Why am I not surprised at your defensive reply jmr.  Your own lack of
logical consistency begins with your fallacious premise that all scoundrels are
atheists.  There are definitely Christian scoundrels and most certainly Jewish
scoundrels, and definitely Muslim scoundrels.  Let’s name some of these:
Christian scoundrels – George Bush, Richard Cheney, Mark Siljander, Mark
Foley, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker, and there are more than 50 otheres I could
list, but let those suffice. Jewish Scoundrels – we could start with Bernie Madoff,
and let’s try Scooter Libby, and who doesn’t think a few of the Israeli leaders in
the 20th and 21st centuries have been scoundrels; many would say Arafat, the
Muslim, was a scoundrel, or Osama Bin Laden an Islamist is a scoundrel.  These
are just a few of the religion specific scoundrels.  The list is endless.  Ergo.

But that is not what troubles me.  I have expressed admiration for your power
of speech so I recognize your ability to think and write well.  Your statement
about an afterlife is wholly dependent upon subjective belief, belief that there
is to be such an event.  That is not a belief held by all people. And all these
people are not atheists. Religious Humanists and Empirical Spiritualist are
religious yet do not believe in an afterlife.  Point being your frivolous statement
was not “merely pointing out” it was expressing your opinion of atheists.  You
said, “In fact, I often wonder if, despite their claims as the moral majority,
right-wingers aren’t all atheists, given their apparent lack of concern at
being brought to book for their cynicism, mean spirit and rapacity.”
presents a crystal clear view of your opinion of atheists.  That you applied it
erroneously to a nebulous moral majority is irrelevant to my point, actually

You too seem to think that what you think is the defining pronouncement on
the way things are. The following quote is a complete prevarication:  ”I was
merely pointing out that one of the attributes of atheism is disbelief in an
afterlife, which being ultimately judged depends on, which frees a whole lot of
folks from their consciences.”  You have completely recharacterized it.  What
a clever tactic.  The next quote, further shows your bias, (Yes, it doesn’t free
you or your atheist friends from yours, but I’m not talking about existentialists
able to live as if there were a moral order to the universe.)  What on
earth could you mean by that? It is incoherent at best.  You demonstrate a
dogmatic belief that it is a necessary future to be judged in some alleged
afterlife and that disbelief relieves atheists of conscience?  You seem to be
alleging that atheists do not have a conscience as well.  By the way, and I would
have thought you knew this, that existentialists like atheists are able to live
morally because they choose to, not because there exists any moral order to
the universe or some candyland heaven that would be denied them if they did
not follow the rules (rules by the way invented by man).  That thing you call a
moral order to the universe is a paradigm, an abstraction, not an existent
tangible thing.  It is a construct crafted from the conventionally agreed to
mores of a society. 

Do I have an ax to grind with Christians?  I suppose a Christian could take it
that way.  Contrary to your experience, the atheists I have known are equally
principled and just as kind as any theist.  Christianity, contrary to the way you
are illustrating it, brought much pain and suffering to human beings.  You also
forget the contribution to civilization of the Egyptians, the Assyrians,
Babylonians, and the pre-Christian Greeks and Romans.  I don’t give an f about
digressions as that is a clever ruse when the kitchen gets too hot. These
forums are noted for digressions but they usually come around back to the
topic eventually.

Continued response to jmr

That many of the religious right Republicans appear to be hypocrites is a
conclusion I would wholeheartedly agree with.  But that does not mean I think all
religious Republicans are hypocrites.  Several of the latter are my relatives and
friends and I love them very much, and they love this atheist.  We accept each
other’s right to believe as we choose and do not denigrate the other because it
does not mimic our own. 

Please don’t shrink from the meanings that ooze from your words.  We as
intelligent thinking adults are responsible for what we say even on such an
unceremonious format as a TD blog.

You guys are right!! The Democratic Party is doing a GREAT job!

You must be very proud of the milquetoast govt that you put in power.

There are plenty of Democratic Socialist countries that are not nearly as tyrannical as the USA Patriot Act.

USAns are so delusional.How long do you think that the Danes or French would put up with this shit?

But you guys are comfortable, so why should you care?

There are alot more out here , much more frustrated than I am and the Dems will feel it in 2010—it wont change anything for me and thats is all we’re supposed to care about, right? So I can be smart like you guys.

This bill is so watered down , it may go down in history as one of the reasons the US became a Third World country. You guys just dont have a clue what it is like without private insurance. And you dont care.

So why should people living in poverty care about you? Oh, I forgot, we’re not supposed to use any term , except “aspiring middle class” in the meritocracy…dont let it upset your gentile sensibilities! Wee’re sll just SO grateful for all your watered down bullshit.

Shenonymous, you’re guilty of a logical fallacy.  Saying that all scoundrels are atheists doesn’t mean that all or even most atheists are scoundrels.  Atheists include lots of folks, saints as well as scoundrels.  I was merely pointing out that one of the attributes of atheism is disbelief in an afterlife, which being ultimately judged depends on, which frees a whole lot of folks from their consciences.  (Yes, it doesn’t free you or your atheist friends from yours, but I’m not talking about existentialists able to live as if there were a moral order to the universe.)

You seem to have an ax to grind with Christians. Contrary to your experience, I’ve found Christians, Jews, Buddhists and the like generally kinder and more principled than atheists.  (Not all religions are superior to atheism.  I’m thinking of one in particular.)

And contrary to your bias, Christianity has in fact brought the Western world kicking and screaming into civilization.  It wasn’t Christendom which barbarised Europe but Europeans who barbarised Christendom.  Of course, this steers us towards a huge digression, but in the context of the healthcare debate, what I’ve been hearing from the anti-reform folks is so un-Christian, that it gave rise to the conclusion of my previous post.

