A single-payer system would be setup such that one entity—a government run organization—would collect all health care fees, and pay out all health care costs. All Americans would receive comprehensive medical benefits under single payer. Coverage would include all medically necessary services, including rehabilitative, long-term, and home care; mental health care, prescription drugs, and medical supplies; and preventive and public health measures. Care would be based on need, not on ability to pay. It seems like we are in need of more doctors and practitioners so that ample health care can be provided for all citizens at a prompt timing, without having to wait for so long. We require more specialists as well. Medical imaging is a highly specialized position in the medical field, where consultants are also called x-ray technicians or radio logic technologists, requires a specific skill set and certain licenses and/or certifications. If you are more keen in ultrasound technician, there are many Xray technician schools available that offers such online courses for you to embark on your ultrasound career.

“I am shocked, shocked to find out there is gambling going on here!” Can we once and finally, as a people get over our naive expectations that we can have a political system run entirely on wealth and corporate funding that still maintains independence from the will of donors. How are any of these revelations that our senators and congressmen do the bidding of the very lobbies that keep them in office new and disturbing? Until we address this core problem with the system, any discussions of policy and how it is adversely impacted as a result is purely academic.

http://www.jobs4medical.co.uk

RE: Inherit The Wind, May 18 at 2:46 pm #

We are saying the same thing from different directions. You look in and I look out. Though I do not rise to the futility to assume that I know truth at the moment of truth, I do look in the direction of truth, rather than in direction of my desires. You may not look at truth in the direction of your desires, but perhaps from the standpoint of futility. You give up before you reach the concept. Not an uncommon position. Practical and mundane, but not philosophical. Useful and productive, but not intellectual. That is where most of us live most of the time. Sorry I took this to the edge. Peace.

There is one main reason that Medicare is so “expensive”—privitization.

Between Medicare Advantage (so-called) and Part D (that horrid pharmaceutical industry bill), we cannot tell how expensive ACTUAL medical costs under Medicare are.

Also, they should not be lumping Medicare and Medicaid together.

We should be expanding Medicare to cover everyone, not talking about “reforming” social security and Medicare (ie cutting them) the way Geithner is talking…HR 676, by Reps Conyers, Kucinich and others, would cover every person, costing about 2% of GDP.

http://www.hr676.org

As AlterNet reports, the insurance industry is “backing off” the “savings” they promised, already.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/140051/that_didn’t_take_long:_insurance_industry_breaks_promise_to_pr

Anyone who believves that we can have a for-profit insurance industry, that provides for those that really need it, is seriously deluded. Then, Sen.,Obama may have backed off of single payer, even in his campaign, but, I think the reaction would have been much different, if he had been honest and said that “single payer is off the table”. He and Max just cant afford to give up the donations..theyre only multi-millionaires, after all…if this is the best that they can do (a giant gift to the insurance industry) than, they should do nothing…it will end up liek the Massa chusetts plan—-not everyone covered, too expensive, adn, ultimately,“prove conservative’s points”...

The only way Baucus could be so against the common population would be because he has assurances that the people will not be able to do anything about it with the vote, but the people should try and if they can’t then other means are in order.

foggyjones, May 18 at 7:41 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

the truth is, damnit,is that medicare has been taking up far to much of the national budget for a long time. they have diddled with this a long time and it is a diaster.

.....Yet Medicare has the lowest overhead of any federally funded program, at 3%.

only plan that makes any sense for the vast majority of people. one-care health care can work if well managed like in France and Sweden and even Canada.

..........Wouldnt a reformed Medicare program be ideally suited to such as that?

I have read that we have relative much worse health care than those three countries but we spend more per captia that any other nation.

....In fact we are 36th in the world in providing health care and spend almost two and one half times on said care than any other nation on earth.

that shows medicare is terrible wasteful and inefficient. Talk about hard numbers not notions and feelings.

.....No, that shows only that our private for-profit health care industry has mandated that medicare be made toothless and as inefficient as possible. They cannot accept competitive bids for services of any kind though the leverage would be enormous and the savings huge.

