As the American Medical Association begins its annual convention in Chicago, we want to take this opportunity to make it clear to the American public, to the media, and to the president and members of Congress, that the AMA does not represent us. It is a common misconception that this organization speaks on behalf of most American physicians but that is a misconception with very serious consequences at such a critical time in the health care reform debate. So long as the public, the media and our elected officials lump all physicians together as “the AMA,” then we are guilty by association of a failure of our Hippocratic oath to “first, do no harm.”
In fact, the AMA represents less than one-third of America’s physicians, and half of those are retired. In fact, the American Medical Student Association endorses universal health care reform.
The AMA’s longstanding opposition to every effort to change health care financing, including Medicare in the 1960s, has resulted in decades of needless and countless morbidity and mortality. Sixty people die every day in this country simply for lack of access to health care. And instead of being an advocate for the only solution that accomplishes the goals of universal coverage and fiscal viability, the single-payer option, the AMA continues to be primarily a trade association looking out for the financial interests of its members.
But who, then, is looking out for the interests of patients? Certainly not Congress and the president. If that were so, the United States would long ago have relieved itself of the dubious distinction of being the only developed country in the world that does not have a universal system of health care. No, the evidence is clear that our Congress and our president are looking out for themselves and continuing the tradition of pay-to-play politics. How else would a reasonable person explain the fact that our elected officials, Democrats and Republicans combined, have accepted $12 million in campaign contributions since 1998 from the American Medical Association?
We would suggest that the American people, the media, President Obama, and the members of Congress need look no further than PNHP, Physicians for a National Health Program, if they want to consult an organization that represents the interests of patients and has been doing so for 22 years.
We are proud members of PNHP. We’re waiting and eager to be consulted. And our physicians are willing and able to continue to engage in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. Health care reform is the civil rights issue of the decade.
The AMA does not represent us.
Dr. Margaret Flowers and Dr. Carol Paris are members of Physicians for a National Health Program.
You can find information on the PNHP or contact the organization on the Web site here.
If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.
I’m quite surprised that only 30 percent of all the doctors work for the American Medical Association, I mean they are quite well-known but not that professional from what I have heard. I think this is an important question and I’m glad that everyone has their own saying.
By TOM RHODES, October 10, 2009 at 4:34 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
THE AMA IS A ORGANIZATION THAT DR.S SETUP. THE AMA SHOULD BE SUED OVER THE USE OF PAIN DRUGS. THE CRONIC PAIN PATIENTS SHOULD ORGANIZE A CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT SO THAT THEY CAN GET ADEQUATE PAIN RELIEF, NOT TYLENOL. TYLENOL SHOULD BE PRESCRIBED SO THAT PEOPLE WILL NOT DAMAGE THEIR LIVERS. RIGHT NOW YOU BUY A BOTTLE OVER THE COUNTER AND TAKE THEM WAY TO MUCH. IF PRESCRIBED THEY WILL NOT ABUSE THEM BECAUSE THEY CAN’T TAKE TOO MANY AND GO BACK AND GET A REFILL. DANGEROUS DRUG.
It is good to know that 70% of the doctors do not work for the AMA, that should give a universal single-payer health care plan a chance.
The Blue-Dog Democrats and the DLC’s New Democrats are Conservative Republicans-Lite infesting the Left, of course, a conservative organization will endorse their own conservative politicians.
All conservatives should be on the Right, instead of the Left, we the people can thank Barry Goldwater for that, and it needs to be turned back to Liberals on the Left and Conservatives on the Right, without any Moderates, as Moderates are lukewarm with nowhere to stand. Although used quite a bit by politicians,since Goldwater, moderate isn’t cold or hot and isn’t a stand at all.
The AMA just endorsed a Blue Dog /Neo-liberal position, Martha. Only 30% of drs belong to the AMA.
The more liberal (and larger ) Am College of Physicians supports single payer, as does PNHP (Physicians for Natl Healt Plan) , Calif Nurses Assoc. etc,. The Am Nurses Assoc also supports single payer, although they are granting that a “public option” might be an incremental step towards it.
I happen to disagree—I think it will slow down any real reform. When the middle class is comfortabel, they never call for real reform..
Liberal must return to ONLY being the Left—the Democratic Party must return to being only Liberal; of the Democratic Party’s DNC, only the CONSERVATIVE Blue Dog Democrats and CONSERVATIVE/moderate New DLC Democrats are married to the AMA; as well as ALL the Republican Party’s RNC, as all Republicans are married to the AMA conservative party line, even though contending to be liberal/moderate. The AMA represents the Right.
Liberals are all that represents the Left; moderates aren’t of any benefit to the Left.
Liberals to the Left and Conservatives to the Right; which is what politics was until CONSERVATIVE Republican Barry Goldwater managed to get the whole political scene changed, then conservatives and moderates moved in on the Left, divided the Democratic Party and destroyed political balance. No conservatives or moderates should be on the Left; NO real Liberal is allowed to be in the Republican Party, the Republican Party has made Liberal a dirty word to avoid having any Liberal balance in the Republican Party.
For political balance ALL conservatives and moderates need to be sent back to the Republicans on the Right where they belong; and where they were before Goldwater changed politics to where the Right can represent the Right from the Left, which is an improper perspective; the Right needs to be returned to representing the Right from the Right, not the Left.
There should be NO Democrats representing the AMA on the Left. Republicans-Lite do play like they represent the Left; but, of course, do not. It is passed time to get all conservatives and moderates totally OUT of the Democratic Party, so that the representatives on the Left actually represent the Left; instead of the Right, then, and only then, will there be political balance.
I have to wonder what practical knowledge The American Medical Student Association has about the health care system. You say the AMA does not represent you. Who are you? Who does the AMA really represent then? These are questions that were not very well answered in your article.
You don’t see it now because the real culprit is corporate welfare, not those mothers trying to raise their children; which is only a drop in the bucket next to massive corporate welfare that bankrupts our society and of course corporations are delighted that people as a whole are so ignorant that they blame the mothers trying to raise their children with subsidies of whatever they can get. It isn’t the mothers and children, it is the corporations welfare that you should be concerned about.
Release: Senate Panel Begins Work on Health Care Reform
WASHINGTON, June 17 – The Senate health committee today began work on a health care reform bill to bring down costs and provide coverage for nearly 50 million Americans without insurance.
Sanders is a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that is one of two Senate panels drafting health care legislation.
“In the United States today health care costs are soaring, 46 million lack any health insurance while more are under-insured, 18,000 die because they don’t have regular access to a doctor and, in the midst of all of that, we end up spending far more than any other country,” Sanders said in his opening remarks,” he said.
“Our job must be to wring out the incredible profiteering and inefficiencies that 1,300 private health insurance companies create, and increase efforts on prevention, primary care and quality control. If we do that, we can provide high quality, comprehensive and cost-effective health care for all Americans.”
One thing, though—they bring up the “13 yr old” “mothers” and seem to excuse the fathers. Maybe they dont like their mothers.
Whatever it is, it sounds personal to me…I dont know if they realize that ADC (Aid to Dependent Children) no longer exists. The girls have to go to WorkFare, at least in most states. Then, they complain that the child is not brought up right. And just try to get them to pay for Child Care!
You cant win with these people. Now, if the girl had an abortion—I guess theyd be up in arms about that.
As with most blogs, you can quickly spot the knee-jerk nonsense of people presented by facts they won’t accept because those facts conflict with their misinformation.
So what do they do?
Why, what any 10-year-old would do. “Oh yeah, well so’s your mother!”
By seeitnow, June 17, 2009 at 2:49 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Instead of spending the money giving health care to everyone who can’t afford it, why not use it to try to control the biggest terrorist threat we face internally in the US - that being the single female aged 12 to 30 that produces all of the out-of-wedlock babies that she and the father cannot support thereby forcing this responsibility on the rest of us.
Fedupvet, June 17 at 3:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
If my family doctor takes part in this communist health care program…he will loose all of his current patients..and we know where his office is.
You will know where his office also even if you`ve never been to our city…it`s the one with the “Swastika” on the door.
................................