I have been wholly impressed with your global thinking and articulate writing skills, typos or not jmr, and you already know I save all your statements that literally drip with wisdom, but I will comment on this statement of yours: In fact, I often wonder if, despite their claims as the moral majority, right-wingers aren’t all atheists, given their apparent lack of concern at being brought to book for their cynicism, mean spirit and rapacity.”  Given perhaps, jmr a self-sightless bigotry, maybe you don’t know that atheists don’t want them either, and atheists know as far as anything can be known that the community is survival important so they are quite altruistic, self-interested or not, and are moral because they consciously choose to be.  I don’t know one atheist who is mean spirited or rapacious.  I know one intimately well, me! (Oh, and my favorite nephew.) 

I am cynical because of the fools that populate this world and especially these forums.  They, the Republicans are not atheists they are hypocritical Christians (remember?).  Was that reactive?  You damn well guessed it.

By the way, Louise, an old politician once defined a bureaucrat as “a Democrat with a job that some Republican wants.”

Thanks Louise, and thanks again, Shenonymous, for the kind words.  And thanks for seeing past my dumb typos, which spellcheck won’t catch, like “finding” instead of funding.  Also, “unsurrance” instead of insurance, though unsurance is a good way to describe the current situation.

As peeved as I get with the left, who are too often sanctimonious and dogmatic, I believe that, come Judgment Day, they’ll have far less explaining to do than the right.  In fact, I often wonder if, despite their claims as the moral majority, right-wingers aren’t all atheists, given their apparent lack of concern at being brought to book for their cynicism, mean spirit and rapacity.  I think the healthcare debate brings out their true colors.

Did you know there are over 8,430 Federally Insured banks in the USA?  Is that a piece of trivial information?  Seems like there ought to be more?  Included in the term “financial institutions” are banks, unions, trust companies, and mortgage loan companies, pension funds, brokers, underwriters, investment funds, and, AND INSURANCE COMPANIES.  Now what the f are we f’ing around for considering not putting a public option in health care reform?

I was told even as a child the We are the People and Louise reminds us that the People are the Guvamint.  So I want to keep believing that but I also believe that we believe what we want to believe.  As a people, yes, we may have become emasculated, made impotent by the politicians but we are definitely kept ignorant by the doubletalk provide by the financial cartels, such as Bank of America, Miller Tabak. 

Here’s what I mean:  Jack Healy, NYT, Aug. 14 wrote “Consumer prices in the United States were steady last month, easing concerns for now that the record deficit and huge new government spending would spur inflation.”  And what really is to make us feel really better, the chief economist at the Bank of America, Mickey Levy, said “It could be a very large long-run problem, but in the near term, it’s not a problem at all.”  Wonderful we get slapped on one side of the face with a creeping wellness, then a kind of slap slap on the other side with a yes/no kind of craziness.  Large long-run problem does not bode well, even if “near term” is not a problem?

Drifting prices, meaning they are not improving, retails sales are sluggish, 14.5 million people are unemployed and production companies have not started running at capacity.  Should we remain optimistic? 

Seems that the most brimming problem that most economists and analysts especially newspaper analysts fail to understand when predicting what the US Dollar, Precious Metals, Financials or the whole Economy in general, is that most of them are using information that no one agrees on.  Where the f are they getting their numbers?  Some expect a 2% inflation over the next two years, another expects no change in consumer prices refraining from putting a percentage on his prediction (a wise man!).  Others are saying there is an inflation fear-mongering going on and that, again, in the near term, prices declined rather than turned upwards (Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak.)  Then I read that other economists say the numbers show that inflation remain “subdued” in spite of oil prices being doubled since February and interest rates on government bonds “crept” back from record lows.  So I guess we have reason to celebrate that________________, someone please fill in the blank. (I’m into filling in blanks these days).

Thank you again jmr and Louise for most scintillating comments on the way life is.  I will try to contain myself over the sage advice.  Really, not meaning to be so cynical, it really is sage advice.

jmr,

Excellent comment jmr. Of course you are correct when you state, “In fact, the government usually makes good decisions. (Enumerating them would take up volumes.  Enumerating the bad decisions would take up no more than a list of bad decisions by business.)  Government is made up of hard-working, talented, dedicated and patriotic people, despite their being constantly trashed as “bureaucrats” by the barons of business, whose wet dream is that no government stand between them and their prey.”

The truth of that is in the simple fact that we are still here!

In spite of repubs and so-called conservatives opening the floodgates and watching our resources, military and money flow like a waterfall into the open arms of the incredibly greedy, we are still here. And that’s not because of brillient leadership. That’s IN SPITE of repub and so-called conservative leadership. We are still here because of dedicated people behind the scene, doing their best to do their best.

The true “bureaucrats in the vilest sense of the word” are those creeps who wander around inside the beltway, lying in the ear of any and all that they can corner. The “Lobby” and their masters, the Corporate heads who line the Lobby pockets. Then wait for that investment to quadruple in the form of government money. Or killing a bill that might benefit the people at the expense of the multi-million, or billionaires.

I think that must be why they put a little red dye in our paper currency. So the Corporate heads and their lacky’s in the Lobby wont notice the blood on the money they touch. Or at least hope WE wont notice the blood on the money they touch!

OK, I know ... for every dozen rotten conservatives there may be an honest one. For every, oh gosh ... hundred or so rotten repubs there must be at least one good one. (Well sorta good) So I suppose a better way to target bad leadership is simply to point out politicians are politicians. Unfortunately the nature of the desease puts them all at risk. And it doesn’t help that so many folks are so busy surviving they really don’t know what’s going on anyway. At least until THEY get knocked over!

