single Payer for poor people -- NOTHING could be further from the truth.
Because next-to-no regular doctors, let alone specialists, will treat Medicaid patients -- too many restrictions on treatment, too little compensation -- those subject to Medicaid are treated mostly in "community clinics" whose reason for being is exactly to churn the accounts of Medicaid recipients, a captive population of funding units.
For those between 55 and 65, Medicaid costs can be collected from the Medicaid recipient's survivors, when s/he dies prematurely from its truly-crappy "care". During a Medicaid recipients lifetime, s/he can neither find out what charges are being saved up for his/her survivors, nor -- should the Medicaid recipient win the lottery or whatever -- pay off during his/her lifetime.
Medicaid is an abominable sub-medical fraud which is extremely lucrative for medical non-profits (including clinics and hospitals) and pharmaceutical companies. If politicians (and those who fund them) are unaware of the problems with Medicaid, they're asleep at the wheel. If they DO know what Medicaid is, they're complicit in what amounts to uh bureaucratic mass murder.
Sickening indeed, in more than one way.
This aint Health Care Reform. It is the government giving away our money you to pay the Mafia. Just like the Bankster bailout thefts, but different family of the Mob will get their cut.
We must be living in a state of organized crime.
You betcha! Well put.
It isn't 'Healthcare Reform' that they're giving us, it's 'Healthcare Reform School', where healthcare is locked up to keep it away from the general public.
Oh, and it's privatized so the more they keep locked up, the more money they make.
even this will fail to stir america to the necessary to
action and topple this evil and corrupt government. why?
america is too stupid and lazy to save itself from
drowning. and those people are us! when you look at
obamas attempt to take control of the internet under
the guise of national security and a host of other things
that have happened since ronnie rayguns wtf does it take
to stir this pathetic bag of losers known as americans
to action? its time for a national gut check rome has
already burned! dem dat dare and all those drugs r and d
were paid for by us! great post.
The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale
http://my.auburnjournal.com/detail/133106.html
WHAT DRUGS REALLY COST
BRAND NAME / CONSUMER PRICE (For 100 tabs/caps) /
COST OF GENERIC ACTIVE INGREDIENT (For 100 tabs/caps) / PERCENT MARKUP
Celebrex 100 mg / $130.27 / $0.60 / 21,712%
Claritin 10 mg / $215.17 / $0.71 / 30,306%
Keflex 250 mg / $157.39 / $1.88 / 8,372%
Lipitor 20 mg / $272.37 / $5.80 / 4,696%
Norvasc 10 mg / $188.29 / $0.14 / 134,493%
Paxil 20 mg / $220.27 / $7.60 / 2,898%
Prevacid 30 mg / $344.77 / $1.01 / 34,136%
Prilosec 20 mg / $360.97 / $0.52 / 69,417%
Prozac 20 mg / $247.47 / $0.11 / 224,973%
Tenormin 50 mg / $104.47 / $0.13 / 80,362%
Vasotec 10 mg / $102.37 / $0.20 / 51,185%
Xanax 1mg / $136.79 / $0.024 / 569,958%
Zestril 20 mg / $89.89 / $3.20 / 2,809%
Zithromax 600mg / $1,482.19 / $18.78 / 7,892%
Zocor 40mg / $350.27 / $8.63 / 4,059%
Zoloft 50mg / $206.87 / $1.75 / 11,821%
Fascinating. Thank God for Canadapharmacyonline.com and their ilk.
Thanks for the link, if it wasn't so darn cold up there I would move eh. O Canada!
tremaine writes:
"Medicaid may prescribe medications that ultimately do more harm than good, but it can't force you to take them."
Practically speaking, they pretty much CAN. However, that's not the point.
The POINT is that poor people are dying unnecessarily of heart disease, cancer, and other serious conditions while being dosed with drugs to keep them quiet.
For a glimpse into first-stage OblablaCare, meanwhile, see this:
BREAKING: CREW calls on HHS to investigate why CDC authorized H1N1 vaccines for WALL ST when supplies are short on MAIN ST
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/43235
I am extremely suspicious of that article about Wall Street ease of access to the H1N1 vaccine. It sounds too much like a psyops operation to get people to scream for a vaccine that the government then reluctantly provides for them. So we have a "populist victory" made out of whole cloth if it turns out that the fat cats in Wall Street are, in fact, avoiding the vaccine like the plague.
Just consider the source of this information. Since when does the public get hot news on what the fat cats are doing until long after they have done it? This doesn't smell right.