Is he a mental health professional? Are you aware of any of the particulars of this issue? Do you even understand that a swastika is not a symbol of communism ( hint) next time you are defiling a persons door because of his particular opinion about something, use a hammer and sickle….better yet, pick up a book, any book, you will be the better for it.
Fedupvet…you’re ignorant. WTF does communism have to do with Single Payer health? Did you ever:
1. Drive on our federally-funded Interstate Highway System?
2. Call on your municipal, taxpayer-shared fire department?
3. Call on your municpal, taxpayer-shared police department?
4. Put on a uniform of your federally-funded military?
MarthaA…I left out Cuba (though included Brazil in twice!), but the list is hardly exhaustive. Add Lithuania, Pakistan, Austria, China….
Your point is well taken and I totally agree. Here’s a nation 90 miles from our border, a nation far poorer than our own, and their level of health care is comparable to our own?
As far as seeitnow’s comments…very sad. As a Californian I fully realize the state’s economic situation. But don’t people realize this: WE ALL PAY FOR HEALTH CARE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.
Whether health care is managed by the private sector or the public, we share the costs. People get sick, miss work, have babies, spread germs, underperform, go bankrupt, lose productivity, overwhelm our emergency wards, etc.
Through my taxes, I pay for emergency health care for the uninsured. I pay for worker absenteeism caused by sick workers who can’t afford insurance. I pay for the education of kids whose mothers send them to school with colds or fevers because they can’t afford a doctor, I pay for the 40% who go bankrupt due to catastrophic medical costs (and over 70% of those had “insurance”). The fact is, whether we live in New Hampshire or New Delhi, we all share the costs of our collective health, one way or another.
So, the challenge isn’t in finding ways to pass the costs from one taxpayer to another but in finding ways to reduce the costs.
In Canada, Single Payer is the national system. Yet each province or territory decides the details and administers the system on their own (co-pays, eligibility, etc. etc.) We can do the same. Again, this isn’t rocket science.
By Fedupvet, June 17, 2009 at 12:33 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
If my family doctor takes part in this communist health care program…he will loose all of his current patients..and we know where his office is.
You will know where his office also even if you`ve never been to our city…it`s the one with the “Swastika” on the door.
I notice you left out Cuba. Cuba has single-payer health care that they provide to all of their people and even export to foreign countries.
The battle for health care isn’t really about health care, it’s over the market for health care, and who gets the benefit of the market, the private sector or the public sector. The private sector has failed egregiously, and the private sector will be more of the same, and no matter what the private sector says, it will be just that —- more of the same.
If Cuba can have health care for all their people, the United States can, but it will have to be the public option to be of any real benefit. If Congress can manage to circumvent the greed and think in the best interest of all the people, they will vote in the public option and in the long run, all will be better off.
My apologies go out to the moderator and/or who ever might have taken offense with my comment. I admit I did go over the line with the name calling. I didn’t think it was that shocking of a name as I have seen it numerous times attached to the end of our X president. Sorry, it will not happen again.
After a little thinking about the comments made by seeitnow, I thought his comments could have been concocted to get the reactions of other commenters who may have taken offense just as I did. His suggestion that nature should take it’s course on the uninsured as if they weren’t worth the medical attention it takes to keep them alive seemed by far to be worse than my name calling. He suggested that if all people were covered under the HR 676 that the quality of care for more deserving people such as himself would depreciate. The opposite would be true in my opinion. He suggested that those who presently have insurance were a bit higher on the evolutionary scale. I’m not a scientist but even I know that is bordering on lame. I’m not calling anybody stupid but the idea that not having money or the benefits of insurance doesn’t mean that those people don’t have just as much potential as those who were more fortunate in their lives. We need a little more social and a little less selfish in my opinion.
tp
By seeitnow, June 17, 2009 at 4:13 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The issue of single payer should be left to the states. The imbalance in the underclass population by state surely would make local (read state) government representatives do what is best for their constituents. I live in both California and New York - both of which are broke (mostly California). All I need is one more reason to move to New Hampshire and I’m gone. The legislatures of both California and New York are a mess and dysfunctional - both full of people who just want to get re-elected. They have bankrupted both states in the process. Let’s see if they want to finish the job by committing more taxes to programs with no limit on spending. No, what both of these states want is for the people in fly-over states to pay for their problems - the people who actually work for a living. I feel sorry for those states who supply the steady stream of soldiers for our armed forces (who defend New York and California) and now will be asked to supply the money to pay for health care for those same states.
Mineral Miracle Supplement or (MMS) for short kills disease on contact.
MMS is pure oxygen that oxidizes and kills anything in the body that can only survive in an anaerobic/acidic environment. Which turns out to be all the bad guys. Bacteria, viruses, parasites. It even oxidizes heavy metal accumulation and acid in the body.
It gets better ! MMS doesn’t oxidize beneficial bacteria or harm healthy cells because they are aerobic and alkaline in nature.
MMS is used in Africa to cure AIDS which it does in 4 hours.
MMS cures many other diseases including, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, alzheimer’s, MS, arthritis/gout, swine flu etc.
MMS cures virtually all dis-ease! Oxygen can do this because the true cause (theres only one) of dis-ease has been suppressed/buried for over a hundred and fifty years.
Read “Sick and Tired: Reclaim Your Inner Terrain” by Robert O Young, PH.D to learn about this diabolical fraud being played on the human race.
Maintain and restore vibrant health with Dr. Robert Young’s “pH Miracle Diet”.
seeitnow—I believe in science, but every higher order species—some seem to be higher than us, such as orcas and chimps—take care of each other.
Chimps, and orcas better than humans.
The other fact is that every civilized country on earth provides care for those at their most helpless. If you dont wish to , perhaps you should figure out why. Unless you consider yourself a Social Darwinist. In which case, youd better hope that no one whose kid dies from a lack of dental care chooses to “Darwin” you…
hippie4ever—I worked with alot of medicaid clients—-the system is reprehensible.
Shame on the uS.
I’m afraid that you, along with much of the voting population, are suffering from acute denial which is very self-destructive. The heavy investments that health care profiteers have made in politicians and in disseminating wrong information on the single-payer option have succeeded. They bank on people like you who so easily buy the idea that, because “this is the USA,” any real change will lead to failure.
These countries have Single Payer health systems:
Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, India, Israel, Taiwan, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark, Greece, Czech Republic, Croatia, Bulgaria, Austria, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Ukraine, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, the U.K. (a version of it), France, Romania, Russia, Georgia, Latvia and Iceland…to name a few in no particular order. In case you’re wondering, Australia and New Zealand both provide a version of Medicare and on the whole, their governments, through taxation, fund over two-thirds of all medical expenditures.
Could someone please explain how we are so unique or our economy so poor, or our government so twisted or our tax system so skewed that we can’t find a way to make it work here?
I can offer three reasons:
1. Rich Pharmaceutical Companies
2. Rich Health Insurance Companies
3. Rich (Republican & Democrat) representatives whose campaign donations are funded by numbers 1 & 2.
Let’s not pretend we’re SO unique we can’t adopt Single Payer.
We’re no different from Germany than Germany is from Portugal or Portugal is from Denmark. And they ALL have Single Payer systems and none of them would trade their coverage for ours.
To maintain that our “underclass” somehow prevents us from taking advantage of a Single Payer system means that someone has been drinking the Repub’s or Neocon’s Kool-Aid. That’s what they’ll have you believe. But if the Czech Republic can move into Single Payer for pity’s sake, than so can we.
Our problem isn’t with Johnson-era welfare. It’s with Reagan-era corporate greed. Through tax entitlments and loopholes, the rich have grown richer, the poor have grown poorer and the middle class has remained stagnant. This doesn’t rule out our need or ability to adopt Single Payer, it underscores that need.
And let’s put to rest the myth that Medicare is a failure. It’s NOT a failure. Compared with our current private system, Medicare is a huge success. And does pointing out Medicare fraud mean there’s no fraud in the private sector? Please. Let’s get real.
Let’s also point out that every U.S. Senator and Representative is a recipient of a government-run health care system. Pull that system from them tomorrow and we’d have Single Payer on the plate before you can finish this sentence.