We the people ARE the government, and we are not near so stupid as a lot of the politicians we see who delude themselves that THEY are. I’m reminded of Ronald Reagan. When he said he wanted to “drown” government in a bathtub, I’m sure he didn’t understand that would lead to “drowning” the American family. In fact, much like our most recent repub president, I’m sure he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, most of the time. He was simply a bad actor looking for job security. But I digress.

As I see it if there is massive failure, it’s in the simple fact that being inherently good, we the people have trouble accepting that so many who seek power by virtue of becoming a politician, are so inherently bad.

All the same, I choke down the bile in my throat when I read the market is tumbling, (tuff shit) except for the Drug and Insurance Giants who for some strange reason seem to promise an excellent return to the unearned income seekers. And here comes another bit of bile. The CEO’s of those Corporate Giants made enough in bonus “compensation” this past quarter, to practically bail out the friggin housing meltdown!

Thanks for the minority report, Ron.  Unfortunately, your talking points are so full of shit they could fertilize Kansas.  Every one of the points—right-wing boilerplate—can be refuted on the merits.

If you bothered to read my previous posts, you’d see that the premise on which many of your points are based ignores the new realities of an entire nation becoming the risk pool and the finding source. Thailand and Germany have different systems but they have one thing in common:  they take about half the GDP that ours does.  So enough BS about how we can’t afford it.

More right-wing bullshit is that the government makes bad decisions.  In fact, the government usually makes good decisions. (Enumerating them would take up volumes.  Enumerating the bad decisions would take up no more than a list of bad decisions by business.)  Government is made up of hard-working, talented, dedicated and patriotic people, despite their being constantly trashed as “bureaucrats” by the barons of business, whose wet dream is that no government stand between them and their prey.  I grew up in business.  I’m in business.  One of the most talented, conscientious people I’ve ever met was the young IRS agent who audited my federal returns.  The process was like pulling teeth, but I didn’t fault him.  What pisses me off is they should have had him auditing Madoff.

Which leads to the next point, which is something the GOP and the right seem to have crossed over into the Twilight Zone about:  what got us into the current economic mess wasn’t too much government but too little.  What got us into the Great Depression was the absence of government.

Government mandates never worked?  Have you ever left the United States?  Government “mandates” work all the time everywhere.  Socialism?  So?  Does that word cause the veil of the Temple to rend and the sun stop shining?  Socialism seems the sure-fire way to scare the bejesus out of the ignorant masses.  If the demagogues don’t have a better argument, they just pull out the socialism stink bomb.  It shows their contempt for their audience.

This country can easily afford healthcare for all.  The profiteers want to remain the gatekeepers.  It’s the private sector—healthcare, banking and finance—which is bankrupting us.  How dare these bastards lecture us on what’s best for this country!

Louise I know how fortunate I am to have such good health care given that the last 30 years of my life was dependent on incredibly expensive life-saving drugs, and doctors who knew how to coax my body back to good health.  Nobody knows it better than I.  I am grateful that I can now live a vigorous life.  As far as being employed, way…ell, I wouldn’t call it luck.  I’ve been employed without interruption for 20+ years.  I must have been doing something right!  The insurance comes with the job and although it is a steady job, education is not the highest paid profession in the universe!  I don’t apologize at all for having good health and good provided insurance. If only the whole world was that way.  Well we Americans are working on getting it that way.  While I am taken care of so to speak, I do feel the angst for those who aren’t.  Because she never had a career job and employers did not provide her any health insurance except one, ironically an insurance company, but she was laid off from her job so lost her insurance.  My mom was one of those who depended entirely on Medicare for her cancer treatments and heart failure and medications.  We went to emergency rooms more than I want to remember.  I do not think her radiation treatment was done correctly because the technician was relatively new on the job.  But there is no way to prove it and besides she died over a decade ago.  Litigation did not seem a fruitful thing to do at that time.

You are right, however.  While pharmaceuticals do the research for better medicines, the system of patents does make them mega rich, and there are some programs although not all that are subsidized by the government.  Most of it comes from private industry.  But their corporate administration is about as corrupt as an industry can get.  It is obscene what medicines cost, especially meds that have been on the market for decades and ones that po’folks cannot afford. And to quote again jmr who said it much better than I could, The #1 target is the unsurrance [insurance] companies, because the rest—Big Pharma (drug companies, drugstore chains), hardware (those million-dollar MRI machines, etc.), the doctors—will come into line as soon as the enablers of their price gouging, the insurance companies, are removed. 

I heard some strategy this morning about the removal of the public option that sounded like smoke and mirrors but eventually it will be put back in once the House and Senate are finished with their versions of the bill and it goes to the floor for votes then to the President.  It is said that by the time it gets to Obama, the public option will be put back in and he will sign it.  It is a lot of political shennigans and that is the way the world turns.  I still think a write in, call in, email in campaign will do some good.  Maybe just remind the politicians that it is we who own this country.  Us and our taxes.

Just opened my inbox and look what I found!
~~~
Over the weekend Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration was open to considering co-ops in a healthcare reform bill. Immediately, insurance-funded media went on the attack. Some reporters called the public option dead—others “off the table”.

The media is wrong… again.

Let’s be clear: A Healthcare bill without a public option is D.O.A. in the House. Period.

To pass any bill in the House they need at least 218 votes but 64 House Democrats have stood up and said they will not vote for a bill without a public option. That means a bill without a public option would only have 193 votes.

It’s up to us to make sure these Democrats stand strong and never back down in the face of pressure from the insurance industry and insider Democrats.

Should we be surprised that the media got it wrong?

How many times did they count Obama out when he ran for President? For years, Hillary Clinton was a fait accompli as the Democratic nominee, yet we all know how that turned out.

Democrats nationwide stood up and voted. When the chips were down, we didn’t change our message or back away from fighting to win. We re-doubled our efforts and we backed the winner all the way into the White House.

That’s what we’re going to do with our fight for a public healthcare option. We will not back down. We will stand up and get the job done. We will, more than ever, re-double our efforts to deliver the change America needs.

There are 64 House Democrats with the guts to lead the way. After you add your name, we’ll deliver these signatures to every single Democratic member of the House. We’ll make sure they know who the House Healthcare Leaders are. And we will support those who stand and deliver real reform.

For those who won’t, it will be a strong reminder: if you stand against the 76% of Americans who want a choice of a public health insurance option, you will stand alone for re-election.”

Jim Dean, Democracy for America <info@democracyforamerica.com>
~~~

Then I found these quotes. How appropriate!

