From Physicians for natl Health Program:

March 22, 2010

Dear PNHP colleagues and friends,

We have some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that the president’s health plan, which was drafted by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, will leave about 23 million Americans uninsured and over 100 million Americans underinsured nine years after implementation.  PNHP’s press release and a chart comparing the reconciliation bill to single payer follow below.  Activists are encouraged to send them to their local media contacts and physician colleagues.

The good news is that there is growing awareness that the bill won’t work, and, sooner rather than later, we need single-payer national health insurance.  As noted by Harvard economist Dr. William Hsiao, the architect of Taiwan’s successful health reform, “You can have universal coverage and good quality health care while still managing to control costs.  But you have to have a single-payer system to do it.”

What you can do:

1. Talk to the press.  Please forward the following press release, chart
, and key PNHP research findings
to your local media with a cover note that you would be willing to be interviewed (if you are!).

2. Publish opinion pieces in the medical and lay press.  Use the following materials (recycle our prose as you wish!) for letters to the editor, op-eds, and other articles. PNHP communications director Mark Almberg can help with editing and submitting articles for publication.  .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

3. Deliver grand rounds, or invite a PNHP speaker.  PNHP will have new slides on health policy in the Obama era and the reconciliation bill soon.  Please contact Dave Howell at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you would like a PNHP speaker or would like a copy of our new slide set when it comes out.

Because of the enormous power of the insurance and drug companies, we in PNHP have always known that ours is a long-term struggle.  Of the women who participated in the Seneca Falls convention, only two survived to see women win the right to vote.  Susan B. Anthony was not not one of them, but her final words on her deathbed were “failure is impossible.”  We agree.

In memory of the 45,000 Americans who die annually for lack of health insurance, and in memory of the many tireless activists for single-payer national health insurance and health care as a human right who died this year, including Dr. Linda Farley, Dr. David Prensky, Dr. John Shearer, Dr. Bud Goodrich, PNHP staffer Nicholas Skala, and others, PNHP will continue the struggle.

With your help, failure is impossible.

In solidarity,
 
Quentin Young, MD
National Coordinator   Ida Hellander, MD
Executive Director

In August my Rep. Mazie Hirono signed the Progessive Caucus Pledge to vote NO on any Health Care Bill without a Public Option. 60 other Dems signed that Pledge - Including ‘The Honorable” [?] Dennis Kucinich.

Yesterday, only 34 Dems voted NO. Neither Hirono, nor Kucinich were among the 34. The breakdown can be found at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afh__O4XRDwc&pos=8

I scanned the list, and I think most of the No votes from Dems were from ‘Blue-Dogs’

As I promised Hirono in August, I will be actively campaigning against her re-election. Time to get busy and elect some Independents. The Primary Elections are the best place to beat these assholes.

Sharpen your knives, and put your writing skills to work…

The “we” is everyone, rfidler; right now, only people that can afford it get medical care (and that is to say, they can afford to pay out pocket when their insurance company inevitably decides they should die to protect profits), and thus it is not “guaranteed” to anyone, because fortunes can fall with the drop of a hat, and only single-payer systems offer equitable, high quality care to everyone.  THE END.

If Dems were so “concerned” about extending health care to “the poor” why did they vote down Rep Burgess (R) amendmentt to raise medicaid payment levels to that of medicare? An avg office visit payment for medicaid in $29. Try to find a dr who can afford to take that.

I come from a family that works 16 hours a day 7 days a week (dairy farmers).
We make what we need and do not buy what we do not need. My girlfriend and
I lived in a VW camper from 1970 to 1977 and a 17’ Traveleze trailer from
1977 to 1990 when we paid cash for our place.

Perhaps many of your health problems can be traced to your lifestyle. Living
in polluted cities, drinking water that hogs turn up their noses at, eating
processed food and breathing brown air is obviously so much better than hard
work in a clean environment.

Yeah, it was probably just luck.

By Hulk2008, March 22 at 11:07 am #

To stcfarms:

Goes to show you the old adage is true:
“It’s better to be lucky.”

lichen:
“while we the people will still lack high quality guaranteed healthcare.”

