rfidler—thank you..feel like I’m in shock…

KD:

Best wishes.

rfidler—Wish it was…now I have a choice of having some unlicensed med student poke around in my brain or leave it alone and hope it doesnt grow enough to make me lose my vision.

Lets take the profit out of health care, please….thanks for reply. Prob wont be back much. Explains my memory farts….

KD:

I certainly hope the mis-diagnosis was in your favor! You were unclear. Best of luck. Sincerely!

I think that folktruther is brilliant, personally. But we can differ.

Well, looks like heatlh care reform will come too late for my Medicaid mis-diagnosed brain tumor…just found out today…explains why I am so stupid, I guess, rfidler.

At least I will stop sucking up the tax dollars needed for more drones…

KD: Sorry about the folktruther jibe. Most of his posts are very sloppy and he hits the “submit” button way too fast. Remember when you were a kid in the car and tried to hold your breath through a tunnel? Seems like folktruther does that during a post and runs out of air before he can proof-read it.

rfidler—stand corrected. I meant the upper 5th quintile. That was actually $100,000 puts income in the top 4 %.(96th percentile)..

The point stands.Do you another another one—point?

BTW—I dont know “folktruther”, I just read his posts online…—i wish you wouldnot refer to other people who are not posted here everytime you post to me—I’m starting to think you are obsessed.

KDelphi:
For the second time you used the phrase “95th quintile.” You’re starting to go folktruther on us here. A “quintile” is a one-fifth division of a sample population, i.e., there are only five “quintiles” in a group. Say 95th “percentile” next time.

We all have a list of misanthropes and miscreants: Limbaugh, McConnell, Gingrich, Steele, Cantor, Barbour, Cheney, Rove, W…

There are plenty more to complete the list.

The groups/organizations we know too: the private health care industry, the AMA and the ideologues.

They are the nihilists, the reprobates, the sociopaths.

Universal health care coverage will be a step toward equal opportunity—what the above hypocrites would espouse.We are at a critical time in our republic: we can continue going ugly with the above miscreants or we can consider what’s good for our country.

Xntrk==I hope you didnt think I was complaining…except for being unable to read my own sister’s cancer care diary on DailyKos (she had to forward it to me) I dont give a rat’s behind about any of those sites. And I wouldnt pee on Obama is he was on fire. I gave $5 to Kucinich and $5 to McKinney…

This is Cyrano’s Journal Online (orig from Black Agnda Repott) “Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?A healthcare reform for suckers” (by Tim Rigbert)

http://www.bestcyrano.org/?p=2926&cpage=1#comment-279
” The “public option” has that magic word “public” in it, and that’s reassuring to progressives and to most of the American people. Taxing the rich is a popular idea too. So if you rely on corporate media, the administration, or some of the so-called progressive blogs to identify the players and keep the score, it seems a pretty clear case of President Obama on the side of the angels, battling the greedy insurance companies, Republicans and blue dog Democrats to bring us universal, affordable health care…That whole picture has about as much reality as the ones the same corporate media and most of the same politicians drew for us about Iraq, 9-11, weapons of mass destruction and some people over there who wanted us to free them. Iraq and the White House were and remain actual places, and there really is a problem called health care. But the places, problems and solutions are very different from the bubble of fake reality blown around them,,,”

Hulk—did you notice that ObaMA has backed off of taxes on people making over $300,000 (95th Quintile of the populaton) and the individual mandate. Its for suckers. As long as its for-priots, most pooe people will die young. Thats immoral.NOTHING WIKLL HAPPEND FOR THE UNINSURED TIL 2018!!!

We cant impeach Obama, cause hes “better ‘en Bush” and thats about it…but if we had a democracy we should.

By Hulk2008, July 22 at 10:06 am

You say paying a private insurer will reduce waste and abuse, why? A private insurer will look out for its investors and the hell with what the poor person who is paying those private ‘crooks’ who will at every turn be trimming costs to maximize profits and raising rates or perhaps you have just simply forgotten how those bailouts have been used, abused and wasted on people that have more money than they need.

But, hey, maybe you’re an investor and that is why a private insurer would be great so YOU can invest and make money on that scam because you also appear to think that this economy is doing great and a ‘single payer’ health plan is just communist BS which just makes you complicit in this financial terroist attack we are experiencing.

No, any private insurance company does NOT need to have its greedy paws in this and I would be willing to accept a higher tax rate and know I could go to a doctor or a hospital when I was ill, making that a compulsory way of financing and at the same time not make another ‘police’ agency out of the IRS and stripping more freedoms from americans or should I say making more compulsory shit put on the people to please the corporate crooks.