“I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy.”
-A. J. Liebling
“It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Thanks Tom.

Shenonymous,

How fortunate you are, to have access to good insurance, and the meds you need at a price you can afford. Actually, you are extremely fortunate to be employed at all, just now! The growing numbers of uninsured reflect the growing numbers of unemployed.

I personally do not believe saddling employers, particularly the small independent employer is the best solution to solving the health care insurance problem. The best solution to solving the health care insurance problem is kicking the health care insurance bastards out of health care!

Those doctors and pharmacists we respect are not there thanks to the good grace of God, aka some corporate Insurance bureaucrat! They are there because they went horribly into debt to get the training to become what they wanted to become. They would benefit enormously if we could re-do the system! There aren’t a whole lot of folks who can happily face hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, so they can get the education they want, and become what they want to be.

And yes, those meds are expensive to develop. All that research and testing, and creating costs money, which is why Bad Government in it’s infinite (NOT) wisdom has subsidized that work with tax dollars, lo these many years. Which has always puzzled me a bit, because those med-makers at the corporate end of the equation make obscene profits! (Reminds me of the OIL industry ... duh) Besides, I personally do not believe we would have many of the health problems we have, had Big Pharma not developed all the chemical additives yesterday, that poison us today. But then, I really don’t know which did which and I really don’t care because I really, really believe NONE of them should get tax dollar funding! Unless of course, the meds they create are given to us FREE! We the tax payers should receive free, that which WE HAVE already paid for!

Yeh like THAT’s going to happen!

That will happen just as soon as Corporate Insurance offers health care insurance for free! Or at the very least dips into their profits and pays for what they PROMISED to pay for, when some poor shluck paid them those outrageous premiums!

Meanwhile, the sick get sicker, the poor get poorer and CORPORATE AMERICA makes out like a bandit!

In fact, they are making out so well they can afford to spend MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars, campaigning against US in the form of lies and misinformation! And WE cant even afford a hot water bottle! Which is probably a good thing, ‘cause if I had one right now, I’d throw it at the first republican I saw!

But thanks for sharing.

~~~
ron l hansing,

“Government, simply put,  makes bad decisions.”
~~~

On that I have to agree, which is why whether health care, the economy, or stupid, costly and unnecessary war, we are in such a mess right now! After all, the REALLY BAD behaviour of the Party Of Stupid has had far too much control, for far too long! And just in case you STILL haven’t figured out which party is the party of stupid, that would be the GOP. Also affectionately known as the party of “Greed Over Principle.” Principle as in a rule or code of “proper” conduct!

But then I suppose if one happens to be greedy, sucking off the poor might be considered perfectly proper.

There are those of us, Louise, who are either healthy enough not to be dependent on medical help, and those like myself who have a few things wrong, well, not right, like diabetes, high blood pressure, sluggish thyroid…but all of that is amazingly under control and actually over the years of having great doctors, my health has gotten so good that medications have been cut by two-thirds!  Course I lost healthlosing weight, also!  I’m down to just traces and I intend to keep it that way or eliminate them altogether (which I have done with some of those meds). I only see the doctor every 6 months now!  My insurance has been excellent too, provide by my employer.  The most I have is a co-pay for Rxes.  And that is reasonable given the real price of my meds.  I don’t mind paying since I believe it should not be free.  Effective medications are expensive to develop.  But all of this level and quality of care was hard won by the faculty and staff unions and is still negotiated every single year.  It probably needs that so that it doesn’t swing too far to the excessive end, and reason needs to prevail, but it is an antagonism that exists between employees and employer not only in my institution, but in most.  But I too worry about others who do not have my luxury for a healthy life when I could be dead from not being able to get those meds, and this is exactly what is happening to many, too many, all of them who have no health care at all.  And they are costing the taxpayer the farm!

jmr eloquently defined commonweal, which I really do appreciate he did, it is still ringing in my head!  He gifted us with ... The General Welfare is in the Constitution.  And commonweal—common good, common welfare, general welfare—is a cognate.  They mean, simply, caring for each other.”  First used with reference in America, in Virginia in its designation (i.e., the Commonwealth of Virginia, Pennsylvania also is a Commonwealth), “the word commonwealth is defined by that state governing body using Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary as a political unit or government “founded on law and united by compact or tacit agreement of the people for the common good,” or “one in which supreme authority is vested in the people.”