Who’s this “we”? I have excellent high quality guaranteed health care here on the east coast. So do all my friends and neighbors, and my family. Where do you live?

Next,SINGLE PAYER let’s start the ball rolling.

To stcfarms:

We then should congratulate your grandparents on their great fortune.  They not only owned a farm, they also had marvelous health - no pre-existing conditions, no in-born heart defects, no congenital bone problems, and they survived the various pandemics of the early 1900’s - whooping cough, polio, diptheria, et al.

Not all immigrants to the US were quite so fortunate - able to get land or avoid diseases or have built-in DNA advantages.  (Yes .... ALL people in the US are immigrants or their descendants - NObody popped directly out of US soil.)  By contrast, statistics prove that most people face health problems.

Goes to show you the old adage is true:
“It’s better to be lucky.”

My grandparents grew their own food, pumped their own water and made
their own electricity, to them the great depression was just an inconvenience.
They lived to be 96 (grandpa) and 101 (grandma) without health insurance
because they did not eat the poisonous food from agribusiness.

When someone needed a barn everyone built it, they traded tools, food and
labor without greed being a factor. No one went hungry and no one got rich
but they all lived to a ripe old age.  They learned to cooperate because there
was no help from the government, just like there is no help from the
government now.

You are right that the sheep will not cooperate with each other, I offered
Tennessee Socialist a job that would get him out of the hole that he has dug
for himself but he would rather beg his masters for crumbs.

“You can always spot an honest politician, six feet above his head is a large
granite stone with his name on it”

By idarad, March 22 at 7:58 am #

Nice thought, but remember these are people who line up on thanksgiving
outside wallyworld to save 10 bucks on christmas crap made in China.  They
couldn’t organize a block party let alone set up a peoples insurance company. 

HOUSE PASSES HEALTH CARE REFORM?????

No they didn’t.
That’s the first lie after the vote.
It’s all downhill from here.
And it’ll be years before anybody knows how bad it
really is.

Right wingers never run out of threats and hyperbole.  Everything is a fight to the death and more. 

    Since Minority Leader Bonehead declared this would be “Armageddon”, and since all the righties believe in literal biblical prophesies, JB should be ecstatic - by the fundamentalist logic, the final battle will be over, the reign of God will ensue, and the end of the world will occur soon. 

In the meantime, the poor will get insurance, Bonehead will pay a little more for his tanning sessions and green fees, and the US can move to other topics.  The Repugs will call for more and more money for “defense”. 

Ironically, the Repugs are also resisting all financial reforms.  Is it really possible for them to declare multiple Armageddons ?  If they are so “tough”, why do they need so much for “defense” ?

This is what I’ve read. I want to know WTF is not said…

INSURANCE MARKET REFORMS: [1] Starting this year, insurers would be forbidden from placing lifetime
dollar limits on policies, [2] from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, and [3]
from canceling policies because someone gets sick. Parents would be able to keep older kids on their
coverage up to age 26. A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical
problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion goes into high gear. [4] Major consumer safeguards
would also take effect in 2014. [5] Insurers would be prohibited from denying coverage to people with
medical problems or charging them more. Insurers could not charge women more.


1. Limits to lifetime dollar amounts but can they raise rates at an unlimited pace? Forcing people to drop
the coverage because they simple can’t afford it?

5. Is this pre-existing conditions clause for adults? If so why not just say “from denying coverage to ALL
people with pre-existing conditions.” ??

SUBSIDIES: The proposal provides more generous tax credits for purchasing insurance than the original
Senate bill did. The aid is available on a sliding scale for households making up to four times the federal
poverty level, $88,200 for a family of four. Premiums for a family of four making $44,000 would be
capped at around 6 percent of income.

So basically our tax dollars are going to subside not our neighbors health but their insurance premium?

stc farms -The new law states that everyone must buy insurance. Perhaps it is time for the people to start their own insurance company.”