This information is factual: in another life (1985) I worked for the California affiliate of AMA and the doctors were with very few exceptions crowing reichwing homophobic reactionary bigots. These are the scum of the medical profession: political reich beasts with their pockets lined by the health care industry.
THESE AMA DOCTORS DO NOT PRACTICE MEDICINE—they serve at the behalf of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, AETNA, Kaiser Permanente, HealthNet et al. They don’t save lives—they perpetuate a system that denies health care to the lower and middle classes.
By seeitnow, June 16, 2009 at 2:43 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
This ain’t Europe. This is the USA. Home of the largest underclass (per capita) in the first world when compared to the middle class. We are already living with the mistakes of the Johnson era (medicare, food stamps, etc, etc). There is no way to bring our underclass up to the middle class. Single payer will not work. Medicare is single payer. It is a massive failure. It is full of fraud and abuse. Just imagine how that will be multiplied if the federal government decides to be the only health insurance agency. You think insurance execs make a lot. Remember, these are people who have to perform or lose their jobs - government workers never get fired, unless perhaps if they are caught having sex with a dead animal on top of their desk during working hours. Face reality the federal government can’t do anything right, much less efficiently.
Why all the discussion about the complexities of national health care? Why all the back-and-forth bantering about what the AMA says or what AARP says or what the Dems say or the Repubs say?
Folks, we’re not inventing the wheel here. For decades, dozens of western nations have been operating single payer health care systems that are heads and shoulders above our own in both quality of care and cost of that care. There’s no discussion here. Our system sucks. Theirs works. Infant mortality, life expectancy, access to health care, cost-per-patient - all these statistics are out there and clearly, single payer provides the best bang for the buck.
So let’s just look across the border or across the oceans and choose the system we want to implement. Sure, we’ll do some tweaking but by in large, the system we want is already functioning out there. So let’s adopt it, adapt it and move on.
WE THE PEOPLE of the United States no matter what the AMA doctors say need a public option:
My daughter has multiple injuries that need medical attention from her work, and workman’s comp. doesn’t pay without a law suit for each injury, which means without medical, she has to endure forever, or until a lawyer can somehow secure the allowance of medical from a judge, which should not have to be. Workman’s comp would not be needed with medical for all.
My 16 yr. old granddaughter’s knee was hurt in an accident, but to date has been unable to receive sufficient medical help to control the pain and for the past 2 yrs. has had to endure the damage that exploratory surgery still could help, although it appears arthritis is setting in, which will cause the need for further medical, but won’t be allowed on insurance, account a pre-existing injury.
My grandson has a painful medical condition that caused holes to come in the bone of one of his leg and has had surgery and the bone packed, but is still painful and he needs medical help, but the condition is a pre-existing condition, therefore not insurable.
We need public medical care for all; I, and everyone I know needs medical care in one way or the other.
Making people endure their medical conditions, because they are supposedly weak, or go in debt for exorbitant charges when they receive little pay is government oppression and tyranny. Not having medical care is more of a terror than all the foreign terrorists combined.
Obama’s health care plan is not going anywhere, fast. The lobby groups are going to destroy it and well they should. Not for the reasons THEY say, but because it does NOT represent the only fair, affordable, moral and potentially successful reform there is, single payer.
In order to counter these strong lobbyist groups, Obama would need grassroots support. Since he has already screwed his “grassroots” on issues from war to privacy to bailouts, he is alone with the lobbyists. (cricket sounds).
I wouldn’t defend him on anything, even if you paid me. Let him think it was the lobbyists that killed it. What an ass.
Why all the debate about how much money could be saved with a National Program?All one need do is total the compensation paid to all insurance executives who have nothing to do with the receiving and disbursements of claims.I have no idea what a total would be, but, it was reported that $1 of every $700 spent on all medical expenses goes to pay the salary package of the BigDog at United Health Care. With numbers like this, given the number of health insurers,the figure would certainly stagger the mind.This does not even include the K Street monies!Pitiful, pitiful.
____________________________________
The former CEO McGuire of UnitedHealth left the jobs with a $1.1 billion platinum parachute, the largest in corporate history. Here’s the Wiki on UnitedHealth
By Maximilian, June 16, 2009 at 7:37 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Your article: ” Being Obama matters”
Just some remarks:
a) Eugene Robinson mentions with delight ” Pdt Obama spoke of how the Islamic world kept the light of civilizaton burning during Europe’s Dark Ages”. Once more this turn of phrase is the typical foreshortened image of Europe bathing in “dark ages” while the Arab conquering wave plundered and destroyed the existing but divided Greek countries in former Turkey ( before the Turco-mongols came a bit later on)? Saying this, Pdt Obama wilfully omits ( or worse, ignored ) the immense role played by Byzance which maintained close ties with West European christian thinking centers i.e.monasteries.
b) Quote: ” Obama was speaking the language of Islam in a tone of respect. What a concept” . Comments: all in all, to sum it up, not very exciting. What the Arabs are waiting for is the Palestinian question settled in a dignified and trustworthy way. Yes, of course the Cairo speech was for them pleasant and sweet to hear, but “verba volant, scripta manent” and from the latest Netanyahu and Ehud Barak statements, it doesn’t look very bright !
c) the Guantanamo affair: yes, he “ordered” Guantanamo’s closing but does not know what to do with some 230 prisoners tortured for years, - let’s not eschew the real word- and now appeals to his European “allies” to get rid of them: is Nato a kind of convenient dustbin for political cumbersome prisonners ?
PS: I am a former staff officer and travelled for seven years in the Near-and Middle East.
Maximilian
Because you get a cavity you deserve to die? Or because you get an illness that is entirely treatable, you deserve to die . . .? Do you deserve to die if you get a totally treatable illness too?
What a weird and heartless perspective on the world.
seeitnow: How does Darwinism have anything to do with health care choice? But, if you insist it does, I can only assume that you are not wasting your time and money in getting any kind of health care at all for yourself and/or your loved ones.
Samdfred,
Me, neither; socialized medicine in my opinion would be a benefit to society as a whole, but what we are suppose to get if we ever get it is something that isn’t socialized, but still is for the public. Whatever it is, if it is in the public’s best interest, it will be worthwhile, but if not, if corporations are in charge, there will still be all kinds of terror things that could happen to the average person.
seeitnow,
Your opinion is the conservatives/moderates ideology when they went about to deregulate and destroy the nations economy. We have had enough of the me only attitude, where only the strong survive, because sometimes we get sick and bad things happen to good people.
KDelphi,
I agree with you, following the money is a good way to tell who is actually for the public’s 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION working class, that aren’t the Professional Middle Class or Aristocratic Elite Capitalists.
You’re probably just griefing this thread, but on the odd chance you’re in earnest:
You’re treading very close to Haeckel’s Social Darwinism, which has been associated with National Socialism. There’s a fairly vast chasm between acknowledging the mechanisms of evolution, and worshipping those mechanisms, or invoking them for political purposes. Nature’s corrections are thoughtless and cruel. As human beings, our challenge is to do better.
On another note, if anyone makes a t-shirt saying F*** THE AMA. I’ll buy it.
Its good to know that there are Physicians with a conscience who are fighting for Health Care reform in the U.S. I will never understand the Americans’ great fear of “socialized medicine”. Surely health care for all people is only good for society or do you still believe that financial triage is still the way to go.
seeitnow, June 15 at 3:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Ardee:
I am dead serious. As a believer in science, and the theory of evolution, it makes no sense to me to continue to interfere with nature. Let nature take its course - we all face personal extinction eventually. Why burden future generations with nature’s failures. The existential nature of human beings quite naturally leads to failure for some. Not everyone will succeed - that doesn’t mean that the rest should fail along with them.
If we go ahead on the course that extends everyone’s life to the last possible minute it will surely bankrupt everyone.
You do believe in science - don’t you ?
............................................
I believe in a lot of things, like saving dying children when possible, like combating plagues and epidemics also. Science you say, while fostering an idea that has its roots in superstition and dark age mysticism?