I like most Americans don't really know all that much about exactly how deficient Medicaid is. I think we will have to learn given the expansion of it, so thanks for the introduction.
If as you say Medicaid is commonly substituting drugs for the usual, better treatments, than obviously Medicaid is truly deficient.
Solomon (finally) writes:
"We're hearing that large numbers of lower-income Americans will be provided with Medicaid coverage in the next decade. Translation: If funding holds up, they'll get to hang onto a bottom rung of the healthcare ladder. Many will not be able to get the medical help they need, from primary care providers or specialists."
One of the fouler unexamined pigs in this poke IS Medicaid -- no second opinions, non-profit pill-mill "community clinics", Estate Benefits Recovery Act provisions for those 55-65. Medicaid is a rolling Death Panel, treating serious sicknesses with ... ta-DAH ... psycho-meds and pain pills, the more expensive and unavailing, the better.
Medicaid is the semi-final solution for the poor and near-poor. Once IN the Medicaid system, recipients are barred even from seeking out real medical care for cash.
No bill that involves mandating people into Medicaid is "reform". Why neither the politicians nor the press will delve into the horrors of the Medicaid system is an interesting question -- guess it's the meal ticket for too many defrocked docs and non-profit hustlers . . . and of course it DOES dispense oodles of pharmaceuticals.
Medicaid may be garbage, but smart Americans need to learn that over medication, like lack of income and jobs, is part of living in the failed American system of today. Learn to say no to drugs including prescribed drugs except in extreme and limited circustances. Medicaid may prescribe medications that ultimately do more harm than good, but it can't force you to take them.
This is facile nonsense.
I know someone with Crohn's disease who was wasting away to nothingness before she tried Remicade, an immunomodulator that allowed her to begin eating normally again and saved her life.
I know someone else who contracted a rare bloodstream infection--listeria--whose life was saved by intravenous drips of ampicillin.
This facile dismissal of all drugs is a cartoonish caricature of complex medical realities.
Are some drugs overprescribed? Potentially harmful? Yes.
Are others godsends that saves people's lives? Also yes.
I was along for the dog and pony show ride during the spring and summer, when the preliminary discussions and bills all suggested that the final result might not be a 100% dead on arrival failure and a complete embarrassment to the US. I got into the habit of commenting here at my favorite political site, and finally got motivated to start a political blog. Little did even the cynics among us suspect back then that the final result, described quite well in this article, would be as abysmal and counterproductive as it is going to be. I guess even the cynics need to apologize for not being cynical enough, because I honestly thought that there would be a little something something in the final result, a few crumbs of real improvement in the overall system if you will, but now it appears the final result will be overwhelmingly bad except, ironically, for the dirt poor, and except for those who will benefit from a few new regulations on health insurance companies that should have been in effect decades ago, namely:
--Pre-existing conditions will be no bar to granting insurance
--Some kind of limit on co-pay amounts payable in a year
--Restrictions on rescissions.
It's unknown whether even these decades late regulations will be enforced enough or not; I wouldn't bet anything important that they will be enforced solidly.
Before the year is out, I'm making an Excel and putting it on Google Documents that will enable anyone to quickly see how badly they are being fleeced by the failed US health care system. It will at a glance give you a very rough estimate of what you would pay in various European and Asian countries based on what your income is, and so will be a guide of the maximum amount you should be willing to pay out of your income.
Remember that as a result of helping to pay for obscene health insurance executive and “star specialist physician” salaries, you eventually end up homeless, or you don't eat right, or you can't heat your house, your health could very well end up being worse than if you don't even try to comply with the "mandate" to buy grossly overpriced insurance. For a substantial number of people, it will be much smarter to pay the “no insurance tax,” which will be roughly 25% or less of what the insurance that you may not be able to afford would cost.
You only go to jail if you refuse to pay the tax surcharge on those who refuse to pay for the grossly overpriced health insurance. If you are dirt poor, you will be completely off the hook for both the insurance and the no insurance tax. More than ever, it will pay to be dirt poor in the US. Smart low income workers will make sure they reduce their incomes from a little above 133% of poverty to just below it. And you can bet that the criminals who hide income will be working overtime whenever this goes into effect.
If your income is less than about 133% of the Federal poverty guideline, you will enjoy a waiver on having to buy the grossly overpriced private health insurance, and you will supposedly have access to Medicaid, which for all it's faults, is clearly better than nothing, and is clearly better than ending up homeless due to trying to pay for grossly overpriced and unaffordable private, for-profit US health insurance.