You seem to disregard that truth is beyond any concept of perfection that the mind can hold. It is like infinity. One realizes and recognizes that infinity is not reachable by definition and meaning. Yet in mathematics one can approach infinity to whatever increment of measure needed for the purpose. A peck of potatoes is close enough for grocery shopping. Angstrom units are needed for some physics.
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FG, you seem to have not understood a word I wrote.  Re-read it. There’s a philosophical underpinning there that you missed.

I don’t CARE if there’s an absolute truth in nature—the concept means NOTHING because we can never find it or achieve it, merely get closer to it.  Yet truth is a direction, without which reality crumbles into madness.

The mathematical concept of an infinitely close approach to infinity is merely a convenient tool to achieve certain mathematical concepts—such as instantaneous rates of change and the area under a curve.

RE: Inherit The Wind, May 18 at 8:14 am #

What you confuse with truth is the search for truth as an approach toward an assumed absolute. One never reaches absolute truth or God as certainties. Yet without the assumption of an absolute truth and/or God, the quest for what is true, or a practical approximation or useful assumption to say nothing of the legal fiction and dogmas, renders one impotent. Ceremonial truth is useful so far as it reaches in practical and functional value. Legal fictions are useful to maintain a safe association of people living in close association. Scientific hypotheses are useful as starts in scientific inquiry. Religious dogmas are useful in support of hope and faith to overcome despair and doom. Yet, it is the assumption of absolute truth and an unchanging God concept that allows room for error while in pursuit of perfection which will never be achieved.

Evolution is a natural operation of the experimental approach. Improvements are naturally encouraged and mistakes are naturally discouraged. Failures are eliminated. Man discovered evolution long before natural evolution was recognized. Social institutions are works in evolution. So are modern devices and inventions. None presume perfection and the search goes on.

You seem to disregard that truth is beyond any concept of perfection that the mind can hold. It is like infinity. One realizes and recognizes that infinity is not reachable by definition and meaning. Yet in mathematics one can approach infinity to whatever increment of measure needed for the purpose. A peck of potatoes is close enough for grocery shopping. Angstrom units are needed for some physics.

Finally what is true divides at an absolute boundary between existence and non-existence. At the dichotomy of true/false, truth becomes one at which point there is no non-truth. Thus truth itself is absolute with a single boundary of absolute value. Something is or is not true but cannot be both or neither. All else is opinion and guessing. There are no partial truths, half-truth, real truths, or religious truths. There are estimates, assumptions, reliable assumptions, and dogmatic faith. All are useful in the quest for purpose and reason.

RE: Frank Goodman, Sr.,

One cannoned tempt truth, for truth is not an entity. Truth can not decide on anything, never the less temptation. Truth seems to be a word made by man to qualify what is correct in the end. Truth is? 

God on the other hand, is another word to define an entity made by man in order to attempt to comfort and answer the unknown question of truth.  Assumptions as guesses or absolutism’s as certainties to define truth may not be prudent, for truth is not definable beyond what is known. 

To mock God with absolutism’s, would mean one would have to believe in God.  Is it possible the assumption or absolutism may only be in the believing?

Frank Goodman, Sr., May 18 at 7:31 am #

My reflection: Does failure to find or to know what is true for certain, prove that truth is unreliable? Is it not more probable that one is mistaken than that truth is faulty? God requires truth, but truth does not require God, but don’t argue with God or tamper with Truth. And don’t tempt truth with foolish assumptions or mock God with smug certainty.
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My answer? Truth is a direction, but you never fully reach it, because there’s always more behind it to understand.  A scientific theory is an approximation to explain observed facts and it gets refined or replaced, as Newton’s Laws of Motion and Gravity had to be replace by Einstein’s General Relativity, which itself is constantly being refined.

It’s not that Newton is “wrong”, it’s that his Laws were an approximation, a very, very good one, and still practical today. But Einstein’s were a better approximation in certain situations, tho much harder to use,  and work where Newton’s failed. The prediction of the planet “Vulcan” inside Mercury’s orbit was where Newton most spectacularly failed and Relativity worked. Tere is no such planet, of course (outside of Star Trek), but the discrepancies between the two theories indicated that Einstein’s was the better approximation.

Truth is a direction that advances human learning, questioning and knowledge.