Nice thought, but remember these are people who line up on thanksgiving outside wallyworld to save 10 bucks on christmas crap made in China.  They couldn’t organize a block party let alone set up a peoples insurance company.  Seems like the only way to have status and standing in these here “Untidy States” is to become a corporation.

I think KDelphi correct in both assumptions, but, if its all the same to her Ill stay with the two ply….....

We do not know for a fact that pols have in mind or worry ab the costs of a good health care. So, drawing assumptions ab what`s up wld have to do for now.

My assumption is that they were ordered to once again deny people`s right to medical treatment because that wld cause clamor for more rights!

It is a fear of rise of an egalitarian society. And every pol may know that she or he must prevent it or else… tnx!

From 1936 to 1939 3,000,000 Germans left the regime. They prospered while
the morons that loved the regime went down in flames. As ex pats they were
immune from debt and shame of the regime. Look around you, it is 1939 and
the fatherland needs you on the eastern front.

The high cost of heath care and low wages ensures a good supply of soldiers.
If you can get good care elsewhere for a tenth of the price in America then
leaving is cheap. When you leave each slave gets stuck with more debt even as
a great burden is lifted off of your back.

“Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.” Georges Santayana.

The Dems wil lose the House, and, the GOP will defund this and Dems will say, “See”? We tried??! But those awful GOP”...but Obama wil be re-elected before this awful bill has its effects..good luck to Dems after that! Or not…

state cuts to medicaid cause 60% of drs not to take it…you can use your medicaid card to wipe your ass, I guess…:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/health/policy/16medicaid.html

Yeah! I was waiting for the Republicans Bill, that way I
could pay my invisible medical bill with my invisible
money!

This is so so much MSM crap, touting the ‘house’ passage of a
WEALTHCARE bill and making grandiose the ‘hard work’ of
getting the votes to pass this house version.

Seems I should look at the current bill on ‘Tracking Congress’
but it seems more important to take note about the LACK of
information about what is in the bill or what was left out and
how the people will be affected and how the private insurance
corporations will make out and what are the mandates.

I dare to assume for now that it will require the people to pay a
private corporation a monthly stipend most probably to keep
from going to jail but it DOES go to the senate and boy howdy
will that ever be a 3 ring circus jerk for america because the best
part is that there will most likely still be NO public option.

And I bet that it will take at least another year for the senate to
pass their version of the bill, after that, I am not sure if it goes
back to the house due to the re-alterations in the senate or if it
goes straight to the big o himself.

Whatever, this is definitely what is lacking or is distorted in the
MSM being passed on to the dumbandnumbstream americans.

Maybe the white house and congressional reporters will devote
their whole 5 or 6 minutes on the white house and congress’
hard won fight to pass this bill; with a commercial within the
reports.

Yes, this is a great boon to the murderous insurance industry, which will continue to deny care and make billions with the help of the democrud, while we the people will still lack high quality guaranteed healthcare.

By Commune115, March 21 at 10:31 pm #

It is quite disgusting to see Pelosi and others actually selling people the propaganda that this vote settles the healthcare debate in America, or that it covers all Americans.

~*~*

So communie….why do you put yourself through it? Just turn off the TV and go back to your crack pipe.

The new law states that everyone must buy insurance. Perhaps it is time for
the people to start their own insurance company. There is power in numbers
and the health care industry will have to slash costs if the largest insurance
company demands it. Congress (both major parties and all the independents)
are criminals working for the highest bidder, do you really want them
controlling your health care? Wake up and smell the roses before they use
them to decorate your grave.

Cigna Gives $110.9 Million Compensation Package To Ex-CEO

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/cigna-gives-1109-million_n_506974.html

I wonder how much treatment was denied and how many people died to pay this scumbag?

And this worthless bill will do nothing to stop this in the future or even curtail it.

We need a single payer system yesterday!!

It is quite disgusting to see Pelosi and others actually selling people the propaganda that this vote settles the healthcare debate in America, or that it covers all Americans. Corporate insurance companies are celebrating tonight.