You are right, Louise.  It wouldn’t hurt to write to Obama, use his email option (if it is still open???), or contact local congressmen.  It is a form of action.  I agree anger and disappointment expressed by the base does make them recalculate or at the least, give them pause to think.

jmr,

“You make ‘em sick and send ‘em to us,” the healthcare industry tells the consumer industry, “and we’ll both make a killing.”

~~~
Love it!!
~~~

“... they don’t give a damn about others and are proud of it.  These are our libertarian friends—you know, Republicans who do dope.”

~~~
Best discription of the Libertarians I’ve ever seen! Thanks
~~~

Shenonymous,

“She says Obama knows that single payer system is the best system (He has never actually said that, but he did address it in the town hall forum in Portsmouth, NH, I did provide to her.  See NYT article:”

~~~
Thanks for the link!
~~~

“In many ways I can understand a KDelphi-like frustration. She is not the only one to loudly grieve about the state of health care.  But it must be kept in mind, much as she would like it to be that way, that we do not have a tyrannical socialist government.  There are liberals and conservatives and every stripe of those polarized positions in between as well as self-interested third-partiers that if zealousness is not at least subdued, if there is not at least an attempt at consensus, any political action is subject to fatal prickles that impede their realization.”

~~~
So can I! Thanks for that most excellent observation. :)

I’m one of those fortunate few who doesn’t need to see a doctor, use my Medicare, or take drugs. Not because I’m wealthy, but because I’m not sick ... knock on wood!

But I’m surrounded by folks who do need medical care. And I’m surrounded by folks with their own little shop of horror, horror stories! Broken bones unattended because their “provider"s doctor was on vacation. Lost homes and business’ because the coverage was cancelled mid-term by their “provider” but, unfortunately the illness wasn’t.

I don’t know any doctors who have fled from Canada. But I know one family who fled TO Canada, when their sick childs coverage was cancelled by Daddy Industry.

Children and parents who have died, or become bed-ridden because the “industry” chose not to provide them with preventave care. And of course you all know who the “industry” is.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and this nightmare we call Health Care would suddenly become honest. But I cant. There is ample evidence for ALL to see, our SYSTEM is SICK. And there is ample evidence our political leaders, particularly those liars who call themselves “conservative” know how sick it is! I could wail about how this didn’t need to happen if we’d paid attention way back when, but the same could be said about our economy, and the out-come of president Cheney and his bouncing, bumbling side-kick’s costly and unnecessary war in Iraq. We all saw that coming, right? But musing over mistakes made doesn’t make mistakes right.

Meanwhile I walk around hoping against hope I don’t get sick. And I keep score. You can bet if either of my Senators or my representative refuse to support Health Care Insurance reform, they wont be getting my vote. I’m lucky though. So far my guys agree with me! I hope you-all are keeping a running score as well. Oh, and don’t forget to let your guys know you are!

All the same, for what it’s worth ... it might be a good idea to drop a line to president Obama. Something like, “Go ahead! Demand a Public Option! Better yet, demand Single Payer! Go for broke! What the hey, we’re already broke anyway!”

And it might be a good idea to remind him, his base, the overwhelming majority of voters who put him in office expect no less! And just so long as the party of dumb is still alive and kicking, they’ll kick the pins right out from under him if given half a chance!
And an angry and disappointed base can be turned on a dime, especially by the liars who call themselves conservative!

jmr I think your seeing is extraordinary.  You explain it much better and less threatening than our resident ultra-socialist, MarthaA, I’ll say god bless her heart, not because I’m religious, but because we need a supercounterfanatical voice to the superfanatical voice of the ultra-right extreme conservatives.  But while it might look contradictory, I think we also need some degree of conservatism to keep the lid on Democrats who sometimes too passionately go over the socialistic edge.  It reminds me of a former day-dreaming son-in-law, who, when he and daughter were at their poorest, went out and bought a red convertible Mustang!  She, being the sensible pragmatist, took all, ALL, of their credit cards and cut them up as he had to sit and watch!  And they gave the Mustang back to the dealer!  We desperately need the rational truly illuminating voice such as yours.  I always keep your comments because of that reason.  And because you invest them with a touch of humor, my motto:  levity is uplifting.  If more can grasp the truth of the state of American politics, as they are, not as appear to be, or rather as they are made to appear to be, I can become optimistic.  At the moment I am cynical.  You are astute in telling us the Democrats are a bunch of cowards.  But we will put the hot poker to their asses!  (Oh come on everyone, that is just a metaphor, not a call for violence!)

To the right-wing crank and his tired mantra of healthcare bogeymen:

Lie #3:  America has the best medicine in the world.  Phony claim.  Not only have we one of the worst healthcare delivery systems amongst advanced nations, we have the most expensive. We may have the most advanced treatments, but what good are they if they are only delivered to those who can afford them?  Ours is a nation of those who can afford to be healthy and those who can’t.

Lie #4: Canadian doctors a fleeing Canada because they know the U.S. is where the money is.  It’s not the mean old Canadian system, it’s greedy doctors who see greener pastures just over the border.

Reality:  Americans are amongst the most unhealthy of Western nations.  We are the most obese, most malnourished, we have bad infant mortality and shorter life spans.  This is the result or our crappy, privately owned healthcare system.  “You make ‘em sick and send ‘em to us,” the healthcare industry tells the consumer industry, “and we’ll both make a killing.”

OF COURSE most Americans are covered.  Covered by a bloated, inefficient, obscenely profitable system that’s driving the country to bankuptcy far more chronic than the Wall Street meltdown.  Sure, those covered by their policies are content, becauce they don’t give a shit what their treatments or meds cost as long as they are covered.  They are the contented cattle, oblivious to whats going on around them, as long as they’re fed and milked on schedule.

Anyway, if the older population gets to be too much of a burden on the system, industry is ready with the solution.  So, the oldsters are terrified of being delivered into the care of the folks who brought them Social Security and Medicare.  Just wait until they are delivered to their private industry friends, who have Soylent Green awaiting.

Shenonymous:  Interesting your parsing of welfare.  I can do the same with commonweal.  These were terms very much on the minds of the Founding Fathers.  The General Welfare is in the Constitution.  And commonweal—common good, common welfare, general welfare—is a cognate.  They mean, simply, caring for each other.  What the screamers at the town meetings are telling us is that they don’t give a damn about others and are proud of it.  These are our libertarian friends—you know, Republicans who do dope.