What in hell universal health care has to do with your garbled and insensitive rant I have yet to determine. But if you are such a believer in nature ask yourself, when next you encounter you, why does nature create plants that heal?
Just like GM did with automobiles, health insurance companies and some Doctors are now fighting health care reform, putting their own greed and self interest, at odds with those of the people. Just like GM they are using large sums of money to prevent reform by influencing congress, ironically the reform they wish to stop, is their only hope of saving their industry before it collapses. Again just like GM.
Just like GM, they will fail, but the longer they stall the process of reform the more likely, like GM, there will be a total and complete collapse of health care in this country.
If single payer fails it may be time to buy yourself a stethascope.
Also worth posting, are the amounts that Committee Chairs, and others, have recieved from the ‘health ” insurance industry from 2003-2008
Baucus recieved $14.8 million, with $92,000 from Schering-Plough Corp alone.
Grassley—$2.3 million
Kennedy $1.2 million
and , finally, our fearless leader
Obama—$21 million ( I dont think that those were in “small denominations”)
These are the reasons, I believe, as someone who worked in the health csre field, why we are getting a plan that may actually make the health care boondoggle in the uS worse…
Just like capitalism, Medicare and Public Option health care has to be regulated from the Ponzi’s out there trying to get something for nothing, but if properly regulated, the public option will be better for all concerned. An emissary should be sent to France to scope out how their Public Health Care for their citizens is regulated.
Spiritgirl and everyone:
It is not surprising that some have never heard of Physicians for a Natl Health Plan, as the Dems running the committee hearings keep having them arrested. (Baucus—-who finally dropped charges on PNHP and the Califotrnia Nurses Assoc who asked to be heard) PLEASE go to the website and read the truth!
$313 - Additional Medicare and Medicaid Savings
$110 - Incorporate productivity adjustments into Medicare payment
$106 - Reduce hospital subsidies for treating the uninsured as coverage increases
$75 - Pay better prices for Medicare Part D drugs
$22 - Other
Total: $948
Here is their reply (sorry to paste verbatim, but my RA is killing me and I had to pull a bad tooth)
Comment: What does President Obama mean when he says that this is how we’re going to pay for most of his health care reform proposals? Is he referring to savings in the actual costs of health care that would offset the increased spending that would result from expanding coverage? Or is he merely referring to a decrease in government spending that helps with government budgets, but doesn’t really have much impact on our total national health expenditures (NHE)?
Two-thirds of the proposed funding already appears in his FY 2010 budget. He would reduce overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans, reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud (sure), reduce hospital readmissions (block the entrances?), and reduce Medicare hospital payments by measuring quality (hmmm). In this fact sheet, the only revenue increase mentioned is limiting the value of itemized deductions for families making over a quarter-million dollars a year, a proposal that has proven to be quite controversial.
The new proposals in this fact sheet include a reduction in spending based on improved productivity, extrapolating the improved productivity in the entire U.S. economy and applying it to health care (not exactly noted for assembly lines, displacing health care with information technology systems, etc.). It includes a reduction in payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (excess share of uninsured) which would be made possible by providing insurance to those currently uninsured. This is more of an accounting gimmick since it merely moves government spending from the hospitals to the insurance plans. Also proposed is a reduction in drug reimbursement for beneficiaries dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, a minute fraction of what could be saved by negotiating fair prices for all of us under a universal national health program.
Merely playing with numbers does not provide us with the comprehensive structural reform that we would need to accomplish our two primary goals: 1) health care for everyone, and 2) slowing health care cost escalation to sustainable levels. As long as the politicians can continue to distract us with cat fights over the public option, or whatever, we will never have what we really need: a new and improved Medicare for all
By seeitnow, June 15, 2009 at 12:38 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Ardee:
I am dead serious. As a believer in science, and the theory of evolution, it makes no sense to me to continue to interfere with nature. Let nature take its course - we all face personal extinction eventually. Why burden future generations with nature’s failures. The existential nature of human beings quite naturally leads to failure for some. Not everyone will succeed - that doesn’t mean that the rest should fail along with them.
If we go ahead on the course that extends everyone’s life to the last possible minute it will surely bankrupt everyone.
seeitnow, June 15 at 2:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
As a progressive and liberal, I can’t understand my fellow progressive’s insistance on universal health care. Why not let Darwinism take its natural course instead of interfering with nature by supporting health care for everyone ?
........................................
As a left leaning liberal I believe ( or want to believe) that your comment is tongue in cheek. This is not a discussion about people doing stupid things leading to injury ,illness, bankruptcy or death. If it were then your comment might be funny ( to those who consider death funny) instead of being so far off the mark.
Aside from the incredible costs to this nation of our current health care, roughly two and half times that of second place on the list is what we spend annually on care, one must consider the bankruptcies, home foreclosures and other hardships our system causes.
By seeitnow, June 15, 2009 at 11:43 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
David Heston:
No executives in the government huh, I guess that’s why there is so much fraud in Medicare being perpetrated on the government - no competent supervision !
By David Heston, June 15, 2009 at 11:30 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Why all the debate about how much money could be saved with a National Program?All one need do is total the compensation paid to all insurance executives who have nothing to do with the receiving and disbursements of claims.I have no idea what a total would be, but, it was reported that $1 of every $700 spent on all medical expenses goes to pay the salary package of the BigDog at United Health Care. With numbers like this, given the number of health insurers,the figure would certainly stagger the mind.This does not even include the K Street monies!Pitiful, pitiful.
By seeitnow, June 15, 2009 at 11:23 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
As a progressive and liberal, I can’t understand my fellow progressive’s insistance on universal health care. Why not let Darwinism take its natural course instead of interfering with nature by supporting health care for everyone ?
Thank you for your article. I for one have never heard of PNHP. Of course the AMA is the one that has more money to participate in the pay-to-play system, and the one shielding those horrible doctors that should have long ago been booted out of the medical profession!
It’s News, Not Espionage
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By ardee, June 22, 2011 at 3:05 am Link to this comment
TOM RHODES, October 10, 2009 at 4:34
Caps lock key stuck much?
Report thisBy Medical Billing and Coding, June 21, 2011 at 7:33 pm Link to this comment
I’m quite surprised that only 30 percent of all the doctors work for the American Medical Association, I mean they are quite well-known but not that professional from what I have heard. I think this is an important question and I’m glad that everyone has their own saying.
Report thisBy TOM RHODES, October 10, 2009 at 4:34 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
THE AMA IS A ORGANIZATION THAT DR.S SETUP. THE AMA SHOULD BE SUED OVER THE USE OF PAIN DRUGS. THE CRONIC PAIN PATIENTS SHOULD ORGANIZE A CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT SO THAT THEY CAN GET ADEQUATE PAIN RELIEF, NOT TYLENOL. TYLENOL SHOULD BE PRESCRIBED SO THAT PEOPLE WILL NOT DAMAGE THEIR LIVERS. RIGHT NOW YOU BUY A BOTTLE OVER THE COUNTER AND TAKE THEM WAY TO MUCH. IF PRESCRIBED THEY WILL NOT ABUSE THEM BECAUSE THEY CAN’T TAKE TOO MANY AND GO BACK AND GET A REFILL. DANGEROUS DRUG.
Report thisBy MarthaA, July 19, 2009 at 5:47 pm Link to this comment
KDelphi,
It is good to know that 70% of the doctors do not work for the AMA, that should give a universal single-payer health care plan a chance.
The Blue-Dog Democrats and the DLC’s New Democrats are Conservative Republicans-Lite infesting the Left, of course, a conservative organization will endorse their own conservative politicians.
Report thisAll conservatives should be on the Right, instead of the Left, we the people can thank Barry Goldwater for that, and it needs to be turned back to Liberals on the Left and Conservatives on the Right, without any Moderates, as Moderates are lukewarm with nowhere to stand. Although used quite a bit by politicians,since Goldwater, moderate isn’t cold or hot and isn’t a stand at all.
By KDelphi, July 19, 2009 at 1:41 pm Link to this comment
The AMA just endorsed a Blue Dog /Neo-liberal position, Martha. Only 30% of drs belong to the AMA.