So once again, give me real information about what is wrong with other counrties ‘single payer’ health care and why it doesn’t work.

IMPEACH HULK2008 & OBAMA!!!

KDelphi and any others feeling neglected, I’ll gladly share with you. I just deleted e-mails from Firedoglake, Move-On, Obama the Great, and the Democratic Party. As I have never contributed to Obama or Move-On, or the Democratic Party, I assume they got my address from some Progressive Website who sold it for a pittance.

I could forward the e-mails before I delete them…

True, Xntrk—but I dont get many emails or such , in fact, I am banned form most Dem Party websites since I circulated a petition to ask BaucASS to step down , per a confict of interest.

Thats’ just downright, censorship aint it Blue Dogs??! Change, hope, change, hope, change, hope.

During the election campaign, the Democratic Party, and many Progressive groups and individuals laid a guilt trip on those of us who distrusted Obama and his ‘liberal’ credentials.

The machinery of the political ‘left’ along with most of the media, mainstream or otherwise, inundated us with both a subliminal, and overt, message that a vote ‘against’ Obama was a vote for RACISM. The choice was framed as our opportunity to stand up for equal rights by voting for a Black Man - Regardless of his politics.

This was the same argument that was rejected by Democrats and Progressives in 1988 on the grounds that Jesse Jackson was ‘Not Qualified’. Of course, questioning Barrack Obama’s credentials was presented as yet another symptom of our innate RACISM.

Now we are being tag teamed by the same mainstream “Progressives” on Health Care. Every day, I get telephone calls, e-mails, and snail mail from different groups telling me how I will destroy our last best chance at Health Care Reform if I do not go along with the Politicians and Insurance Companies who abhor Single Payer Health Care, which is not only affordable, but provides coverage for all.

How many ways can you spell Bull Shit?

See the Black Agenda Report:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-health-care-plan-really-better-nothing

There are some other interesting and timely articles about the Progressive conundrum many of us are facing. The Obama Administration is driving us further and further along the path of Corporate Fascism and Imperialism…

Spiritgirl
  Thank you for your well written and spot on commentary, which clearly states our current dilemma. 
  The big question remains.  How do we rid ourselves from the current state of Corporate control of our government, which is responsible for most of our current problems.  I personally don’t see any amount of ” contacting your representatives ” to be in any real way effective. (even though I still do it myself.)  “Our” representatives continue to disregard the citizenry at large in favor of the money conduit from the corporate interests.  I don’t know how we can sever this money, pay for influence, pipeline.  But, until that is done, I really don’t see much “Change”
happening.  It will continue to be Business as usual and the poor and middle class will continue to pay for increasingly larger executive bonuses.  We have been sold out buy President Obama who we had believed would finally be someone who would stand for the people; but who once again, has capitulated the the mighty Corporate masters. 
  Here are some suggestions to this end:
1. Make lobbing illegal period. ( Paying for influence)
2. Make the pay of our representatives based on performance of the country.
3. Make the representatives buy there own health insurance just like the rest of us.
4. Have real limits to campaign financing so the peoples votes will mater.
5. Make the voting process tamper proof. Really tamper proof!
6. Be able to recall and expel any politician who reneges on their campaign promises.
Option B,  Another Revolution.

Ask Pres. Obama to attend the RAM/US (Remote Area Med team) this weekend (July 24th) at WISE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS in VIRGINIA!! Its a hop skip and a jump, Obama.

The RAM formerly treats mostly people in Third World countries, but, now spend about 40% of their time in the US…there is a schedule, and this weekend they will be at the fairground. People will come from as far away as Wicsonsin and Florida…

Maybe it would help him a get a better idea of the scope of the problem and better ascertain whether the problem is really “choice” and should be “deficit neutral”...Wendell Potter, former Cigna CEO, was converted from an insurance executive to a whistleblower on attending one of these in Tennessee….URGE THE PRES TO GO!!!

URGE YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO GO! URGE Sen Mark WARNER (of Va. ) to go

http://warner.senate.gov/public/

Urge Sen Jim Webb of Va to go!http://webb.senate.gov/

If they will not see what the problem is, is their own county, they do NOT deserve to be re-elected!
Ask them to skip the beach this wknd and “spend time with their constituents”!!!!!!!

http://www.ramusa.org/expeditions/schedule.htm

http://www.ramusa.org/about/mission.htm

OK, there are working models of government run single payer systems to study.  Why are we (our elected representatives) not discussing those?