RE: Leefeller, May 17 at 8:20 pm

“Is it possible that both are as evasive as politicians caught with their hand in the cookie jar?

For some the question of God is a given absolutism, but now truth is another question, unless you accept the first.”

My reflection: Does failure to find or to know what is true for certain, prove that truth is unreliable? Is it not more probable that one is mistaken than that truth is faulty? God requires truth, but truth does not require God, but don’t argue with God or tamper with Truth. And don’t tempt truth with foolish assumptions or mock God with smug certainty.

foggyjones, May 17 at 7:14 pm #

As if it matters one bit where a pharma corporation is located. You must be probing to estimate the depth of this site. You are nowhere close.
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Unlike you I refuse to ignore fundamental contradictions.  This site has had HUNDREDS of statements that Jews, AIPAC, and Zionists dominate and control our government.

Now there is a statement that goes unchallenged that big Pharma controls our government.

They cannot both be true.  Only one assertion of these two, at most, can be true.  In fact, neither are.

Unlike you, I abhor such contradictions.

Frank Goodman, Sr.,

Reflections of thought,

“Results count. Truth is higher than God. After all it is conceived as possible that God does not exist. But, is it possible that truth does not exist?”

Is it possible that both are as evasive as politicians caught with their hand in the cookie jar?

For some the question of God is a given absolutism, but now truth is another question, unless you accept the first.

RE: foggyjones, May 15 at 8:31 pm #

Thanks, but no thanks. At 81, I am no workhorse. Even when I was gung-ho and ready to go, I came up short defending truth over non-truth in a way that could cause a marching horde of discontents and the mass of malcontents from overwhelming the mass of consumers needs. My need overcame my greed and I am content to receive my daily nourishment and support until I shuffle off this mortal coil.

For my efforts I get ‘free’ medical care. Not free by those giving the care, or free of cost to me or my family. Freely given without bills that I have to pay again, except for a small co-payment to the drug pushers for medicine they convinced me to take in the course of treatment of life’s declining capacities. I pass the torch to some more charismatic bearer who could melt hearts of stone or freeze the balls of brass monkeys with the stroke of a pen or a mouthful of big words that don’t mean much.

Results count. Truth is higher than God. After all it is conceived as possible that God does not exist. But, is it possible that truth does not exist?

Leefeller, May 15 at 8:06 pm #

Nice article, and from the NYTimes too…..

As one who believes socialism has a place in our governance I speak for it but do not scream about it.

felicity, May 13 at 4:26 pm #

Think about it: It’s interesting that my tax dollars pay the health insurance bill for all those congressional worthies (I understand for the rest of their natural lives) but they continue to fight like hell to prevent my tax dollars from paying for my own and my family’s health insurance.
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Now THIS is an elegant argument!  Simple and compelling!  Wow!

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diamond, May 13 at 4:31 pm #

Hardly surprising. The health insurance industry owns America’s political culture.Bought and paid for long ago. These companies are some of the most scandalously inhumane organizations that have ever existed.
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I thought it AIPAC and “The Jews” who owned our political culture.  Can’t have it both ways, gang.

The major pharmas are Swiss (never known for being very hospitable to Jews), American, British (GSK), German, French (Sanofi-Aventis) and Japanese (Daiichi-Sankyo).

We need to stop scapegoating.  Large corporations will try to influence government just like a shark will go into high gear when it smells blood in the water. It’s simply the nature of the beast and must be dealt with to prevent IT running the show.

FYI an interesting article on socialism if you support it or not.  Capitalism could be more honest if small business had a chance to compete with the Walmarts of thw world.  If one does not deal in volume, than it becomes margins.  My comments were not directed to anyone in particular, except to show the ago old argument against greed of the few is to scream socialisim.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/business/global/14frugal.html?_r=1

I think that they were being facetious, about the “socialism” stuff…most USAns dont have a clue what a socialist is, but , Scandanavia comes as close to a perfect system as we have on the face of the earth today, in my opinion….I agree with most of what you are saying, but, I am a socialist, and, I dont see why, when someone is just fortunate, they should make more money. You did not “earn” your brains. You may have worked hard to get your degree, but ,any could work very hard and still never attain it.