If your income is between about 133% and 400% of poverty, you will be given subsidies, but the subsidies are set so that the premiums alone will match and even exceed the total amount paid on actual health care per capita in the reputable European and Asian countries. If you actually seek care, your grand total of all premiums, deductibles, and co pays will very quickly reach 15% and 20% of your income, and could of course go far higher than that. The percentage of your income you in total spend on health care will vastly exceed the per capita or actual percentage of your income you would pay in Europe or Asia.
From about 400% to 800% of poverty, it will be a similar though generally less extreme story than it is for those with incomes under 400% of poverty. You will get no subsidy, so every nickel of premiums, deductibles, and co pays will go against your income. Unless you simply do not use health services, the total amount you pay as a percentage of income will generally be much higher than it would be in the reputable European and Asian countries.
Only if your income is above about 800% of poverty (8 times the poverty threshold or more) will the new law not be a major new and burdensome tax. And only in those lofty ranges will the percentage paid for health care be similar to what is paid in the reputable European and Asian countries.
From an economics perspective the most notable thing about this failed effort to reform a failed system is that this may literally be the most regressive tax in the history of the world. No wonder that Obama and his cronies are so sensitive when they are challenged that they are going against their no new taxes pledge. To say they are violating their promise is a ridiculous understatement, but they want you live in a fantasy world where this is not a tax.
Obama has played the role of insurance industry spokesman, nothing more and nothing less. He has proven to be not up to his job and deserves to be defeated at the earliest opportunity.
The obvious threat of a massively regressive tax added on to an already massive health system failure is that it will deepen the already serious failure of the labor market system.
http://www.unity-progress.blogspot.com
NDP-US Make it so; Don't look at me; I'm not good at all at political organizing!
This whole "debate" on healthcare saddens me greatly...the more I think about it...the more depressed it makes me. I think we need to come up with a game plan since congress obviously doesn't care...
it's noteworthy that germany, a nation of 80 million people amid growing ethnic diversity, out-exports the us, which has about 4 times its population. yes, germany has single payer, and they,ve had it since bismark, who was their chancellor in the 1880's. he also instituted old age pensions and workers compenasation. no liberal, he was openly suspicious of catholics and jews, and despised marxists and socialists, but he was wise enough to see that it was in the best interest of the government to take care of its people. bismark cleverly preempted the left, which never gained a real foothold in german politics. while the rest of europe was beset by labor strife, germany, which really became a united country only in 1871, grew at such a rapid pace that it surpassed england's economic power by 1913. if our businesses, large and small, were not weighed down with health care costs, we would see an economic boom. but markets, privitization, and capitalism are the cults of this country, shrines at which we all must dutifully worship. they are seen as the ends themselves, when ,at best, they should be considered only as potential means for the greater good. but better that 40,000 uninsured die every year and many thousands more go bankrupt than for the wealthiest country in human history to disturb the relationship af insurance capital to its captive us market.
Good points, Germany until very recently was the world's #1 exporter. Now it is China, a nation of 1.2 billion people. If you break it down per capita, Germany is the head and shoulders world leader in exports, and the US drops even further. Yet, Germany has the highest labor costs in the world.
However Germany is only one example of countries who insure all of their citizens at an affordable rate. (Germany has a regulated private/public system, not an NHS single-payer type, as does Switzerland and the Netherlands).
We can add to the list: Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Greece, Hungary, the UK, Ireland, Costa Rica etc.
All these countries have affordable universal health coverage. If we want fair, affordable health care, we have to move out of our own country. I am afraid this is another sign that internal corruption is leading to gradual collapse of the USA as we know it.
the polls ahow that most people want a public option. how else to keep premiums down when insurance ompanies are federally exempt from the antitrust laws? but look at the way this bill was handled before it was field stripped by the special interests! first, after every single committee in both the house and senate approved a version that included a strong piblic option, all focus was put on the senate finance committe, chaired by max baucus,who has received over 4 million from the health care industry. then, within that health politburo, a "gang of six" was selected to come up with recommendations. all summer,that small group commanded all the attention. while they stalled, the bill lost momentum, especially amidst the fox induced storm at the town halls. that gang of six senators hailed from maine, iowa,new mexico, north dakota,montana, and wyoming, which altogether compose a whopping 2.75% of the nation's population. forgetting what all the other committee's had done, the media acted like these six were the kingmakers. madison knew that the senate would work as a check on democracy, and aetna and blue cross now reap where he sowed! 54% of the us population lives in just 10 states, having only 20% of the voting power in the us senate. now we will be facing a situation in which the government is going to force about 40 million of us to contract with insurance companies, which by the new law will have to cover people regardless of their health. there will simply be no way to control costs, as the insurance companies will be able to fix prices, split markets, and do those anti-competitive things that only they and major league baseball may do.