No one wants to say the “p” word, which is in this case, PROFIT.  We believe that health care should be a profit center rather than a public service like police and fire protection.

We (you and I) should be demanding that a study of working models of a government run system be done before any half-baked bill like HR 3200 is passed.  HR 3200 is a shit-cake of a bill, and there’s no use calling it “reform” when it is based on the same failing for-profit employment-based crap we have now.

Suddenly we have their attention because Obama wants to ram this bill through.  He probably wants to get it done ASAP so we don’t have time to think about the new screwing that we’re going to take from it.  There are .pdf copies of the bill all over the net.  You don’t have to read too far into it to see that they plan to have a $10,000 deductible for a family.  You got $10k to blow on top of your premiums?  I don’t.  So exactly how is this an improvement?

Dennis Kucinich managed to get his amendment attached to the HELP version of the bill.  This amendment would allow states to opt out of the Federal plan (which seems like it opens a can of worms about financing the bill).  It also is no guarantee that we will get single payer, although upon inspection it seems logical that a single payer state would have great incentives for businesses to relocate there due to reduced employee benefits.

But, it’s still no guarantee of single payer.  It still allows insurance companies to exist.  They need to stop existing. 

HR 676 is the single payer bill.  That’s the one Obama would be supporting if he actually had a pair.

-Wexler
http://twitter.com/wwwexler

“...In the world according to MedPAC, Medicare would change policies that encourage the purchase of expensive imaging machines…”

STOP and think. Why would you mandate trillions of dollars of TAXPAYER MONEY into a FOR-PROFIT SYSTEM, and then TAKE AWAY CERTAIN TREATMENTS WITH DECISIONS MADE BY NON-DOCTORS and UNELECTED OFFICIALS, and then MANDATE THAT EVERYONE BUY THEIR SERVICES WITH WHATEVER TAXES THEY HAVE LEFT AT WHATEVER PRICE THEY CHOOSE?

Unelected officials should NEVER supervise taxpayer dollars. Its is totally Un- American. That is not how we do business here in our country. We need to hold someone such as elected officials, accountable, with what happens to the money.

And do you really think you will ever SAVE money with a for-profit system? Who do you think will suck up the “savings” immediately?

This is a train wreck that independent liberals can just watch from the sidelines. We can’t defend this as-yet unwritten legislation. We can just root for whoever torpedoes it down.

Taking the greed out of health care would cut costs to the average user by approximately 300 percent, excluding OTC costs; adding those in savings would equal approximately 350 percent. For these figures I use my own costs under L’Assurance Maladie in France, and compare those to what I pay, a year later, in California under a Kaiser catastrophic coverage plan. 

That’s how much we are all being ripped off. Imagine, instead of paying a premium of $380 with many exclusions, you suddenly pay $80 with none. The $300 you pay extra goes directly into corporate profit, or indirectly into bribes for your “elected” Representatives and Senators hunkered down on the hill, mouths and other orifices wide open to receive maximum input.

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The above is the preamble to the Constitution, “promote the general welfare” - does health-care for all not fall under promoting the general welfare!  Is that not a moral imperative?  I am disappointed that while the Senate argues the “political talking points against” (provided by the Industry that pays them) and therefore do the right thing by we the people; I am angry with we the people that buy into these points without really thinking about the implications of what’s really happening to us as a society!

I am tired of hearing the lies about “socialized medicine”, or “the costs are too high”, or “the government will deny you care”!  For those too lazy to think: (1) do you consider the police, fire and ambulance service, or the military socialized?  (2)for those that think they have care - are the costs not continually spiraling up -hint: it aint the government? and finally (3) if you are lucky enough to have insurance - please don’t get sick, because when you are denied care it won’t be because of “the government” - but it will be because some executive of the “insurance” company has decided that you are now a liability (to the profit margin) and they will cut you off!

People please, the corporate/rich oligarchy has been benefiting/profiteering off the backs of the rest of society for far too long, whether it is from the extremely generous tax breaks that they have been receiving, or because they have off-shored money and therefore pay no taxes on it!  It is time that they start paying their fair share, and the government stop attempting to balance the books on the ever shrinking pay of the 95% of Americans that don’t receive those same luxuries!  The time is NOW, tell your representative to stand up and stand for a public health care option!

The healthcare issue,  the Afghan war…. who can possibly believe that issues like these are being handled by mature, educated, capable adults with the nation’s best interests in mind? 

The aim in healthcare reform should be to develop a system that is as efficient and as simple as possible, with room for improvement in the future should that be necessary. Single-payer, universal health coverage can be that. There are enough experts in this country to design such a system and to make it financially viable.

