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Federal Enforcement To Be Used Against You, But Not To Protect You From The Insurance Companies
There is no better proof that the Senate bill is a massive giveaway to the health care industry than the radically different enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate and the new insurance regulations. This Senate bill will force you to buy insurance from only private insurance companies. It will use the power of the federal government in the form of the IRS to make sure you buy private health insurance.
While the Senate bill will technically put some new regulations on the books, it will not use the power of the federal government to make sure the health insurance companies are following them. Enforcement of new regulations is left completely up to the states, which, for the most part, have an extremely poor track record at this function.
This Senate bill will use the power of the federal government to force you to buy a very expensive product, but it refuses to use the power of the federal government to ensure this product meets even minimum standards of quality. It uses the sledge hammer of federal power to force middle class families to hand their money over to private insurance corporations, but handles the extremely powerful insurance companies with the soft kid gloves by leaving regulation enforcement up to the states. The imbalance of power between middle class consumers and insurance companies produced by this bill is shocking.
The House bill uses the power of the federal government in three ways to hold the insurance companies honest. It creates a national exchange with a national insurance regulation enforcement mechanism. It creates a national public health insurance option to serve as a check and benchmark for the private insurance companies. And, finally, it repeals the health insurance companies’ anti-trust exemption. These tools help put regular Americans on a more even footing against the private insurance companies.
It is both immoral and financially reckless to do what the Senate bill does. It uses the power of the federal government to force people to buy private insurance and gives the private insurance companies hundreds of billions in federal funds. Yet it does not use the power of the federal government to police the insurance companies to make sure they are not wasting the billions in federal funds they receive, or abusing their millions of federally mandated customers.
No one left, right, or center should accept this system which puts regular people in such a weak position compared to the private corporations with which they are force to do business. Attempts to justify the individual mandate by comparing it to Swiss, Dutch, or Belgian health care ignores the reality of those systems. Not other country forces people into such a powerless, subservient position compared to private companies. The Senate bill does not create social contract guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for everyone in exchange for mandating the buying of health insurance. It just forces people to buy a poor-quality product from an extremely wasteful, predatory, and poorly regulated industry.
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48 Comments so far
Show AllWell said, Jon Walker. If Gandhi were here, I believe he would say, "When you become un-employed, DON'T buy the private health insurance with the money you need to pay your rent and to feed yourselves. When the IRS sends you the fine, DON'T PAY IT. When they come to arrest you, YOU GO. In masses, the people should show they ARE NOT going to take this and will go to the jails where it will cost the government money to keep you and to provide you with healthcare. They don't want that! The government cannot continue with this mafia-style of 'government' if the people REFUSE to put up with it." As he did with the salt telling people it should not be taxed because it was a necessity to everyone's body -- health care is a RIGHT and we will NOT be strong-armed into handing over money we need for food and rent just so we don't get a different bill from the IRS. THE THREATS HAVE TO END, BUT THEY WON'T UNLESS WE REFUSE TO PUT UP WITH THEM!
Well said, truthseeker. This is a chance for "We the People" to become a small force to be reckoned with. After all the years of griping on various web sites, THIS is the chance! Anyone stepping up to pay ANYTHING involving this
"health-of-corporate-industry" rape should hang their heads in shame. I say start RIGHT NOW and no 2009 taxes paid! Courage doesn't come easy but it will come IF YOU LET IT!
And Kucinich admonished his audiences the same.
but "small force" is akin to "griping on" web sites.
I come from the recent 'otherside', and they are much more disgusted than the "Libtards", as they oft fume against especially the progressives.
take heart, we are all "The People" – both sides now.
Many of my recent friends, looking far downfield, considering the opposition,have chosen to simply QUIT. Thats correct. Perhaps it is easier for them, perhaps economically not. But it is how they see "Courage", and saving not only the Nation, in the long term, but their remaining wealth, and personal integrity.
If they can muster this, thinking folks on this side can figure out a way also.
tax evasion, has been tried, as has armed insurrection, but will fail completely.
A "small force", as in an Individual, making real and complete change, escapes the filter(s). Be that small change, non-idiots will follow. But don't expect to change this IndustrialGovernmentComplex.
A .gov controller I used to argue with endlessly finally said to me: Use the time you have left, to take care of you and yours. I understand that he was doing exactly that, himself.
I have no intention of paying but I bet you won't be able to refuse. If you have a job they'll garnish your wages. If you have savings, they'll take it. If you have neither, then they pay it for you.
the last part "If you have neither, then they pay it for you."