If Obama said, in 2003, that single-payer is best, then he knows it, because in fact it’s true.  Since politics is the art of the possible, however, he and the rest of the pusillanimous Democratic party have subscribed to the self-fulfilling prophecy that it won’t fly, so of course, it won’t.

That said, I think what may be going on is this:  we can’t get to single payer immediately, so we’ll have to get there incrementally.  The first step is to make it universal and mandated (as they say, it can’t be universal unless it’s mandated).  Then you can gadually co-opt the food chain of profiteers that are making healthcare so ruinous for the economy.  The #1 target is the unsurrance companies, because the rest—Big Pharma (drug companies, drugstore chains), hardware (those milliona-dollar MRI machines, etc.), the doctors—will come into line as soon as the enablers of their price gouging, the insurance companies, are removed.

The biggest enemy of reform is psychology, the psychology exploited by the demagogues every time reform, particularly single-payer, is proposed.  One word: socialism.  Alas, after WWII, Americans were infected with the paranoia they still suffer.  This was partly the fault of the Soviets, with their takeover of Eastern Europe and atomic espionage leading to nuclear weapons in the hands of atheist revolutionaries fundamentally hostile to our way of life.  These were not figments of the imagination. 

That socialism was conflated with communism, which was in turn conflated with Russian imperialism and the Russian mindset was unwarranted, was a nuance lost on the average American.  Of course, it was not lost on Western Europeans, who had no problem adopting the humane parts of socialism while rejecting the inhumane Bolshelvism which gave it such a bad name.

Thus, for Americans, the die was cast.  For them Marx was a Russian.  Period, end of discussion.  McCarthy wasn’t some bug that America caught, he was merely its clinical manifestation.  McCarthy and Nixon and Brewster and Pegler and Luce (“We lost China!”) and the others didn’t poison our minds.  Americans didn’t need to be brainwashed into fearing the Russians and their cognates, communism and socialism.  The fear was endemic.  It was the zeitgeist.

Meanwhile, the Europeans rolled merrily along with their “socialist” healthcare and free education and cultural subsidies without finding Bolsheviks under every bush. (Admittedly, our nuclear umbrella was a comfort.)  Today, as we flail about, having conniptions over healthcare, the rest of the civilized world watches, bemused.

I think the anti-socialist bug has become like malaria or syphillis—once you catch it you never get rid of it.  Since anathematizing socialism, we’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water. 

This is what’s happening with healthcare reform now.  All the spiders and snakes of the healthcare industry have to do is utter the word “socialism,” and the grass roots become an apoplectic mob.  This is why, though Obama and others, including most of us here, realize that single-payer is a no-brainer, we also must realize that in selling it, we’re not up against reason but ocnditioning.

I think Obama understands that Americans have been held hostages to the socialist shibboleth for so long that we are suffering mass Stockholm Syndrome.  We have grown so dependent on our hostage takers—the spiders and snakes of business—and their political accomplices, that before we can think clearly again, we will have to be deprogrammed.  And that will be a very long process.

If you want to speak of damage, you can’t restrict it to lives or dollars and cents. The seeds of the deepest toll came decades ago when marketing forces, neocon ideology and a crass corporate media guided us to an uncaring, self-centered, and narcissistic society that has no tie to the common good. The link of common good with equal opportunity has been lost when any issue is always a matter of me not we.

I new one of these insurance death panel deciders. Major US health insurer. He was a doctor, who told me on a visit to my office, that he had to deny 10% of the claims in his inbox for that day. It had nothing to do with anything other than an issue form corporate to make more profit. I didn’t think much of this guy after that…a doctor? Do this level of harm, day in and day out?

Louise, I will speak of KDelphi in the third person since she habitually picks out only parts of observations then makes besmirching comments on them as if they were representative of entire real events to speak about leaving out significant details.  No doubt she will grouse about it, she is a fiesty one!  (Which I really admire in her character).  She says Obama knows that single payer system is the best system (He has never actually said that, but he did address it in the town hall forum in Portsmouth, NH, I did provide to her.  See NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/politics/12obama.text.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print#

In that town hall Obama explained that single-payer might be a good way to go, but he did not support it because of its complexity instead of replacing a system that could work right now.  He is right.  If she wants better health care, and that has been her constant whine (but I do sympathize with her), then KDelphi  should want relief even if it is only on the path towards single-payer, that could be passable by Congress (which it is the herculean attempt to get a consensus, because that way there is a better chance of success, it’s only logical).  Seems to me that if single-payer is the end goal, that if healthcare reform can be passed now, it would be monumental achievement in the basket for 40 years!  And that there are now enough alert Americans from all the media blitz on the subject, all the town halls, that single-payer program can be crafted and installed when it is well-crafted if and only if a Republican government does not usurp a Democratic one.

In many ways I can understand a KDelphi-like frustration. She is not the only one to loudly grieve about the state of health care.  But it must be kept in mind, much as she would like it to be that way, that we do not have a tyrannical socialist government.  There are liberals and conservatives and every stripe of those polarized positions in between as well as self-interested third-partiers that if zealousness is not at least subdued, if there is not at least an attempt at consensus, any political action is subject to fatal prickles that impede their realization.

While I appreciated the article for its clarity regarding the fatality rate of uninsured Americans, I would like to point out an error of omission.
By stating that “...the total number of dead was estimated to have reached 137,000—a body count more than double the number of casualties in the Vietnam War.”, Mr Conason has made an all too common error - unconscious though it might be - of inferring that there were so few casualties in the ‘Vietnam Conflict’ by limiting the number killed or wounded to only those suffered by American forces. Mr Conason would do greater honor to the journalistic profession by the use in his article of the more accurate phrase ‘American casualties’ and thus, at a stroke, make his point regarding the danger of being uninsured in the United States while recognizing the fact that millions of Vietnamese were killed or injured in the conflict.

KDelphi,

“I am tired of hearing that “Obama knows that single payer is the best system” , but, “we cant do it”—it just dosn’t make logical sense. If it is , do it.”