Slain student’s parents shocked by ‘insulting’ letter from hospital
http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/hawkinsparents110509.jpg
By Muriel Kane
Thursday, November 5th, 2009 -- 11:00 am
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hawkinsparents110509 Slain students parents shocked by insulting letter from hospitalShortly after the funeral of California student Scott Hawkins, who was beaten to death by his college roommate on October 23, his parents received a second shock.
A bill for $29,186.50 arrived from the hospital where Hawkins had been taken after being found unconscious in his dorm room, along with a form letter telling "the patient" that he was considered indigent and should seek further treatment through county health services.
Gerald and Elizabeth Hawkins had been informed by Sacramento State College that their son was already dead when his body was discovered and were not aware that he had received level 5 trauma care for five minutes in the hospital emergency room.
"It was just devastating and insulting," Gerald Hawkins stated. It's just hard to grasp for words. My wife and I were near collapse."
"It was just awful," Elizabeth Hawkins told CBS13 News. "I don't think there's any civilized country, anywhere in the world that would allow the parents of a murdered boy to receive a bill like this. ... When you have barely enough energy to finish your sentences, having to sit down and deal with something like this out of the blue is extremely difficult."
Story continues below...
UC Davis Medical Center issued a statement apologizing for the "clerical error" and explaining that "the patient's death in the emergency department should have been flagged as a death in the outpatient record." That would have generated a letter of sympathy and a tactful inquiry about the family's insurance.
Hawkins was a transfer student who had only been rooming for a short time with his alleged attacker, Quran Jones, and it was not clear what prompted the attack. Death was attributed by a representative of the college to "blunt force trauma," and one police spokesperson said Hawkins had been beaten with a baseball bat, although this has not been confirmed.
When police responded to reports of the disturbance, they found Hawkins unconscious and Jones wielding an eight-inch knife. Jones was shot by police as he advanced with the knife and will be charged with murder when he recovers.
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Americans need to ask themselves...do their fellow human beings, first of all, fellow americans secondly only...REALLY deserve to be treated in such a callous manner by a system that is for PROFIT?
why not just demand, en masse, that if "sacrifices" have to be made...it is the FOR PROFIT HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, all its hospitals, doctors, "caregivers", CEO's, Accountants, etc...
that has to be sacrificed - and if need be - PUT the ENTIRE industry, confiscate its money and assets and put them in PUBLIC conservatorship of decently paid management but NO MORE THAN that - with NO allowances for further financial involvements in "shares" and "compensation packages".
they don't like it? TOUGHT - go to china and find some other place to make a profit - if they can find them or if those people will PERMIT them to ravage other economies the way they do in the United States
until they find themselves shipped out to Pluto .
Great example and very disturbing. This makes my blood pressure go through the roof.
The what I like to call the Illness and Death Profit Industry (IDPI) is another great example of how our economic 'growth' is based on a parastical and cannibalistic model. The largest profit margins are from parasitical rather than productive activities. The economy is based on financial exploitation by Banksters and Insurance industry and the Vampires at the IDPI. The US produces very little added value products, it just sucks more blood from its own.
If we judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable, the USA is prety low on the list.
we should be calling pelosi to tell her what a scumbag she is
Already done that. Fat lot of good that does. If I had a few million dollars to schmooze with I would be able to speak with her personally. It is clear we don't elect our leaders, they buy the seats. No money? You don't count. Voting and elections are just to placate the masses into thinking they have a choice.
"...government intrusion for corporate benefit without any guarantees of decent health coverage." ---a pretty good description of fascism, I'd say.
The HC cure is clearly worse than the disease and even worse than Solomon describes. The pubic option not only abandons choice entirely while insuring only profit mandates and apartheid, it is also certain to become an unsanitary landfill where "insurers" will inevitably dump "costly" people onto taxpayers.
Incredible, really. The Obama admin cannot possibly be so blind as to infuriate both the tea-baggers and progressive voters in one 'swell foop", can it? Surely after this week's elections they must be hatching some grand 'strategery'. Just like non-reform on Wall Street will bring a more catastrophic collapse, HC non-reform too will fail so spectacularly that real single payer becomes inevitable.
This was INEVITABLE in a system where individual SELF interest is emphasized over mutual and collective interest.
Exactly.