The more liberal (and larger ) Am College of Physicians supports single payer, as does PNHP (Physicians for Natl Healt Plan) , Calif Nurses Assoc. etc,. The Am Nurses Assoc also supports single payer, although they are granting that a “public option” might be an incremental step towards it.
I happen to disagree—I think it will slow down any real reform. When the middle class is comfortabel, they never call for real reform..
Report thisBy MarthaA, July 19, 2009 at 1:37 am Link to this comment
KDelphi,
Liberal must return to ONLY being the Left—the Democratic Party must return to being only Liberal; of the Democratic Party’s DNC, only the CONSERVATIVE Blue Dog Democrats and CONSERVATIVE/moderate New DLC Democrats are married to the AMA; as well as ALL the Republican Party’s RNC, as all Republicans are married to the AMA conservative party line, even though contending to be liberal/moderate. The AMA represents the Right.
Liberals are all that represents the Left; moderates aren’t of any benefit to the Left.
Liberals to the Left and Conservatives to the Right; which is what politics was until CONSERVATIVE Republican Barry Goldwater managed to get the whole political scene changed, then conservatives and moderates moved in on the Left, divided the Democratic Party and destroyed political balance. No conservatives or moderates should be on the Left; NO real Liberal is allowed to be in the Republican Party, the Republican Party has made Liberal a dirty word to avoid having any Liberal balance in the Republican Party.
For political balance ALL conservatives and moderates need to be sent back to the Republicans on the Right where they belong; and where they were before Goldwater changed politics to where the Right can represent the Right from the Left, which is an improper perspective; the Right needs to be returned to representing the Right from the Right, not the Left.
There should be NO Democrats representing the AMA on the Left. Republicans-Lite do play like they represent the Left; but, of course, do not. It is passed time to get all conservatives and moderates totally OUT of the Democratic Party, so that the representatives on the Left actually represent the Left; instead of the Right, then, and only then, will there be political balance.
Report thisBy KDelphi, July 17, 2009 at 2:19 pm Link to this comment
I hope that the DNC and AMA will be very happy together, but use birth control.
We dont need anymore like ‘em.
Report thisBy MarthaA, July 16, 2009 at 10:17 pm Link to this comment
Jed,
The AMA represents private specialists and doctors.
Report thisBy Jed, July 16, 2009 at 12:56 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I have to wonder what practical knowledge The American Medical Student Association has about the health care system. You say the AMA does not represent you. Who are you? Who does the AMA really represent then? These are questions that were not very well answered in your article.
Report thisBy MarthaA, June 17, 2009 at 8:39 pm Link to this comment
seeitnow,
You don’t see it now because the real culprit is corporate welfare, not those mothers trying to raise their children; which is only a drop in the bucket next to massive corporate welfare that bankrupts our society and of course corporations are delighted that people as a whole are so ignorant that they blame the mothers trying to raise their children with subsidies of whatever they can get. It isn’t the mothers and children, it is the corporations welfare that you should be concerned about.
Report thisBy KDelphi, June 17, 2009 at 7:45 pm Link to this comment
If you want affordable care for all, thank Sen Bernie Sanders for today’s Senate Hearing…he is the only one to put people before profits.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=314605
Release: Senate Panel Begins Work on Health Care Reform
WASHINGTON, June 17 – The Senate health committee today began work on a health care reform bill to bring down costs and provide coverage for nearly 50 million Americans without insurance.
Sanders is a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that is one of two Senate panels drafting health care legislation.
“In the United States today health care costs are soaring, 46 million lack any health insurance while more are under-insured, 18,000 die because they don’t have regular access to a doctor and, in the midst of all of that, we end up spending far more than any other country,” Sanders said in his opening remarks,” he said.
“Our job must be to wring out the incredible profiteering and inefficiencies that 1,300 private health insurance companies create, and increase efforts on prevention, primary care and quality control. If we do that, we can provide high quality, comprehensive and cost-effective health care for all Americans.”
Report thisBy KDelphi, June 17, 2009 at 6:46 pm Link to this comment
BruSays—thank you .
One thing, though—they bring up the “13 yr old” “mothers” and seem to excuse the fathers. Maybe they dont like their mothers.
Whatever it is, it sounds personal to me…I dont know if they realize that ADC (Aid to Dependent Children) no longer exists. The girls have to go to WorkFare, at least in most states. Then, they complain that the child is not brought up right. And just try to get them to pay for Child Care!
You cant win with these people. Now, if the girl had an abortion—I guess theyd be up in arms about that.
Report thisBy BruSays, June 17, 2009 at 6:26 pm Link to this comment
KDelphi…well put.
As with most blogs, you can quickly spot the knee-jerk nonsense of people presented by facts they won’t accept because those facts conflict with their misinformation.
So what do they do?
Why, what any 10-year-old would do. “Oh yeah, well so’s your mother!”
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
Report thisBy MarthaA, June 17, 2009 at 5:25 pm Link to this comment
Here is a post on Alternet that gets to the point on public health care:
Report thishttp://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/140609/four_reasons_why_the_public_health_care_option_is_irrefutable/
By KDelphi, June 17, 2009 at 4:50 pm Link to this comment
You can see the conversation deteriorate as the cowards run. Their time is over, and they are afraid.
No need to be—move to Texas or NH and secede.
Most ‘Merkins dont know what a “communist” is—I’ll give you a hint—there is no country today that is “communist” and the USSR certainly wasnt.
Fedupvet—your dr thanks you…now, go away
Report thisBy seeitnow, June 17, 2009 at 2:49 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Instead of spending the money giving health care to everyone who can’t afford it, why not use it to try to control the biggest terrorist threat we face internally in the US - that being the single female aged 12 to 30 that produces all of the out-of-wedlock babies that she and the father cannot support thereby forcing this responsibility on the rest of us.
Report thisBy ardee, June 17, 2009 at 2:08 pm Link to this comment
Fedupvet, June 17 at 3:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
If my family doctor takes part in this communist health care program…he will loose all of his current patients..and we know where his office is.
You will know where his office also even if you`ve never been to our city…it`s the one with the “Swastika” on the door.
................................
Is he a mental health professional? Are you aware of any of the particulars of this issue? Do you even understand that a swastika is not a symbol of communism ( hint) next time you are defiling a persons door because of his particular opinion about something, use a hammer and sickle….better yet, pick up a book, any book, you will be the better for it.
Report thisBy KDelphi, June 17, 2009 at 1:39 pm Link to this comment
seeitnow—please, move to NH and see if you can get them to secede—maybe with Texas or something.
I used to live there, but I moved—but I think that you would like it, from the sounds of it. I could only stand it for about 18 mos.
Spend all your time at Deer Camp!! Build a little hut out there and dont participate in society at all.
So, Darwin would approve of “states rights”, or what are you talking about?????
Report thisBy BruSays, June 17, 2009 at 1:31 pm Link to this comment
Fedupvet…you’re ignorant. WTF does communism have to do with Single Payer health? Did you ever:
1. Drive on our federally-funded Interstate Highway System?
2. Call on your municipal, taxpayer-shared fire department?
3. Call on your municpal, taxpayer-shared police department?
4. Put on a uniform of your federally-funded military?
COMMUNIST!
Report thisBy BruSays, June 17, 2009 at 1:18 pm Link to this comment
MarthaA…I left out Cuba (though included Brazil in twice!), but the list is hardly exhaustive. Add Lithuania, Pakistan, Austria, China….
Your point is well taken and I totally agree. Here’s a nation 90 miles from our border, a nation far poorer than our own, and their level of health care is comparable to our own?
As far as seeitnow’s comments…very sad. As a Californian I fully realize the state’s economic situation. But don’t people realize this: WE ALL PAY FOR HEALTH CARE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.
Whether health care is managed by the private sector or the public, we share the costs. People get sick, miss work, have babies, spread germs, underperform, go bankrupt, lose productivity, overwhelm our emergency wards, etc.