~~~

Actually I never said that. I don’t know if Obama knows that single payer is the best system. I like the guy but like every other president in my life-time, I’ve seen nothing to convince me he absolutely knows absolutely everything. Or even agrees with me all the time. Think about it. Wouldn’t this be a scary world if we all thought exactly alike all the time? There would be no stars, no goal to work toward, no reason for even being, except perhaps to try and pursuade someone to look your way. “Look over here! I am different! I am my own person!”

This isn’t a foot race, “do it” will happen, but only after many, many false starts. Such is the nature of racing to the finish, especially when the majority of runners don’t want to race!

“If it is, do it.”

Oh if life were just that simple.

How many years has it taken the “Industry” to gain complete control over our health, our minds, our bodies?

Did it all happen in the twinkling of an eye?

Was anybody paying attention while it did?

Can you remember when it was against the law for a drug manufacturer, or an Insurance Corp to own a medical school?

How about the concerned citizens who tried to prevent that from happening, were you there?

And now that all the citizens, concerned and otherwise have sat by and watched this monster grow, why do they wring their hands and demand the monster go away. Do they wonder why the monster sits at their door and whispers, “but you love me”.

The best analogy I can think of is the abused wife and mother who finally after years of being abused can’t understand why that divorce paper hasn’t made her abuser suddenly become a nice guy. He still wont pay his share of the bills. He still comes back and hassles her. He still keeps the kids under his thumb and terrified. Why hasn’t that piece of paper changed him? Then one day she realizes only by taking steps to completely remove him from her life and her kids lives will she find a measure of security. And that’s the one thing she hesitates to do. She fears her childrens reaction if she takes their father away.

But finally, after the final abuse she has him arrested, and he goes to jail. And she has a nice surprise. Her children thank her!

Until we the people can overcome our fear of change, we will resist change. This isn’t a country where our elected officials can simply change everything with the stroke of a pen. Then if the folks don’t like the change they made, just round them up and dissappear them. I know a lot of folks think it is, especially after the past eight years of repub control. But it isn’t. And when it comes to fear of change, no group of citizens reflects that fear greater than those elected officials. So no matter how badly we want single payer, we haven’t made enough noise, or taken the action necessary to educate our elected officials about how much better that would be.

So, why haven’t we?

Do we like being abused?

Maybe like the abused wife and mother we think extreme action will upset the kids, when in reality the kids will like the outcome.

Meanwhile filing for a divorce is a good first step.

Maggie Magster,

“Louise, I am your fan for life!”

~~~

I blush.

Usually the skeptic and cynic, for the most part I believe each must stand on their own in terms of responsibility for their life.  Self-reliance is how humans who are born into this world alone and must die alone transact that space of time called their life.  Some of us cannot do that without help for a variety of reasons, both physically and mentally.  So while I hold self-reliance as the paradigm, I also believe in being responsible for the well fare of our fellow humans. I purposefully broke well fare into two words:  well and fare.  One definition of the word fare is to journey, to travel.  The word well has one of its definitions ‘a healthy state achieved in a just manner.”  One can express life in a figurative sense as a journey and we are all pilgrims who follow that footpath.  To travel on that path, our personal odyssey, the promise of fulfillment is better achieved if health travels with us.  That is why I stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Louise and Maggie Magster.  They give me hope that there are those who see clearly the social forces that binds us to mutual social obligations and determines a sense of duty to make a better world for all not just some self-appointed few.  I feel better today, knowing I do not stand alone.  So thank you ladies.  Were it the truth that the world had more of you.

Louise, I am your fan for life!

“They’ve spent millions of dollars trying to convince themselves, and anybody else, that Social Security and Medicare don’t work and need to be “saved”. Social Security is a particular thorn in their side, because no matter how hard they’ve tried, they’ve never been able to get that money into the hands of Speculators and Corporate Blood Suckers. Medicare on the other hand is in trouble. Not because it doesn’t work, but because the B-S-ers have been able to get their hands on a portion of that money. And every time you allow the B-S-ers to get their hooks into tax revenue, the tax payer is going to get screwed! Anyone who hasn’t figured that out has never paid attention!

So go ahead and blame the elderly and the sick and anyone else you care to target. Just remember, someday *you will be there. Because as you so eloquently pointed out, insurance, pensions, savings, etc, evaporate and diminish in value faster than you can scream help! (Unless they’ve already been stolen by your corporate master, that is.) And thanks largely to the habit we have of electing and re-electing members of the party of stupid, it promises to keep happening!”

I am tired of hearing that “Obama knows that single payer is the best system” , but, “we dcant do it”—it just dosent make logical sense. If it is , do it.

We could just keep lowering the age for Medicare and let the murdurous indurance industry go into another field—there will always been Cheneys for them to insure…

Otherwise make a persuasive argument for this giant industry gift.

Otherwise, its just “we should but we wont”.

archeon of thrace,

“Those who are now entering old age, have not provided for their care at all.  Even if they have insurance, pensions, savings, etc, they fall short because they ran up the national debt, and they will not pay it back. The irony is this ... my cohorts polictal power will not match that of the retired freeloaders who have bankrupted us.”

~~~

My, my. Do I detect a note of bring on the death camps here?