The Dinocrats are dutifully handing us all over to the same Vampires of Wealth Care that are already sucking us dry. If this is the Dinocrats idea of Change we can Believe in , what's next? This bill is going to back fire big time on these fools.
Please, the only fools are middle and low class Americans for allowing this all to happen. We are all to blame, and why should anyone believe that once this bill passes into law, there will be any more "back fire" than already has not happened.
I don't think people have realized yet what mandatory insurance will mean. But when they do, look out!
The Health Care Bill is going to need an amendment authorizing billions of dollars to build new jails. If this turkey becomes law the country is going to have zillions of new criminals who will refuse to pay or can't pay the huge mandatory premiums to the fascist corporatist insurance bastards.
See ya'll in jail, folks!
when you're drowning what's the difference between being thrown a 25 lb rock (republicans) or a 10 lb rock (democrats)?
go green......
ALERT:
The vote on Single-Payer health care should take place tomorrow, Friday, November 6th.
According to David Swanson at Afterdowningstreet the vote will serve as "cover" for removing the Kucinich state single-payer amendment.
Video is here: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/47488
It's still not too late to call your congressperson:
1-800-828-0498 Free Call
(ask the operator to connect to any representative's office)
I've heard in more than one newscast that many gun dealers across the country can't keep enough ammunition on their shelves - it's selling like hotcakes.
It seems as though Americans are quietly preparing for the worst, which will ultimately come if these idiots in Washington pass anything like this miserable bill.
We no longer have a viable government because it has become totally corrupted by the lobbyists who are daily dumping heaps of money on our congress in order to do the bidding of the corporatocracy.
I honestly don't believe that there's a single member of congress any more who is diligently working for the good of his/her constituents. They're as busy acquiring wealth as the CEOs of the major companies.
This bill gives a new meaning to the word "reform!" Now it means transferring more wealth from the tax-paying public to the coffers of the wealthy, in this case the insurance moguls.
What they do, they do at their own risk. The American people will only take so much, and we might very well be nearing the breaking point. Congress has failed to learn one of the most basic tenets of fair play: YOU CANNOT FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME!
"YOU CANNOT FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME!"
They fool enough.
(BTW-Want a good laugh? Bill Maher is on Letterman tonight. Watch him rant and rave - then fall on his knees for Obama)
No, there are some honest, good people in congress who are trying their best to work for the people who pay their salaries. Dennis Kuchinich is one of them. And even on the 'republican' side Ron Paul. There may be a handful more, I'm not sure. But at least there are two. True its not enough, and both those men are fought by their own party's '(mis)-leadership'. I actually worked for and voted for Nader the last three elections, and I hate that I was so right. People need to stop the nonsense and just vote for who they know to be the best man. Since that's very rarely a member of the single rep-dem-con party, that simple act (albeit from millions) would change things dramatically. Who cares what the bought-n-paid for media and pundits say, simply vote for who you know has the best record of faithfullness to the commonwealth.
I certainly agree that Kucinich is on our side, but not Ron Paul! He's a libertarian doctor who believes that health care is an individual's responsibility.
I too voted thrice for Nader in the general election. I did vote for Paul and Kucinich in the primaries though. Mike Gravel was almost like Kucinich except for his support for national sales tax.
It's good to be right even when it hurts. To be wrong and deny the truth only makes the pain worse on the inside. I always say that people need to open their hearts and minds to the issues and judge and vote based on where he or she actually stands on the issues and/or prior records of how they handled any of those issues.
JB: I think your post is a cry for decency, fairness and reason, but in our pursuit of material well-being those virtues mean squat.
Thanks Lingum. Yes, it's true but sometimes, I still leave the rope out there for those behind the times to climb on and catch up. To move people away from materialistic thinking to spiritual thinking is no easy task. It can be frustrating and upsetting to see most people not sharing our decency, fairness, and reason but nowadays I have given up shouting at people for being too blissfully ignorant and have taken the idea of challenging people's thinking at the core of the issues. Society may be too full of stupids and ignorants but I don't mind the challenges in dealing with various levels of these people. Some can be reformed, others can't. Only trial and error can do.
When Congress won't help, it's up to us and the doctors to shrink those insurance profits so that Congress can't take bribes and then government will have to pass single payer.
Another idea is to abolish the existing government and just nationalize the insurance companies with a new government.