Through my taxes, I pay for emergency health care for the uninsured. I pay for worker absenteeism caused by sick workers who can’t afford insurance. I pay for the education of kids whose mothers send them to school with colds or fevers because they can’t afford a doctor, I pay for the 40% who go bankrupt due to catastrophic medical costs (and over 70% of those had “insurance”). The fact is, whether we live in New Hampshire or New Delhi, we all share the costs of our collective health, one way or another.
So, the challenge isn’t in finding ways to pass the costs from one taxpayer to another but in finding ways to reduce the costs.
In Canada, Single Payer is the national system. Yet each province or territory decides the details and administers the system on their own (co-pays, eligibility, etc. etc.) We can do the same. Again, this isn’t rocket science.
Report thisBy Fedupvet, June 17, 2009 at 12:33 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
If my family doctor takes part in this communist health care program…he will loose all of his current patients..and we know where his office is.
Report thisYou will know where his office also even if you`ve never been to our city…it`s the one with the “Swastika” on the door.
By MarthaA, June 17, 2009 at 9:51 am Link to this comment
Brusays,
I notice you left out Cuba. Cuba has single-payer health care that they provide to all of their people and even export to foreign countries.
The battle for health care isn’t really about health care, it’s over the market for health care, and who gets the benefit of the market, the private sector or the public sector. The private sector has failed egregiously, and the private sector will be more of the same, and no matter what the private sector says, it will be just that —- more of the same.
If Cuba can have health care for all their people, the United States can, but it will have to be the public option to be of any real benefit. If Congress can manage to circumvent the greed and think in the best interest of all the people, they will vote in the public option and in the long run, all will be better off.
Report thisBy tp, June 17, 2009 at 5:14 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
My apologies go out to the moderator and/or who ever might have taken offense with my comment. I admit I did go over the line with the name calling. I didn’t think it was that shocking of a name as I have seen it numerous times attached to the end of our X president. Sorry, it will not happen again.
Report thisAfter a little thinking about the comments made by seeitnow, I thought his comments could have been concocted to get the reactions of other commenters who may have taken offense just as I did. His suggestion that nature should take it’s course on the uninsured as if they weren’t worth the medical attention it takes to keep them alive seemed by far to be worse than my name calling. He suggested that if all people were covered under the HR 676 that the quality of care for more deserving people such as himself would depreciate. The opposite would be true in my opinion. He suggested that those who presently have insurance were a bit higher on the evolutionary scale. I’m not a scientist but even I know that is bordering on lame. I’m not calling anybody stupid but the idea that not having money or the benefits of insurance doesn’t mean that those people don’t have just as much potential as those who were more fortunate in their lives. We need a little more social and a little less selfish in my opinion.
tp
By seeitnow, June 17, 2009 at 4:13 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The issue of single payer should be left to the states. The imbalance in the underclass population by state surely would make local (read state) government representatives do what is best for their constituents. I live in both California and New York - both of which are broke (mostly California). All I need is one more reason to move to New Hampshire and I’m gone. The legislatures of both California and New York are a mess and dysfunctional - both full of people who just want to get re-elected. They have bankrupted both states in the process. Let’s see if they want to finish the job by committing more taxes to programs with no limit on spending. No, what both of these states want is for the people in fly-over states to pay for their problems - the people who actually work for a living. I feel sorry for those states who supply the steady stream of soldiers for our armed forces (who defend New York and California) and now will be asked to supply the money to pay for health care for those same states.
Report thisBy peace2uz, June 16, 2009 at 11:40 pm Link to this comment
Mineral Miracle Supplement or (MMS) for short kills disease on contact.
MMS is pure oxygen that oxidizes and kills anything in the body that can only survive in an anaerobic/acidic environment. Which turns out to be all the bad guys. Bacteria, viruses, parasites. It even oxidizes heavy metal accumulation and acid in the body.
It gets better ! MMS doesn’t oxidize beneficial bacteria or harm healthy cells because they are aerobic and alkaline in nature.
MMS is used in Africa to cure AIDS which it does in 4 hours.
MMS cures many other diseases including, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, alzheimer’s, MS, arthritis/gout, swine flu etc.
MMS cures virtually all dis-ease! Oxygen can do this because the true cause (theres only one) of dis-ease has been suppressed/buried for over a hundred and fifty years.
Read “Sick and Tired: Reclaim Your Inner Terrain” by Robert O Young, PH.D to learn about this diabolical fraud being played on the human race.
Maintain and restore vibrant health with Dr. Robert Young’s “pH Miracle Diet”.
Report thisA Conscientious Doctor Comments on MMS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp1eqTajcpQ
By KDelphi, June 16, 2009 at 9:41 pm Link to this comment
seeitnow—I believe in science, but every higher order species—some seem to be higher than us, such as orcas and chimps—take care of each other.
Chimps, and orcas better than humans.
The other fact is that every civilized country on earth provides care for those at their most helpless. If you dont wish to , perhaps you should figure out why. Unless you consider yourself a Social Darwinist. In which case, youd better hope that no one whose kid dies from a lack of dental care chooses to “Darwin” you…
hippie4ever—I worked with alot of medicaid clients—-the system is reprehensible.
Report thisShame on the uS.
By MeHere, June 16, 2009 at 6:06 pm Link to this comment
seeitnow:
I’m afraid that you, along with much of the voting population, are suffering from acute denial which is very self-destructive. The heavy investments that health care profiteers have made in politicians and in disseminating wrong information on the single-payer option have succeeded. They bank on people like you who so easily buy the idea that, because “this is the USA,” any real change will lead to failure.
Report thisBy BruSays, June 16, 2009 at 5:55 pm Link to this comment
These countries have Single Payer health systems:
Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, India, Israel, Taiwan, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark, Greece, Czech Republic, Croatia, Bulgaria, Austria, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Ukraine, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, the U.K. (a version of it), France, Romania, Russia, Georgia, Latvia and Iceland…to name a few in no particular order. In case you’re wondering, Australia and New Zealand both provide a version of Medicare and on the whole, their governments, through taxation, fund over two-thirds of all medical expenditures.
Could someone please explain how we are so unique or our economy so poor, or our government so twisted or our tax system so skewed that we can’t find a way to make it work here?
I can offer three reasons:
Report this1. Rich Pharmaceutical Companies
2. Rich Health Insurance Companies
3. Rich (Republican & Democrat) representatives whose campaign donations are funded by numbers 1 & 2.
By BruSays, June 16, 2009 at 5:19 pm Link to this comment
Let’s not pretend we’re SO unique we can’t adopt Single Payer.
We’re no different from Germany than Germany is from Portugal or Portugal is from Denmark. And they ALL have Single Payer systems and none of them would trade their coverage for ours.
To maintain that our “underclass” somehow prevents us from taking advantage of a Single Payer system means that someone has been drinking the Repub’s or Neocon’s Kool-Aid. That’s what they’ll have you believe. But if the Czech Republic can move into Single Payer for pity’s sake, than so can we.
Our problem isn’t with Johnson-era welfare. It’s with Reagan-era corporate greed. Through tax entitlments and loopholes, the rich have grown richer, the poor have grown poorer and the middle class has remained stagnant. This doesn’t rule out our need or ability to adopt Single Payer, it underscores that need.
And let’s put to rest the myth that Medicare is a failure. It’s NOT a failure. Compared with our current private system, Medicare is a huge success. And does pointing out Medicare fraud mean there’s no fraud in the private sector? Please. Let’s get real.
Let’s also point out that every U.S. Senator and Representative is a recipient of a government-run health care system. Pull that system from them tomorrow and we’d have Single Payer on the plate before you can finish this sentence.
Report thisBy MarthaA, June 16, 2009 at 4:38 pm Link to this comment
Amen means ‘so be it’, so I say Amen to Brusays.
Report thisBy hippie4ever, June 16, 2009 at 4:05 pm Link to this comment
This information is factual: in another life (1985) I worked for the California affiliate of AMA and the doctors were with very few exceptions crowing reichwing homophobic reactionary bigots. These are the scum of the medical profession: political reich beasts with their pockets lined by the health care industry.
