raydelcamino,

While do not dispute what you said, but agrees with everything. You and many other need to understand the once "Americans Dreams" It's gone! Even if our economy recovers, which I doubt. Just look at what's on your table, almost everything is made in "CHINA", including the very computer you are using. No need for me to go further.....

Raydelcamino -- Good points.

What has always been a little surprising in the U.S. is that corporations and businesses OUTSIDE the health care pork barrel have not fought for a national health care plan that would free them from paying for their employees health insurance premiums.

U.S. companies have been at a disadvantage in many cases against foreign companies because of health care costs. Auto manufacturing is an obvious case when the U.S. faces off with countries such as Japan or Germany, which have more efficient and less expensive health care systems (although hardly perfect)

For example:

For General Motors, health care costs add $1,525 to the price of every car that leaves the lot and the company estimates that it spent $5.2 billion on health care benefits in 2004, more than it paid for steel.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2008/11/18/170556/auto-health/

Since so many U.S. corporations and small businesses would benefit tremendously from a public single payer national health care system, it would have made sense for them to demand it from their lackeys in the political class. (Not because I have any faith in U.S. corporations to do anything far sighted or ethical but because they might have saved themselves money.)

However, it would have required some vision and organization to take on the concentrated power and wealth of the "health care" and pharmaceutical industry. Because of interlocking corporate boards, corporations owning multiple businesses, the ebb and flow of capital from banks & hedge funds, the overarching power of Wall Street and the "financialization" of the U.S. economy, perhaps it was always wishful thinking to imagine one sector of the U.S. corporate class--the industrial sector -- acting against another sector deeply rooted on Wall Street.

Since it is easy to confuse American voters with mass propaganda and hysteria (e.g. "death panels") -- there seems to be little hope of achieving a functional health care system that focuses on the public interest.

In general, it will be cheaper for businesses to simply eliminate employee insurance when they can or raise premiums and deductibles so high that it passes all the debt load onto their employees.

Although Obama's version of health care offers a few mitigating improvements, in general, it is a disaster for any authentic reform-- and a bonanza for corporate "health insurance" profits.

Interesting study in the New York Times showing that U.S. longevity problems -- dead last -- versus 12 other industrialized nations are entirely due to its awful health care system. (Number one in costs, however. The USA is still number one!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/30life.html

Just nitpicking here because you and I are definitely on the same team, Cencom. Your comments are spot on, as Thom would say. But every single Progressive I knew who might have been supportive used phrases beginning with "well, it's not what we want, but ....". And remember that right up to the very end this bill was rumored to include the "public option" (no comment on how idiotic that notion was, of course). Furthermore, the T-Par-T objections were not based in reality, so they were't factually "right".

I do so hope you are correct about getting further reform within your timeframe.

Thanks for your comments. Peace.

And the few times the MSM mentions Nader, it's to say the following:

1. He's a lifelong bachelor (*wink wink*).
2. He's an Ay-Rab (*wink wink*).
3. He has a history of trying to impose regulations on industry (no winks necessary).
4. He's a Greenie, sometimes (time for more winks?).
5. He repeatedly fancies himself a presidential candidate, but nobody takes him seriously, except the Greenies.
6. He stole the presidency from Al Gore (heard only in the "left blogosphere" along with no. 5; just ignore the cognitive dissonance!).

Siouxrose,

Great comment. I thought you might like to know that the Bergman title is itself an allusion to a quote from I Corinthians 13:9-12. In the King James Version it reads:

"We know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

If only we as a nation could become adults and put away childishness.

Good point about alternatives to pharmaceuticals, but if you break your leg or have a stroke or heart attack, you still need medical care and that's when you can go bankrupt!

Exactly! Thank you for this comment. We aren't going to solve anything until we examine our ideas about what medicine is, and what health care means. Sure there are emergency situations that will always need to be addressed, and that is one aspect of health care. But chronic disease is a massive factor driving the reliance on pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, as well as the propensity for heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, need for lifetime dialysis, organ transplants or major surgery.

Fortunately, these are preventable. There is an educated, trained and prepared army of radical healthcare workers in this country, the majority aren't medical doctors, and they are all in the business of mitigating chronic disease, helping people heal after catastrophic illness or trauma, and educating people about health lifestyle choices. They are acupuncturists, herbalists, nurses, midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, nutritionists, massage therapists, body workers, movement therapists, mental health workers, indigenous healers and spiritual workers. They hold the key to health care reform because they work from a model of wellness, not disease. They are not indentured servants of the pharmaceutical and insurance industry. When insurance and pharmaceuticals fail you, they are there to guide you on a path to real health, without the chemical and technology intensive, profit-driven practices that have inflate the costs of health care, disempower the individual, and destroy our environment in turn. They are real human beings who will treat you the same. Many will often accept barter from you when you can't afford your care. Their techniques are low tech and environmentally gentle, and can be taught to others.

These practitioners are organized. They are joining together to operate low cost, sliding scale clinics that do not deal with insurance, and keep the cost affordable enough to pay out of pocket. The Community Acupuncture Network is a great example of a grassroots medical model that is patient focused, not profit driven. If more and more of us turn to these practitioners for care, perhaps the medical doctors and surgeons will take note and join the team, or do their own radical organizing.