America, the war making machine, is now making war on it's own people. No healthcare, no jobs, no homes is clear evidence of the shadow government's takeover. Propaganda has thus far blinded the people from effective actions in their own best interests. Denial is evidenced by inaction even by those who do see the threat. A noose is quietly being placed around people's necks while they are being told that everything is fine. Almost twenty percent of the people are now swinging in the wind, yet American's remain silent. At what point will they take action, 30%, 40%, 50%? Unrestricted capitalism is a zero sum game and like it or not, we are the zero's. It is important to end the escalation now before it reaches you. If you don't do for your brothers, no one will be there for you! Time is up! It's time to act!
Pay no attention to the writers, fake leaders, etc., who push you to act in place of them. Follow only those who are leading both mentally and physically by leading the charge in person. Discard the rest. Only action counts now.
STONE -- i don't recall exactly which famous thinker it was that said:
"FOREIGN WARS are merely DOMESTIC POLITICS by other means...in reality they are also WAR against the DOMESTIC POPULATION...they always come hand in hand".
I think it was any of : Ludwig von Mises, or even Claus von Clausewitz the famous war theoretician.
of course this has been said many times through history - but americans just never learn them.
EVEN if James Madison warned:
"TO THE WAGING OF FOREIGN WARS SHOULD BE CHARGED THE LOSS OF LIBERTIES AT HOME...FOR THEY COME HAND IN HAND".
IN THE end:
WARS foreign and domestic - are always ECONOMIC and CLASS war by the rich and powerful against others....domestic or foreign.
the TRUE enemy is always the Moneyed Class.
this is why they do everything against 'socialism' for it will destroy their privileges. and render them to be no more than ordinary people just like everyone else - and might ACTUALLY have to work for a living or actually rely on useful and creative means of doing it, rather than by counting
"dividends" and "money" and "wealth".
Looks like we will be sacrificing senators and congressthugs to the gods for good health.
Perhaps their first born as well...
Pelosi, Waxman and Reid are responsible for this mess. But the primary responsibility lies with Obama for bringing it up at the wrong time, letting Pelosi, et al write this piece of garbage and increasing the profits for the very people thay are beating about the head and shoulders.
I'm not even sure these Bozo's can pass anything at this point...a Public Option certainly will not pass.
Lies and misrepresentations only serve if folks don't have time to look at them.
The responsibility lies with Obama, all right, but for choosing Rahm Emanuel for his front man and ignoring his Democratic base. He will royally screw up healthcare as he is screwing up Afghanistan, Iraq and human rights and likely be a one-term president. 2012 could just be the year of a breakout for a third party--assuming any of the third parties do their homework and organize locally a whole lot better than any of them have done so far.
"Healthcare Apartheid" -- excellent description.
While the insurance racketeers are delighted with the short-term profits they'll reap from this accelerating deterioration of the social fabric, they blindly fail to consider the ultimate consequences of Apartheid where it originated in South Africa.
When working people cannot obtain medical care for themselves, they become angry. When they cannot obtain it for their children, they become very angry.
Consider the equation: Millions of very angry people + Second Amendment + ammo cheaper than medicine = ??
The critical variables are how many & how angry. When the values hit a critical level, duck & cover.
The back of the bus analogy is an understatement. Millions of Americans will be lucky to hop a slow moving freight train. The criminalizeed uninsured will be walking with a ball and chain around their ankle.
Call Pelosi and other House leaders and ask them to KEEP the Kucinich Amendment permitting states to have single payer plans. Here is the contact info:
http://www.calnurses.org/
Corporate money is corrupting Washington's core. Moyers suggested in a commentary on health care reform that absolutely nothing will change until the "For Sale" sign is removed from Washington.
He is right.
Campaign finance reform and electoral reform have to become priorities immediately and for the long term.
I appreciate your recommendation, but at this point in our countries history unless you can attach a $100,000 check to your recommendation, like big business does, you will be ignored.
Exactly, I called just for kicks. I also called my rep and Senators. I did not attache a fat check, so I can be assured the calls were only for kicks.
This is not accidental.
Afterall, you have to reduce the surplus population somehow...
To reduce the population, get government out of the way so that same sex marriages can increase, women can perform abortions freely, companies can keep poisoning customers, and everyone can purchase guns and shoot each other out. That's the only way I know of reducing the population surplus. What did you have in mind?
"That's the only way I know of reducing the population surplus."
A brief study of history will reveal to you many more ways.
I studied history in high school and college and I thought that the less government got in the way, the less the population increase. Outlawing same sex marriages, restricting abortions, gun control, and subsidizing oil companies is what I call government meddling with people's and business's affairs. I think government needs to get out of the way so that people and the markets not subsidized by government will keep the population in control.