The idea that some making outrageous amounts has no effect on those making less is just not true, especailly in an age where resources are getting so scarce.

What of them?

RE: Leefeller, May 15 at 10:50 am

I am not a socialist. Socialist refers to a method of capital utilization of basic utilities and production for the common benefit. Socialism is a form of capitalism in that it involves capital. Ownership of special capital is quite in sink with the Scandinavian brand of Socio-Capitalism. Not a model for perfection. US Postal Service is a form of socialism. UPS is capitalism pure and complicated.

I have never objected to hyper income for high demand skills and abilities. I ask you to compare the technical ability of a football player with that of a plumber, carpenter, laboratory technologist, or star nurse. The footballer can ball a few games and and spend the rest of the year balling whomever he chooses from the lineup of game followers. That should attract enough studs to do the trick of competitive play on the gridiron. Pay them a respectable income like we used to when anyone could take his family to see the games. Kick out the murders, brawlers, and drug users. Keep the honest ballers and let them have fun by consent.

Let super stock market players accumulate wealth for their children and their retirement and they can ball whomever they choose among the money followers. Let the losers marry their childhood sweetheart with an income of their own.

I am comfortable after a lifetime career as a Laboratory Technologist specializing in microbiology. I did far more technically demanding work than any nurse, dental hygienist, or even many physicians. I never met a physician who could isolate a pathogen from the non-pathogens, identify it, do an antibiotic sensitivity and keep track of its peculiar traits for future reference. Yet my living retirement income augmented by strategic investments in time and money are a far cry from the doc who graduated bottom in his class and took the state board twice before he could pass it.

I neither praise nor glorify the rich. I just say that we spend our money in the wrong places when the cost of medical care continues to go as a percentage of gross domestic product.
When I did my thesis for my Masters several years ago the percentage was 11%. Now it is considerably more and going up. Much of the increase is due to the leaches and insurance scam.

I spent over 40 years active in the health care field, much in management positions. I know what I am talking about. I spent most of my time discouraging the incompetent and trying to compensate the competent with bonuses for the distinguished technicians. My income with Social Security is less than half that of an army major on active duty.

It is time to overhaul our medical attitude and delivery. To do that we have to shrink some heads and augment some heart action. We might even attempt emasculate the PACs and oophorectomize some politicians.

MarthaA—“Some of us own a house and some land to leave for posterity that we do not want the government to have in exchange for our medical treatment. As for me, I would refuse all forms of Medicaid.”

You would not if you needed emergency surgery to save your life after a drunk hit you. Then, just try getting insurance after that. I “own a house”, but, live in poverty to retain Medicaid. So, “some of us” USED to own houses, too. When you are on Medicaid, you dont have the luxury of worrying about “posterity”. If both parties hadnt made one have (in most states) to live well below the poverty level, to recieve medical care, some of us might be able to risk going back to work, or, at least , keeping our pensions. Medicare, privitized as it is, is breaking the bank.

The Democrats all vote the same, save Kucinich, Sanders and a few others. Pres. Obama is a “New Dem”, which is a translation of DLC. He hired on the same people as Clinton…whats the diff?

CNN did a “hypothetical” today, ie “how little airline pilots are making” (still more than I made as a social worker, but….). Knightley says, “how owould you feel if you found out that surgeon operating on you was making $24,000 s year”. I would feel good about it, because I would know that they didnt go into medicine and decide to do surgery on me for profit.
The ‘Merkin people are complete idiots when it comes to the medicine industry in our country. People in other countries are just amazed…

When an opportunist walks like an opportunist, sounds like one, maybe it is one.

Representatives in Congress mostly represent the highest bidder, this clown seems to be a very gifted representative. 

Follow the money used to be good advice, but no one except the ones who received it,  may even know were it went.

Frank Goodman Sr. - you speak my language.  Let’s hope that Dem proponents of single-payer financed health care use numbers also to make their case.

Any time someone mentions a pay raise for people as a way of promoting something called equality, I get my socialist antenna out.  Just because someone is disgustingly wealthy does not mean everyone should be so.  How else can we keep the middle class down were it belongs? It has been proven even Donald Trump has feelings and emotions like everyone else.