Who will enforce that? They promised to fix home owners with underwater mortgages too. I think less than one percent of applications has been helped just a little bit so far.
Better idea Truthseeker, when the Senate passes this bill, go to the Senate web site and see if either of your Senators voted for this obombanation.(Yes the spelling is on purpose!) If they did, get together with your fellow citizens and start collecting names on a recall petition. It is long pass time that our elected officials had to face the consequences for voting against the people and for the corporations! And please, don't listen to the psychobabblers who will tell you that this bill has some really good things in it, because it doesn't, not for us! What the idiots are going to tell us is that we need to pass this piece of crap, and then we can come back next year and fix it! Right, when the dumb asses in this country vote the republicans back into power they will fix this so called healthcare reform really good! What this is, is the typical Senate solution for every problem, throw our money at the corporations and all is well!
Then while you are busy recalling your Senators you can contact Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney and beg the two of them to run against Obama and Biden in the 2012 elections. Then perhaps, just perhaps the Dumbacrats will get the message that we are as serious as a heart attack about taking this country back from the corporations. If we gang up on these losers, we can show the idiots like Rahm Emanuel that yes, we progressives have somewhere else besides the corporate elites to turn to!
no wonder they're building more prisons...with all us homeless, potsmoking healthcare non-buyers, they'll need lots of cells...
if we go to jail as a form of protest, what's to say we'd ever get out again?
what if, instead of refusing to buy healthcare and going to jail, we refuse both buying healthcare and going to jail?
Of course they will have to let everyone out. Who's going to pay the taxes to keep us in jail? It certainly won't be the rich. They need the criminals outside working to pay for their own jails.
When the rich decide not to pay the keep for their prisoners, they don't release them. They exterminate them.
But what about those for-profit prisons they are building at such an alarming rate. Loss that money coming in? Nah.
Gary
dead people are sure less trouble...how many people do you think 'the rich' require, and what would they have those people doing? we need air and water and food and shelter and sex...what else? electronic gadgets, yachts, mansions, cars, clothes, jewelry, cosmetics...then there are airplanes and hotels and massages...ooh, I forgot 'personal' services...I guess there will still be some things to do before we run out of planet...
would the people be doing it willingly, or to avoid being palced alongside their fellows behind bars? that doesn't sound very pleasant, or equitable...slavery?
I've only been behind bars once, and not for more than an hour or so, but I will say that my overwhelming impression was: I can't leave until they let me out...
I didn't like it at all...thank whoever that my jailers were not hateful to me...I would have had no recourse whatsoever...
placing myself under these conditions, intentionally, to make some kind of point, doesn't strike me as wise negotiating...
well, if we are imprisoned at least we may get some healthcare.
The corporatist blew-dawg Dems and the corporate chicken-white-hawk Repubs are tyrants and totalitarians of the same feather. Goose-stepping onto the total corporatist-fascist-greed police state, with Pres. Obama at the head of the pee-raid... Maybe the teabaggers are on to something... Forcing people to buy "health insurance" from unregulated private insurance corporations is undoubtedly unconstitutional. It is certainly vile and evil.
Out in sunny and crime-ridden Oakland, California, the clowns on our city council just voted to give $182,000 of our property tax dollars to a sculptor who is planning to plunk a twenty-foot monstrosity in a local park to honor some 25 "heroes" including corporatist pig Pres. Clinton, who gave us NAFTA and whose media deregulation bill gave us a concentrated corporate fascist media machine that propagandizes us 24/7. What a truly stupid waste of our money...
This sculpture is supposed to honor "peace," like when Pres. Clinton ordered the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan?
Revisionist history seems to be the calling of those in power.
The self styled liberal Democrats share blame for not forcing the hands of the blew dogs and Republicans.
A "liberal" senator from my state voted for the 2003 Medicare drug bill, voted for the TARP and voted for the current corporate welfare program disguised as health care reform, each time telling her constituents that "any bill is better than no bill".
Jon Walker and others have clearly shown that the existing dysfunctional US health care system is nowhere near as bad as Obamacare will be.
>>Revisionist history seems to be the calling of those in power.<< Control of history IS power. Read 1984.
Gary
from an undisclosed source in Congress
Read it and weep - especially if passed!!!!
• Forces you to pay up to 8% of
your income to private insurance
corporations – whether
you want to or not.
• If you refuse to buy the insurance,
you’ll have to pay penalties
of up to 2% of your annual
income to the IRS.
• Many will be forced to buy
poor-quality insurance they
can’t afford to use, with
$11,900 in annual out-of-
pocket expenses over and
above their annual premiums.