I believe that part of good government is to educate people on difficult issues.  That hasn’t taken place. The only ones that are “educating” people are the insurance, medical and drug businesses—lots of money goes into preserving and maximizing their profits.

It doesn’t sound like we’re going to get what would make the most sense…..  So it’s up to the voters to stop electing and re-electing leaders and law-makers who favor big interests with the idea that “trickle-down economics” works.  In the end, it’s always “trickle up.”  Otherwise, how can we explain any of the various crises we currently have?

The top two recipients of health care industry dough are Mitch McConnel (R) and Max Baucus (D).  The Senate is the keystone to most of government - it’s where pork guts and slime really do become “sausage”.  As long as the “Health” industry is doing a full-court-press on the Senate, there will be no reform. 
Having worked in health care software for most of my 41 year IT career, I have seen the history of enormous profit increases by the private insurers - at the physical and financial expense of patients.  I can truthfully say their management lets precious little trickle down to workers.  The industry spends about $2 Mg per day in lobbying now - so you know they have a lot to lose if Congress produces any true cost cuts or any form of competition.
For real reform, there would have to be a huge pool of DIRECT pay allowances established between the patients and the providers (docs, hospitals, etc.) - and totally cut out private insurers - but that will NEVER happen.  The independent board idea has been around for nearly a century and is a totally rational concept accepted by all medicos and even some CEOs - even the private insurers have their own “boards” comprised of clerks and former nurses who daily rule (aka “ration”) on treatments based on DRGs (diagnosis-related groupings).  But the private insurers would rather pay for mafia hits than accept anything independent.
  Compulsory health insurance (or posting a huge proof-of-pay bond) is analogous to auto insurance in most states - behavioral scientists have proven that when everyone pays SOMETHING, waste and abuse are reduced. 

..... impeach samsamo

Outraged is not an apt description of the vamped up grand larceny of the people of this country if these criminal politicans and their cozy friends have their way with COMPULSORY health coverage of all citizens, meaning that those who are healthy but and broke, penniless will have to chip in to give these monsters more and more money and with that being stated the whole idea of health care coverage should be dropped and stopped NOW because it is an ILLEGAL TAX that makes it an even easier way of eventually putting people in jail.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32078679/ns/politics-washington_post/

NOTHING, NOTHING but enriching the rich even more at my and everyone else’s expense will certainly have dire consequences and I won’t play or pay the game, goddamn cocksucking motherfuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IMPEACH OBAMA!!!!!!!

The hypocrisy is mind-boggling but then, again, what else can you expect from Washington?

They claim that they’re concerned about costs when it comes to healthcare, however, when it comes to war they don’t have a concern.  Of course, we’re not supposed to notice that the Congresscritters are lining their pockets with blood money from both sides - the war machine and the health care vampires - and are actually supposed to believe that their concerns are genuine…as if they had ever cared what the cost of anything is.  Please!

Naysaying is the Antithesis of this Country.A momentary Bluto in “Animal House” rant…., but essentially we would not have become an Independent Superpower had we ever listened to the Naysayers.
Healthcare has been a major issue since before 1993. Since the 1994 Republican majority, they have proposed nothing in regards to reforming healthcare, haven’t even volleyed up a discussion. And still have nothing more than dick in their hands now.
Republican’s NaySayering,reveals their apathy towards the citizen’s, and thus the nation’s, woes. They are not merely the party of “No”, But “So”.
And lets be honest where have these Apathetic naysayers tried to lead this country- Towards a religious socio-economic cast system, eerily similar to the Feudalistic System We Revolted against.
Many have lost their Lives, Many more are unable to enjoy Liberties and thus never capable of pursuing their happiness,because of health issues. “Give Me Liberty or Give me Death” has a whole new meaning. Health is the inalienable right that all other rights hinge off.“If you haven’t got your health, you got nothing”.
Lady Liberty is On the Guerney, which Public Servants will come to Her Aid?

I am not sure what it is that you are proposing…if they “ignore MedPak” now, what good would another MedPak be? (I know that it would move it to he Executive Branch, but, if Obama is hands-off now, why does he want to run MedPAC??)I have heard word that the Pak might consist of RAND members and overseers of “health insurance plans”.

If you want politics out of health care, start with the insurance industry, which literally owns Congress.

Congress has convinced the people that the most important thing about “heatlh insurance reform” is to “
make it deficit neutral”—what horsecrap@! Lets make military spending and BankBailouts “deficit neutral’!!