Recently Donald has mentioned that Mrs California is fetching, what a nice thing to say. Maybe most wealthy people feel the same way about most of the people of this great nation, we are all fetching.

CA 1968 at Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital, Johnstown, PA, I heard the the Hospital Administrator protest that, though the cost per patient day was $16.01, and the state paid that rate for a limited number of ‘service’ patients (Those unable to pay their own hospital bill), the hospital had to run a few VIP suites for well healed patients to recover the cost of caring for the poor. He did not think it fair to the hospital, the poor, the people of Pennsylvania, or the rich.

The gem is the $16.01 cost per patient day. That was 51 years ago. The inflation rate averages 3-4% per year. Today, that rate should be $72.29 to $118.33 per day. Add a surcharge for technology already paid for by industry as profit on investments and patients. Perhaps 10% would do it. Ten percent of 3 to 4 percent, 3.3 to 4.4 percent per year. That is $83.36 to $149.92 per day.

Now compare that with your most recent hospital bill for basic hospital care, no VIP suites needed. The lesson is that the only ones that got rich were the drug companies, insurance companies, and doctors. Nurses, technicians, and aides, are still underpaid for their value. They do the job they do for relatively low wages. Ask your next nurse her salary. Look behind the scenes for those technicians in highly specialized skills whom you may never meet who can’t compete with publicly coddled nurses, as angels of mercy. Look at the Laboratory Technologists and what they do. Ask them their pay rate. Compare those with your doctor’s fee adjusted for his cost of operations.

Under a single payer plan, doctors could be relieved of the ‘necessity’ of struggling to get rich. Money spent on insurance could be diverted to raising pay of Technologists and other highly skilled hospital staff. Care would improve and professional dedication advanced.

A large majority of Americans want single-payer health care. Yet congressional leaders say single-payer is off the table.

It’s time to make sure that our Members of Congress understand us.

Tell your Members of Congress that, during the next six years, you won’t vote for any Member of Congress who doesn’t co-sponsor legislation to enact a single-payer health plan.

Take the single-payer pledge at GreenChange.org:

http://tinyurl.com/SinglepayerPledge

foggyjones:

Don’t throw away the Democratic Party because NOT all Democrats are CONSERVATIVE/MODERATE DLC/NEW CLASS EXTREMISTS of elite/corporate Big Business, Big Finance, Big Insurance and Big Industry that have infested the Democratic Party.  You just can’t do a blanket coverage on the Democratic Party, the ones that have infested the Democratic Party must be weeded out in the 2010 PRIMARIES. These DLC/NEW CLASS members in Congress are now a new class separated from the rest of the common population and do not represent 70% of the population, the political left, Baucus is one of them—- there are a bunch of them.  The political left is the yellow liberal side of the political spectrum, and the political left needs to have ONLY real liberals, not liberals voting CONSERVATIVE RIGHT-WING RED.  ALL Conservatives/Moderates MUST be voted out of the Democratic Party in the primaries.  Forget the Republican Party, it does not represent the political left, the people, at all, never has;  register with the Democratic Party and vote out all the Conservatives/Moderates in the Democratic Party if you want to clean up politics as usual in our two-party system.

Jim Yell,

Your ideas are great and Obama should be interested in exploring them, because all of them would add money to help pay for health care for the political left.  The value added tax on industries is a wonderful idea that would help pay for health care and help in cleaning up the environment as well, if the tax is based on the amount of pollution; FAIR MARKET RENTAL on all public lands overseen by the government definitely should be charged and should have been charged all along—and could be made retroactive for the length of time used; and TAX EVASION, the tax evading super-rich being forced to pay their taxes by bringing their off-shore tax shelters back into the United States is an absolute must and should never have been allowed in the first place; and furthermore if the super-rich want to move to China instead, like Fox Network’s Rupert Murdoch already does, then bye bye with a small stipulation, they won’t ever be able to return to the United States, even to visit, they will have to stay where ever they have chosen as a better country than the United States.

jpinsatx:

As long as one can leave something to their children and grandchildren of their financial possessions, because with Medicaid, that is impossible; if you choose any form of Medicaid, you will be unable to leave anything for posterity, you choose to go out of the world penniless. With Medicaid one has to sign away all his/her worldly possessions for medical assistance, which is oppressive government tyranny.