• Massive restriction on a wo-
man’s right to choose, designed
to trigger a challenge to Roe v.
Wade in the Supreme Court.
• Paid for by taxes on the middle-
class insurance plan you have
right now through your employer,
causing them to cut back
benefits and increase copays.
• Many of the taxes to pay for the
bill start now, but most Americans
won’t see any benefits –
like an end to discrimination
against those with preexisting
conditions – until 2014, when
the program begins.
• Allows insurance companies
to charge people who are older
300% more than others.
• Grants monopolies to drug
companies that will keep generic
versions of expensive
biotech drugs from ever coming
to market.
• No re-importation of prescription
drugs, which would save
consumers $100 billion over
10 years.
• The cost of medical care will
continue to rise, and insurance
premiums for a family
of four will rise an average of
$1,000 a year – meaning, in
10 years, your family’s insurance
premium will be $10,000
more annually than it is right
now.
But I could be wrong !
*** Comment deleted by site administrators for using all capital letters. ***
see: http://www.commondreams.org/comment-policy
all true and you can forget about medical pot and other homeopathic medicines. The media and leading Democrats say that only the far right and aryans oppose Obama's Health Care Bill, which one (or both) are you? The media uses the claim of racism to stifle dissent. Thanks progressives for electing this guy, Obama!
Yes, lots of progressives voted for Obama. And so did lots of Dems and Rs and lots and lots of Independents. You might just as well blame Bush and the Republicans for being so revolting that anybody looked better.
Since I don't know you, I can't know why you would blame only progressives for this latest debacle of DC powermongers. If it comes from media and talk show hosts you are being manipulated. The name of the game is divide and conquer. The game is as old as the hills and both sides fall for it. It's also called finding a scapegoat and sometimes its an action called a "false flag", a good example being the burning of the Reichstag in Weimar Germany--fire set by Nazis who then blamed the communists. "First, they came for the communists..."
By the way, the media uses a lot more than racism to stifle dissent.
cassandra ...I like you.
I have read this site for maybe 6? years,
and you seem an old hand here. perhaps i am mistaken.
This health care thing is no different than the wars,
the 'security', the carbon trading, the false flags in general,
our 'national' economy
...
Can not the extremely eloquent folks on this board perceive,
where the 'intelligence agencies' seem to drop so many balls,
er, dots?
What else besides money (they have it all by now) is driving this machine?
That answer/realization would truly be "progressive". Natch, revolutionary.
first_and_second--Thank you for kind thoughts. I've been commenting here about 2 years. Sometimes I make people angry, altho I just try to present a different perspective or path to the same goal.
This machine seems to be on auto-pilot. "We want it all" seems to be the mantra.
Among other strategies, Gandhi called for a boycott of foreign goods. We must consider boycotting wherever and whenever we can those goods and services provided by big corporations, domestic or foreign.
Gandhi also encouraged Indians to boycott "British educational institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, and to forsake British titles and honours."* I don't know how this translates into the American situation, and I have to doubt that middle class middle management, professionals, etc. would leave their positions. I don't know whether the middle class fully realizes the situation this country is in, any more than the supposedly clueless less-educated Fox-viewing masses.
I also wonder how much the lower middle and poorer classes will sympathize since they will not be forced to purchase the medical insurance. However, the best chance for needed reforms will only occur, I believe, when 'class action' includes all classes.
* Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Non-cooperation
Boycott? Y'all got your economic/class warfare RIGHT here! US "boomers" have
voluntarily saved and are debt-free. We have much other elective
"insurance". We can cancel those policies, take the cash "value"
and invest it instead for SELF INSURANCE (or NOT!): Maybe just
stick it in a mattress or safe (since the Wall Street-walking
Bernanksters are neither lending nor paying sufficient interest,
in any case)! Going down? And O, (Won't) See you, come November!
Sell THAT to your BC/BS bank-rollers!! THEY LOSE!!!
Except when they devalue the currency. Bed full of toilet paper.
And exactly whom runs for office ("come November") that isn't on the 'payroll'?
Gramp's, perhaps you're not so old after all.
Who ever imagined that Obama's healthcare "reform" could actually outdo Bu$h's Medicare Part D in spades? I did realize that almost anything is possible with our current congess, and it was said even last summer that the healthcare bill to come from congress could be worse than the current bronken system. But holy Moses, I simply didn't think they could create a system that makes our current system of healthcare look halfway decent. I must admit, our current congressmotherfuckers never cease to amaze me with the levels of corruption they can reach and then be praised for passing "landmark" legislation by our less than worthless preznit.