THESE AMA DOCTORS DO NOT PRACTICE MEDICINE—they serve at the behalf of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, AETNA, Kaiser Permanente, HealthNet et al. They don’t save lives—they perpetuate a system that denies health care to the lower and middle classes.
Report thisBy seeitnow, June 16, 2009 at 2:43 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
This ain’t Europe. This is the USA. Home of the largest underclass (per capita) in the first world when compared to the middle class. We are already living with the mistakes of the Johnson era (medicare, food stamps, etc, etc). There is no way to bring our underclass up to the middle class. Single payer will not work. Medicare is single payer. It is a massive failure. It is full of fraud and abuse. Just imagine how that will be multiplied if the federal government decides to be the only health insurance agency. You think insurance execs make a lot. Remember, these are people who have to perform or lose their jobs - government workers never get fired, unless perhaps if they are caught having sex with a dead animal on top of their desk during working hours. Face reality the federal government can’t do anything right, much less efficiently.
Report thisBy BruSays, June 16, 2009 at 12:45 pm Link to this comment
Why all the discussion about the complexities of national health care? Why all the back-and-forth bantering about what the AMA says or what AARP says or what the Dems say or the Repubs say?
Folks, we’re not inventing the wheel here. For decades, dozens of western nations have been operating single payer health care systems that are heads and shoulders above our own in both quality of care and cost of that care. There’s no discussion here. Our system sucks. Theirs works. Infant mortality, life expectancy, access to health care, cost-per-patient - all these statistics are out there and clearly, single payer provides the best bang for the buck.
So let’s just look across the border or across the oceans and choose the system we want to implement. Sure, we’ll do some tweaking but by in large, the system we want is already functioning out there. So let’s adopt it, adapt it and move on.
Report thisBy MarthaA, June 16, 2009 at 10:20 am Link to this comment
WE THE PEOPLE of the United States no matter what the AMA doctors say need a public option:
My daughter has multiple injuries that need medical attention from her work, and workman’s comp. doesn’t pay without a law suit for each injury, which means without medical, she has to endure forever, or until a lawyer can somehow secure the allowance of medical from a judge, which should not have to be. Workman’s comp would not be needed with medical for all.
My 16 yr. old granddaughter’s knee was hurt in an accident, but to date has been unable to receive sufficient medical help to control the pain and for the past 2 yrs. has had to endure the damage that exploratory surgery still could help, although it appears arthritis is setting in, which will cause the need for further medical, but won’t be allowed on insurance, account a pre-existing injury.
My grandson has a painful medical condition that caused holes to come in the bone of one of his leg and has had surgery and the bone packed, but is still painful and he needs medical help, but the condition is a pre-existing condition, therefore not insurable.
We need public medical care for all; I, and everyone I know needs medical care in one way or the other.
Making people endure their medical conditions, because they are supposedly weak, or go in debt for exorbitant charges when they receive little pay is government oppression and tyranny. Not having medical care is more of a terror than all the foreign terrorists combined.
Report thisBy tropicgirl, June 16, 2009 at 10:13 am Link to this comment
Obama’s health care plan is not going anywhere, fast. The lobby groups are going to destroy it and well they should. Not for the reasons THEY say, but because it does NOT represent the only fair, affordable, moral and potentially successful reform there is, single payer.
In order to counter these strong lobbyist groups, Obama would need grassroots support. Since he has already screwed his “grassroots” on issues from war to privacy to bailouts, he is alone with the lobbyists. (cricket sounds).
I wouldn’t defend him on anything, even if you paid me. Let him think it was the lobbyists that killed it. What an ass.
Report thisBy Cathy, June 16, 2009 at 8:42 am Link to this comment
David Heston said:
Why all the debate about how much money could be saved with a National Program?All one need do is total the compensation paid to all insurance executives who have nothing to do with the receiving and disbursements of claims.I have no idea what a total would be, but, it was reported that $1 of every $700 spent on all medical expenses goes to pay the salary package of the BigDog at United Health Care. With numbers like this, given the number of health insurers,the figure would certainly stagger the mind.This does not even include the K Street monies!Pitiful, pitiful.
____________________________________
The former CEO McGuire of UnitedHealth left the jobs with a $1.1 billion platinum parachute, the largest in corporate history. Here’s the Wiki on UnitedHealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitedHealth_Group
Report thisBy Maximilian, June 16, 2009 at 7:37 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Your article: ” Being Obama matters”
Report thisJust some remarks:
a) Eugene Robinson mentions with delight ” Pdt Obama spoke of how the Islamic world kept the light of civilizaton burning during Europe’s Dark Ages”. Once more this turn of phrase is the typical foreshortened image of Europe bathing in “dark ages” while the Arab conquering wave plundered and destroyed the existing but divided Greek countries in former Turkey ( before the Turco-mongols came a bit later on)? Saying this, Pdt Obama wilfully omits ( or worse, ignored ) the immense role played by Byzance which maintained close ties with West European christian thinking centers i.e.monasteries.
b) Quote: ” Obama was speaking the language of Islam in a tone of respect. What a concept” . Comments: all in all, to sum it up, not very exciting. What the Arabs are waiting for is the Palestinian question settled in a dignified and trustworthy way. Yes, of course the Cairo speech was for them pleasant and sweet to hear, but “verba volant, scripta manent” and from the latest Netanyahu and Ehud Barak statements, it doesn’t look very bright !
c) the Guantanamo affair: yes, he “ordered” Guantanamo’s closing but does not know what to do with some 230 prisoners tortured for years, - let’s not eschew the real word- and now appeals to his European “allies” to get rid of them: is Nato a kind of convenient dustbin for political cumbersome prisonners ?
PS: I am a former staff officer and travelled for seven years in the Near-and Middle East.
Maximilian
By wordsonfire, June 16, 2009 at 6:45 am Link to this comment
SeeItNow . . .
Because you get a cavity you deserve to die? Or because you get an illness that is entirely treatable, you deserve to die . . .? Do you deserve to die if you get a totally treatable illness too?
What a weird and heartless perspective on the world.
Report thisBy MeHere, June 15, 2009 at 7:26 pm Link to this comment
Many thanks to Dr. Flowers, Dr. Paris and PNHP.
seeitnow: How does Darwinism have anything to do with health care choice? But, if you insist it does, I can only assume that you are not wasting your time and money in getting any kind of health care at all for yourself and/or your loved ones.
Report thisBy MarthaA, June 15, 2009 at 6:24 pm Link to this comment
Samdfred,
Me, neither; socialized medicine in my opinion would be a benefit to society as a whole, but what we are suppose to get if we ever get it is something that isn’t socialized, but still is for the public. Whatever it is, if it is in the public’s best interest, it will be worthwhile, but if not, if corporations are in charge, there will still be all kinds of terror things that could happen to the average person.
seeitnow,
Your opinion is the conservatives/moderates ideology when they went about to deregulate and destroy the nations economy. We have had enough of the me only attitude, where only the strong survive, because sometimes we get sick and bad things happen to good people.
KDelphi,
I agree with you, following the money is a good way to tell who is actually for the public’s 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION working class, that aren’t the Professional Middle Class or Aristocratic Elite Capitalists.
Report thisBy WriterOnTheStorm, June 15, 2009 at 5:41 pm Link to this comment
seeitnow,
You’re probably just griefing this thread, but on the odd chance you’re in earnest:
You’re treading very close to Haeckel’s Social Darwinism, which has been associated with National Socialism. There’s a fairly vast chasm between acknowledging the mechanisms of evolution, and worshipping those mechanisms, or invoking them for political purposes. Nature’s corrections are thoughtless and cruel. As human beings, our challenge is to do better.
On another note, if anyone makes a t-shirt saying F*** THE AMA. I’ll buy it.
Report thisBy AWM, June 15, 2009 at 5:28 pm Link to this comment
An interesting historical perspective on the AMA’s opposition to single payer
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ynfn-0BudZwC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq;=“American+medical+association”+truman&source=bl&ots=PaWDV_HPsX&sig=ry6Cz5Bu3qza6vbh4zw0IyhlDtA&hl=en&ei=0842SqaFB96MtgfFq8DRDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PPA96,M1
Report thisBy samdfred, June 15, 2009 at 3:57 pm Link to this comment
Its good to know that there are Physicians with a conscience who are fighting for Health Care reform in the U.S. I will never understand the Americans’ great fear of “socialized medicine”. Surely health care for all people is only good for society or do you still believe that financial triage is still the way to go.