Medicare doesn’t take everything you own for medical help and leave you a pauper when you die.

Some of us own a house and some land to leave for posterity that we do not want the government to have in exchange for our medical treatment. As for me, I would refuse all forms of Medicaid.

There is alot of argument over whether “preventative care” will save nearly as much as supposed…what is not open to argument is how much fricking money the insurance industry makes off of ‘Merkin death and suffering.

But, the “free mkt” solution is to just cut Medicare and Medicaid. How neo-con!

It is time that “we the people” stand up for ourselves and throw the obstructionist bas——ds out on their collective butts!!!  These Congressional pit bulls for industry - deceive you with “religious convictions”, “conservative b.s. ideology - ie- I dont want my grandkids to have to be stuck with the future bills”, all of it is a sham to sucker people into putting these a$$hole back into office!

Now is the time that these industry bought and paid for dogs be put on leashes, because these policies are terrorizing the “average American”!!  I bet if they had to actually pay for their own health-care they would sing a whole different tune!  It’s time that we take our government and country back from the pit bulls!  Call, fax, threaten to vote them out of office if they don’t put single payer back onto the table!!!

Hmmm… Health Care for All Uninsured Americans is Simple!

1) Merge Medicare with Medicade into a single “Income Based” system.

2) Allow insurance companies to offer “Medigap” coverage to all participants.

As for Funding…

1) Changing from an “Emergency Treatment” to a “Preventative Care” system will save local communities billions, maybe even trillions of taypayer dollars!

2) Small business will be able to compete globally and hire additional taxpaying employees!

3) Wealthy seniors will pay their fair share!

4) The tremendous burden on future generations will be greatly reduced!

Here is how they’ll pay for their next big gift to corporate ‘Merka….the “insurance” industry:

US: Cuts in Social Security, Medicare to pay for bank bailouts
By Tom Eley
14 May 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/ssmd-m14.shtml

“Secretary Geithner’s dual role as Wall Street frontman and “trustee” of the retirement and health care for the working class underscores the duplicitous nature of the Obama administration. Disregarding the trillions he has handed over to the banks, Geithner claimed yesterday that “there is no more important long-term fiscal measure than gaining control of the growth of Medicare costs.”....

....The first target for cuts will be Medicare, followed by Social Security. Geithner explained: “After we have passed health-care reform that puts our nation on a path to lower growth in health-care costs and expanded affordable coverage, this president will work to build a bipartisan consensus to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security.”

Geithner’s reference to “bipartisan consensus” is Washington code for the sort of reform that can bring the most far-right, pro-market forces aboard. To make sure the significance of this was not lost, Geithner reiterated that Obama “explicitly rejects the notion that Social Security is untouchable politically.” Republican lawmakers reacted favorably….”

Thus, after only four months, the historical significance of the Obama administration’s “domestic agenda” has come into focus. As it took a Democratic president, Bill Clinton to undo welfare, it will be a Democrat in the White House who takes the axe to Medicare and that last vestige of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Social Security.

The freeze in cost of living increases for Social Security and increased user payments for Medicare are only the beginning. The Obama administration used the release of the new data to amp up its demands for what it calls a “major overhaul” of health care in the US (unquote)

If Congress would CUT OUT the “privitization” of Medicare (Part D—the giant gift the the pharmaceutical industry bil), the costs of Medicare would go way down.

In any case, Social Security is considered solvent until 2046.
What a Clinton deja vu.

As the opportunists line their pockets,  people naively believe what they are told as the gospel truths.  Selling the American Public any bill of goods, is in reality the sales of illusion by deceptions. Under the guise of news, one sided sales patches by the MSM have guided people for years. From them we bought their sales of Bush’s blatant lies. For years we have herd the constant din of socialism being the same as Communism, one only needs to follow the money to know the truth. 

Government cronies bed fellows with free enterprise is touted to be the savior of the people, for the choice is ours, key deception being the use of the word “free”. 