Truthseeker, I couldn't agree with your sentiments more.It's way past time to actively fight back. The rule of law in this country has completely ceased to function. Money rules. Congress is now consistantly passing unconsitituional legislation...meaning it is illegal. How can you break an illegal law? Awwww never mind...you don't need to answer that.
Next the Obamacracy will use the power of the Federal Government to force you to buy crappy GM cars
That is not so far fetched. Forcing purchases of health care insurance is the beginning of a very slippery slope. If "the government" can force one purchase it can force more.
Yes, it's called "military procurement". But if you're lucky, you don't have to drive the damn thing.
Next they will give "tax breaks" and subsidies to buy "more fuel efficient" automobiles. Next step is to mandate doing so. Not much of a believer in Slippery Slope arguments as most slopes are not slippery but this on may slide.
Gary
Proponents of the idiotic senate bill that would require We the People to purchase a product from a corporation is unconstitutional. The absurd notion that the Commerce Clause in the US Constitution allows this rape of the Amerikkkan people is patently stupid and ridiculous.
Oh! Silly me, I forgot. We don't have a constitution any more. Bush/Cheney/Obama shredded that once august document.
Until the left wing in Amerikkka becomes as radicalized as the right wing, things will only get worse.
See you in the camps.
I think my name explains my current perceptions.
Radicalization is, however not something that assists
Left, or Right. The answer is not political I state.
Nor religious, for the Right has been equally tainted,
It's Jesus drugged and indefinitely imprisoned.
The "camps" you fear would be a 'salvation'.
The answer is truly, within each of us.
As is "Health".
Stand for it, nothing else.
>>Radicalization is, however not something that assists
Left, or Right. The answer is not political I state.<<
>>The answer is truly, within each of us.<<
Within ME is the anger that people are so apathetic. And caught up with finding the cheapest commodity and what diet they are on and what happened on their favorite soap opera. While millions are without basic healthcare, nor will they get it under the "reform" bill.
Gary
Universal Health Care is the only moral option.
Maybe some young bright light will start a new "health insurance" company, say called "Pot Luck Insurance" and charge folks, say only $25 or $50 per year and you get "pot luck," or basically just a few sheets of paper that really don't cover your health expenses much (like some real private ins. co. today), but may pass muster with the bully-boy feds: See, I've paid for my health insurance... "I'm under the umbrella of Pot Luck..." Just a thought, but maybe someone else can flesh out this as a way of defeating the coming fed. indiv. mandate.
We already have Powerball. Ditch your health insurance (if you can) and spend several hundred dollars a month on Powerball. Your odds of being able to afford health care will increase dramatically.
As far as "Pot Luck Insurance" goes, that's pretty much what mandated car insurance is. You have to pay for it, but you would never dare to use it.
"Looking back, it seems we got neither Malcolm nor Morello, but Pygmalion" Matt Drayton
Obama as Horror Story.
At the dawn of the new millenium, War mongering greed zombies steal the government and rain down despair and death. Then finally, after eight years of unspeakable torture, a hero sweeps into the dungeon , beaming light and he rescues US.
As we are about to walk through the door of freedom, the hero turns and faces US. The light beams in his smile.
"But but....those are fangs. Oh god he's one of them. No! No! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
How much worse does it have to get before you know the score?
Health care is a NEED and a government that claims to be "by the people. for the people" has a DUTY to provide it. This present "reform" bill enshrines "health care as a commodity" and a complete perversion of our representatives responsibility to us as the people. So not one cent to private health "care" insurance! Make all drugs generic and ban patents on drugs! Demand through general strikes that endless war must stop! Place whatever money you can honestly spare into a collective escrow account and allow groups such as Organic Consumers Association use it to convert more wasteland back to healthy soil, plant trees with it or simply negotiate as groups to help one another and negotiate directly with health care providers including "alternative" health care providers. Time to build a new society right in the middle of the belly of the beast!
trapped in the belly of the beast...
and the beast is dying.
And exactly what health care product produces such vivid 'dreams'?
Or is this simply an onsite illusion?
My newsletter from here refered (sorry;) to common 'nightmares'!
Joe, ... THINK outside the box, remember?
>>Make all drugs generic and ban patents on drugs!<<
And thereby make sure no research on new and better drugs is done...
Gary
Another day closer to Mandatory Health Insurance and
not a single question from ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN
or MSNBC as to where the Federal Government finds the
authority to force people to pay a for profit corporation for
their "service" (which can be denied).
A few more days and it probably won't matter. The
4th estate has been dead, if this doesn't confirm, nothing will.
And people were telling me Obama is a Constitutional Scholar.