Report thisBy ardee, June 15, 2009 at 2:34 pm Link to this comment
seeitnow, June 15 at 3:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Ardee:
I am dead serious. As a believer in science, and the theory of evolution, it makes no sense to me to continue to interfere with nature. Let nature take its course - we all face personal extinction eventually. Why burden future generations with nature’s failures. The existential nature of human beings quite naturally leads to failure for some. Not everyone will succeed - that doesn’t mean that the rest should fail along with them.
If we go ahead on the course that extends everyone’s life to the last possible minute it will surely bankrupt everyone.
You do believe in science - don’t you ?
............................................
I believe in a lot of things, like saving dying children when possible, like combating plagues and epidemics also. Science you say, while fostering an idea that has its roots in superstition and dark age mysticism?
What in hell universal health care has to do with your garbled and insensitive rant I have yet to determine. But if you are such a believer in nature ask yourself, when next you encounter you, why does nature create plants that heal?
Report thisBy G.Anderson, June 15, 2009 at 1:51 pm Link to this comment
Just like GM.
Just like GM did with automobiles, health insurance companies and some Doctors are now fighting health care reform, putting their own greed and self interest, at odds with those of the people. Just like GM they are using large sums of money to prevent reform by influencing congress, ironically the reform they wish to stop, is their only hope of saving their industry before it collapses. Again just like GM.
Just like GM, they will fail, but the longer they stall the process of reform the more likely, like GM, there will be a total and complete collapse of health care in this country.
If single payer fails it may be time to buy yourself a stethascope.
Report thisBy KDelphi, June 15, 2009 at 1:02 pm Link to this comment
Also worth posting, are the amounts that Committee Chairs, and others, have recieved from the ‘health ” insurance industry from 2003-2008
Baucus recieved $14.8 million, with $92,000 from Schering-Plough Corp alone.
Grassley—$2.3 million
Kennedy $1.2 million
and , finally, our fearless leader
Obama—$21 million ( I dont think that those were in “small denominations”)
These are the reasons, I believe, as someone who worked in the health csre field, why we are getting a plan that may actually make the health care boondoggle in the uS worse…
Report thisBy MarthaA, June 15, 2009 at 12:58 pm Link to this comment
Just like capitalism, Medicare and Public Option health care has to be regulated from the Ponzi’s out there trying to get something for nothing, but if properly regulated, the public option will be better for all concerned. An emissary should be sent to France to scope out how their Public Health Care for their citizens is regulated.
Report thisBy KDelphi, June 15, 2009 at 12:58 pm Link to this comment
Spiritgirl and everyone:
It is not surprising that some have never heard of Physicians for a Natl Health Plan, as the Dems running the committee hearings keep having them arrested. (Baucus—-who finally dropped charges on PNHP and the Califotrnia Nurses Assoc who asked to be heard) PLEASE go to the website and read the truth!
http://www.pnhp.org/
Here is their response to Obama’s speech to the AMA today….Dr. Dom McCanne
(Thjis is what ObaMA says his plan would “save”)
The White House
June 13, 2009
Paying for Health Care Reform
Health Care Reserve Fund ($ in billions - over 10 years)
$635 - FY 2010 Budget
$309 - Medicare and Medicaid Savings
$326 - Revenues
$313 - Additional Medicare and Medicaid Savings
$110 - Incorporate productivity adjustments into Medicare payment
$106 - Reduce hospital subsidies for treating the uninsured as coverage increases
$75 - Pay better prices for Medicare Part D drugs
$22 - Other
Total: $948
Here is their reply (sorry to paste verbatim, but my RA is killing me and I had to pull a bad tooth)
Comment: What does President Obama mean when he says that this is how we’re going to pay for most of his health care reform proposals? Is he referring to savings in the actual costs of health care that would offset the increased spending that would result from expanding coverage? Or is he merely referring to a decrease in government spending that helps with government budgets, but doesn’t really have much impact on our total national health expenditures (NHE)?
Two-thirds of the proposed funding already appears in his FY 2010 budget. He would reduce overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans, reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud (sure), reduce hospital readmissions (block the entrances?), and reduce Medicare hospital payments by measuring quality (hmmm). In this fact sheet, the only revenue increase mentioned is limiting the value of itemized deductions for families making over a quarter-million dollars a year, a proposal that has proven to be quite controversial.
The new proposals in this fact sheet include a reduction in spending based on improved productivity, extrapolating the improved productivity in the entire U.S. economy and applying it to health care (not exactly noted for assembly lines, displacing health care with information technology systems, etc.). It includes a reduction in payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (excess share of uninsured) which would be made possible by providing insurance to those currently uninsured. This is more of an accounting gimmick since it merely moves government spending from the hospitals to the insurance plans. Also proposed is a reduction in drug reimbursement for beneficiaries dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, a minute fraction of what could be saved by negotiating fair prices for all of us under a universal national health program.
Report thisMerely playing with numbers does not provide us with the comprehensive structural reform that we would need to accomplish our two primary goals: 1) health care for everyone, and 2) slowing health care cost escalation to sustainable levels. As long as the politicians can continue to distract us with cat fights over the public option, or whatever, we will never have what we really need: a new and improved Medicare for all
By seeitnow, June 15, 2009 at 12:38 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Ardee:
I am dead serious. As a believer in science, and the theory of evolution, it makes no sense to me to continue to interfere with nature. Let nature take its course - we all face personal extinction eventually. Why burden future generations with nature’s failures. The existential nature of human beings quite naturally leads to failure for some. Not everyone will succeed - that doesn’t mean that the rest should fail along with them.
If we go ahead on the course that extends everyone’s life to the last possible minute it will surely bankrupt everyone.
You do believe in science - don’t you ?
Report thisBy ardee, June 15, 2009 at 11:47 am Link to this comment
seeitnow, June 15 at 2:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
As a progressive and liberal, I can’t understand my fellow progressive’s insistance on universal health care. Why not let Darwinism take its natural course instead of interfering with nature by supporting health care for everyone ?
........................................
As a left leaning liberal I believe ( or want to believe) that your comment is tongue in cheek. This is not a discussion about people doing stupid things leading to injury ,illness, bankruptcy or death. If it were then your comment might be funny ( to those who consider death funny) instead of being so far off the mark.
Aside from the incredible costs to this nation of our current health care, roughly two and half times that of second place on the list is what we spend annually on care, one must consider the bankruptcies, home foreclosures and other hardships our system causes.
But thanks ever so much for the attempt.
Report thisBy seeitnow, June 15, 2009 at 11:43 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
David Heston:
No executives in the government huh, I guess that’s why there is so much fraud in Medicare being perpetrated on the government - no competent supervision !
Report thisBy David Heston, June 15, 2009 at 11:30 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Why all the debate about how much money could be saved with a National Program?All one need do is total the compensation paid to all insurance executives who have nothing to do with the receiving and disbursements of claims.I have no idea what a total would be, but, it was reported that $1 of every $700 spent on all medical expenses goes to pay the salary package of the BigDog at United Health Care. With numbers like this, given the number of health insurers,the figure would certainly stagger the mind.This does not even include the K Street monies!Pitiful, pitiful.
Report thisBy seeitnow, June 15, 2009 at 11:23 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
As a progressive and liberal, I can’t understand my fellow progressive’s insistance on universal health care. Why not let Darwinism take its natural course instead of interfering with nature by supporting health care for everyone ?
Report thisBy Spiritgirl, June 15, 2009 at 11:21 am Link to this comment
Thank you for your article. I for one have never heard of PNHP. Of course the AMA is the one that has more money to participate in the pay-to-play system, and the one shielding those horrible doctors that should have long ago been booted out of the medical profession!
Report thisBy Blackspeare, June 15, 2009 at 11:05 am Link to this comment
However, it is the more powerful and politically connected one-third!
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