Freedoms touted over and over, from speech to marriage, deceptions for freedoms not of the people, but freedoms of control by the corporations, the plutocracy the so self proclaimed elite, In the past they were known as the good old boys. 

We the people has become a jaded self delusion. Handy using “we”  especially during alleged times of need, such times as when to wave a flag and march off to another selected war.  We the people should know the ridiculous gamble it must be, to expect equality from promoters of the hand me down, trickle down theory or any other as long as we the people are not the deciders.

Senator Feingold has it right on the money, pun intended.“That’s if things remain business as usual.”
With water carrier dimmos in charge such as Baucus nothing will change except the Short Changing of Amerikans.Health care will stay the same as now with to exceptions…needed tests will decline and premiums will increase. Some foolish tax will be put on our backs and congress will suffer muscle cramps from back patting themselves. And where is Obama? He’s too busy in the garden to notice.

The health care industry has Mad Max on the payroll.

That’s because “they” are BIG CAPITALIST parasites, who use Socialism/Communism for “themselves”, maybe not “YOU”, for health care. It’s OK with “them”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, to have good health care for “them”, but NOT for “us”, the people, “WE THE PEOPLE” are to sacrifice our livelihood and our children’s livelihoods doing without real pay for FUTURE centuries of generations to shore up BIG CAPITALISM, but deserve NOTHING. Talk about a CONSERVATIVE RIGHT-WING CAPITALIST “us” and “them” syndrome gone to seed.

The BIG CORPORATE CAPITALIST ELITES consistently begrudge “us”, the people, having anything of benefit to “us”, the people, as “they”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, just can’t stand the thought of “them”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, and their toady’s not having everything, after all what in the world could “WE THE PEOPLE” need that matters.  “They”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, need everything and “WE THE PEOPLE” need nothing, but to go off somewhere out of their sight and die. The solution: Get more police, “they”, the people, must not be allowed to have FREE SPEECH, make them shut up.  The CONSERVATIVE CORPORATE BIG CAPITALIST ELITE need to understand that “WE THE PEOPLE”, the BIG MAJORITY are getting restless,  and “they”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, are a minority and have pressed their luck far too long. It is time for “WE THE PEOPLE” to press in and get what “WE THE PEOPLE” need, FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL. Enough war, we need health care for all, the worm must turn, the United States can afford health care for all, if “they”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, will do it, and “they”, the BIG CAPITALISTS,  must do it, because England, Canada, Cuba and France have ALL done it, their BIG CAPITALISTS chose universal health care for ALL and now have great health care for each and every human being plus their guests in their respective countries; and furthermore, “they”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, prospered in the process; and the United States can do the same thing and “they”, the BIG CAPITALISTS, MUST quit fighting against the people and just do it, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, because health care isn’t a free ride, everyone has to pay a little, but health care will take so much stress off of the people and they will be so much better employees just knowing they aren’t going to have to go bankrupt because they get sick.

You know, of course, that it doesn’t matter a sheet of dirty kleenex what they say, promise or swear:

They’re gonna fuck us.

It’s inevitable, unavoidable, and unstoppable.

Any “health care” system that preserves the power of the Health Insurance Parasites will NECESSARILY be a shit-encrusted thumb in the eye of the everyday citizen…

It cannot be any other way…

Here are some other single payer health care resources, in case anyone is interested:
Physicians for Natl Health Plan
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php
A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be controlled through negotiated fees, global budgeting and bulk purchasing.
What the “Mass. Plan” would do: (why it wont work)
http://www.pnhp.org/single_payer_resources/individual_mandates_the_massachusetts_plan.php
In April 2006, Massachusetts passed an “individual mandate” bill, legislation which requires all residents to buy a private health insurance plan or face a tax penalty. Some subsidies are provided for low-income residents, and a new state agency was created to assist residents in finding a plan. Two months later the American Medical Association endorsed the mandate concept and a number of state legislatures introduced copycat bills.
But as Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler point out in this editorial response, individual mandates offer a false promise of universal coverage. Mandate proponents promise comprehensive coverage at a low cost, but the exorbitant price of private coverage (averaging $3,500 for an individual and $10,000 for a family) means that many families will have to decide between financial hardship and low-premium plans that offer no coverage worthy of the name.
Moreover, individual mandates do nothing to control the rising cost of care, continuing to funnel health dollars though wasteful private insurers and hospitals. Instead, they mandate that cost of covering the uninsured should be incurred by the uninsured themselves.