Well I think he owes us more than a lame comparison to
auto insurance, which as he well knows is a State matter.
I'm struck by the fact that surely if Mcain had won (and
campaigned against mandatory insurance like Obama did)
and then cooked up a plan (while arresting nurses and
doctors who spoke up for single payer) that required
people to buy a "product" from the insurance industry
they would support that, just like they support this boondoggle.
Surely they would. [...]
If Mccain had won, we would be at war with Iran,,,
The lessor of two evils is the righful president. Our votes were not rigged stolen or circumvented by the supreme court this time.
I had to put up with Bush/Chenney-the patriot act-homeland security right wing tea party christian 24/7 surveillance/gang stalking torture , for the last two years of the Bush presidency.
Now you right wingers are all about speaking up when it comes to intrusion of goverment, what the hell have you been doing to shut down the most intrusive piece of legeslation in America,,,, The Patriot Act.
You were all about wearing your stazi brown shirts while Bush was in office.
Perhaps the most important thing we as Progressives can fight for now is for the Kucinich amendment allowing states to "opt out" and form their OWN SINGLE PAYER PROGRAM to be brought back in to the House side of the bill.
Of course this would probably be a poison pill to the bill, as the Senate would never allow it. (Not that I'd be crying if this despotic and regressive legislation got killed with a stake through it's heart).
Why?
How did Canada finally find a Single Payer health care system that, for all intents and purposes, eliminated the for-profit insurance corporations from their health care equation?
They took one province as a template and instituted Single Payer. And when it was shown to be a success and people liked it, it was replicated throughout the rest of the country.
And don't even go to The Mass Plan!!! It is a FAILURE with a capital "F"!
I spent the better part of last year in The Berkshires of western Massachusetts and while there I became involved with the PNHP chapter of doctors and others. During that time I got an eyeful in the local paper and an earful from the locals of how bad The Mass Plan is.
Think about it. Any plan that was conceived by MITT ROMNEY couldn't possibly truly care about individual citizens healthcare and rights!
Go to this website to read the truth about The Mass Plan:
www.masshealthlawtruth.org
We need to be smart about what we're doing with our time and efforts.
If (and I know it's a big "if") we can put all our efforts over the next few weeks into forcing the Progressive Caucus to DEMAND that the states should have a right to "opt out" and create their own Single Payer systems (and let's face it....LOTS of Republicans should go along with this one!), then I think California (where I just moved) should take the lead once there's a new governor (Jerry Brown?) to institute a Canadian style system exactly the way Canada did. NOT A SYSTEM LIKE MASSACHUSETTS!!!
But a system where the people of California can work together to craft a health care bill from the grass roots up, perhaps based on the best of other industrialized nations systems that could be gleaned from T.R. Reid's book, "The Healing of America".
California's legislature has already passed state health care legislation that Ahhnald vetoed.
If we activists can get the Kucinich amendment back into their lousy bill, at least California (and other states) will have the right to go their own way and not be held hostage by the rotten for-profit health care corporations.
The vast majority of us want those corporations to go the way of the dinosaurs. Perhaps the best way to start is to take Canada's lead and make California the state all the others envy.
And here's a great video from our neighbor to the north that was created by the very guy who brought Single Payer health care to Canada:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqpFm7zAK90
I will start working today to get PNHP in Chicago, Health Care NOW! activists and others to start lobbying every member to The Progressive Caucus in the House to DEMAND that the Kucinich amendment be placed back into the bill.
First call....Kucinich.
Comments/ideas much appreciated!
"How did Canada finally find a Single Payer health care system ...They took one province as a template and instituted Single Payer. And when it was shown to be a success and people liked it, it was replicated throughout the rest of the country."
So true! This is what the US has to do if only it can get a vanguard state to step forward.
Also, though, there is no Tommy Douglas to push this through and perhaps no state as progressive as Saskatchewan in the '40's...EXCEPT maybe Bernie Sanders and Vermont, respectively??
Until the American people actually have the guts to REFUSE TO COOPERATE with the continuing shakedown being perpetrated against them by their so-called "elected" officials, there will be ever worse demands imposed on them by the very same perpetrators those "elected" officials actually work for.
It's the same old same-old. For at least 30 years, government has increasingly become an agent of take-from-the-politically-diffuse-and-give-to-the-politically-well-connected.
Whenever I want to know whether a bill being considered in Congress will be of any real benefit to the average citizen, all I have to do is listen to the evening stock-market report. If the financial markets go up, I know that legislation, if passed, is gonna screw me somehow. If the markets go down, that must mean there's the slight possibility of something progressive happening.