California Nurses Assoc.:
http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/
And the petition:
http://ga1.org/campaign/singlepayer?
HR 676 (Conyers, Kucinich and others) US Natl Health Care Act (*Medicare for all)
http://www.pnhp.org/publications/united_states_national_health_care_act_hr_676.php
Sen. Sanders , S.703 (mostly state and local health care based—but better than Baucus, Kennedy idea)
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/03/27/sen-bernie-sanders-introduces-single-payer-bill/
If anyone has anymore, please, lets let Congress and the President know that we need CARE for every PATIENT and CITIZEN, not “insurance for consumers”.

Mario Savio led the Free Speech Movement on the UC Berkeley campus. In 1964, he said: “There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

Maybe I reposted the above because ‘Bob’ Savio was a personal friend, valedictorian of my High School graduating class, fellow Mississippi Project alum, working with SNCC (he got beat up, I didn’t), or maybe just because these words ring as true today as they did when he first spoke them on the steps of Sproul Hall, that Dec. day in 1964. Damn I miss him still.

I see the battle for health care to be synonymous with the battle for equal rights for all. When almost fifty million of us have no health care other than emergency rooms we all pay that price. When eleven million children never see a doctor , never get their immunizations, we all are the poorer. When the poor live far shorter lives and suffer with various untreated ailments we all suffer as well.

The battle for decent health care is a fight against overwhelming greed and nothing less. This nation has the capabilities to deliver low cost and effective health care to all within its borders. We are, in fact, almost alone among industrialized nations in not doing so, and we all should be ashamed of that, especially Senator Baucus who allows his campaign war chest to benefit while the people he supposedly represents suffer .

BaucASS should step down. He doesnt even know wtf he is talking about.

Elizabeth Prescott (of Families USA—) sent me an email today, that, she couldnt get through to me on the telephone (I explained, when I called her back, that I have to take it off of the hook at night, because the calls from online drug pushers start about 4:00 AM, as Medicaid wasnt covering some of my meds, so I was stupid enough to try to buy them onine…so I take it off the hook every night…sometimes I have to leave it off half of the day. When you say that you cant afford to buy meds anymore, they laugh and joke about how stupid USAns are…you should hear it!!)

anyway…

she wanted to know if I would like to use my story in a Hearing?! I told her that I certainly would, but, that she might not like what else i had to say. Families USA doesnt support single payer, or , even insist on a public option… she is supppoesed to call me back and let me know, but, I doubt that she will. I told her I would need bus fare, too.

If they are going ahead with the plan that got Physicians for a Natl Health Plan and Cal Nurses arrested (!!)) it wil fail and cost way too much and it will all go to the insurance indsutry.

Shame on teh Democrats.

Here is a really good Naomi Klein interview on Charlie Rose:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10293

Fine column.  I heard the show this morning on WBAI http://www.wbai.org and also watched most of it online at DemocracyNow http://www.democracynow.org  The sound of the protesters was wonderful.

Hardly surprising. The health insurance industry owns America’s political culture.Bought and paid for long ago. These companies are some of the most scandalously inhumane organizations that have ever existed. Stalin would be proud of their ruthless dedication to cheating, abusing, humiliating and even causing the deaths of the people who pay their hard earned money to them. My suggestion is simple: refuse to pay. Every single person with health insurance should just refuse to pay any more premiums until something approaching justice is given to the average American. Go on strike. Send them bankrupt. Maybe when they’re on the breadline and can’t afford health insurance themselves they might come to their senses. If someone goes into a bank and holds it up, they can be arrested and locked up in jail for years but when these people steal your hard earned cash they get a bonus and a promotion.

Think about it: It’s interesting that my tax dollars pay the health insurance bill for all those congressional worthies (I understand for the rest of their natural lives) but they continue to fight like hell to prevent my tax dollars from paying for my own and my family’s health insurance.