As a Senior, I can assure you a great many of us fought the passage of Bush’s version of drug assistance, because it is actually just one more version of financial assistance to Corporate Big Pharma and the Corporate Insurance Monster, and a most perfect example of Welfare for the Wealthy! With costs and hidden costs to folks who actually need medication, and a multitude of handouts to Father Corporation.

It was a losing battle, because the party of stupid was in control! So of course the party of stupid blessed their bounteous benefactors with even more tax dollar profit. And the members of the party of stupid are still scratching their heads trying to figure out how that so-called drug bill actually helps them. Or at least they were until they got hooked. Now the big goal in life is to go get more meds, all the better to line the pockets of the med-makers.

Do you hear that sucking sound? That’s the sound of the rich and powerful sucking money off the sick! And the sick come in all sizes, shapes, colors and age groups!

Shall we talk about the National Debt? Yes, lets.

I have spent my entire life paying down the National Debt! Which might be another good reason I dislike the party of stupid!

Two wars fought with BORROWED money! Do you suppose that might have contributed to the National Debt? And how about that mega tax cut for the wealthy? FUNDED with BORROWED money! We must always remember to take care of those poor wealthy folks, right? Never mind if it explodes the National Debt.

And then there’s that drug bill, costing billions in BORROWED money, while, aside from the “incentives” in the form of “profit to the already profitable” delivers nothing but problems to those who actually NEED drugs!

I challenge you to do some homework. You might be surprised to find all but one of the many recessions since the Great Depression, (another gift from the party of stupid) which have contributed to our roller coaster dollar have happened under the direction of a repub administration. As have the most costly, pointless, unnecessary and useless wars, as have the most costly and stupid losses of revenue! And like it or not, it wasn’t Senior Citizens who did this. It was BAD GOVERNMENT, created and delivered by the party of stupid!

They’ve spent millions of dollars trying to convince themselves, and anybody else, that Social Security and Medicare don’t work and need to be “saved”. Social Security is a particular thorn in their side, because no matter how hard they’ve tried, they’ve never been able to get that money into the hands of Speculators and Corporate Blood Suckers. Medicare on the other hand is in trouble. Not because it doesn’t work, but because the B-S-ers have been able to get their hands on a portion of that money. And every time you allow the B-S-ers to get their hooks into tax revenue, the tax payer is going to get screwed! Anyone who hasn’t figured that out has never paid attention!

So go ahead and blame the elderly and the sick and anyone else you care to target. Just remember, someday *you will be there. Because as you so eloquently pointed out, insurance, pensions, savings, etc, evaporate and diminish in value faster than you can scream help! (Unless they’ve already been stolen by your corporate master, that is.) And thanks largely to the habit we have of electing and re-electing members of the party of stupid, it promises to keep happening!

*Unless of course you are independently wealthy, in which case you might want to go help someone!

KDelphi,

I agree with much of what you say, but I haven’t noticed a lot of screaming at Obama’s meetings. Which I think proves my premise that the screamers are “mob for hire” trouble-makers. I suspect their pay is based on how much disruption they create and how much media attention they get. And since they lack in “courage of conviction” what they have in obnoxious stupidity, I doubt they want to get hassled by the Secret Service.

However staying outside, waving their signs and screaming their ignorance gets lots of media attention!

I don’t think Obama’s intention is to “win these people over”, rather I think he’s demonstrating he can and will answer honest questions from honest people who honestly want to understand what’s proposed. And to the degree time allowed, I think he’s demonstrated that. And while I personally would like to see a sweeping overhaul of the entire health care insurance “industry” and have single payer. I also understand as long as there are people who think the problem is too many “old” people, or too much government, we need to take baby steps. Well, at least THEY need to take baby steps.

And finally I take issue with, “This bill sucks and that is why he doesnt have more Left supporters there.” I confess, I couldn’t distinguish between left and right. The crowd was remarkably intelligent. And of course it needs to be noted there is no “this bill” since it’s still being developed.

But I have no illusions I’ll be seeing the kind of “bill” a lefty, socialist, commie bastard like me would like to see, and that could make me angry.

However I’ll reserve my anger until I see the final outcome. And, no matter what that final outcome may be, I will never, ever be dumb enough to allow my anger to put leadership back in the hands of the party of stupid!

I can appreciate it that you have worries archeon of thrace.  So what do you propose America does with its seniors?  Guess they could be used for dog food.  You have a dog?  While it is true that life expectancy is extending due to better nutrition, better attention to diseases, and better physical activity, and better health care, it is also true that getting older means healthier has been the game and why those four things have become the reason why they are being experienced.  Will you give up making yourself healthier so that you don’t live longer?

Your argument has inherent fallacies.  As life expectancy lengthens, people’s working life lengthens.  They remain in the work force longer.  Further, since people are living longer, that means they are healthier hence requires less help than you are claiming.  What do you think ought to be done to those 70-year olds?  When exactly is the last year of their life?  Let’s see, archeon of thrace, when is it exactly you think you ought to die?  Pick an age.  How shall this be enforced?  Have you read Erlich’s population-control theories?  Ah, I see, you have aging parents.

BTW: Medicare and Medicaid are not “government controled” they are government.  Yeah, so what and exactly what is your criticism?  Your solipsism is making you sound like you think you are the only one in the world?

BTW: Medicare and Medicaid are not “government controled” they are government.

Those who are now entering old age, have not provided for their care at all.  Even if they have insurance, pensions, savings, etc, they fall short because they ran up the national debt, and they will not pay it back.  Rather those now working, and those entering the workforce will have to pay it back.  These same old people, now want those still working to take care of them at all costs until they die at 100+ years.  That means that they will have about 40 years of unproductive life after they retired, 40 years of continuing to suck the wealth out of the pockets and mouths of the youth of today.

There simply will not be enough workers in the coming years to fund all the liabilities the oldies left us under 50s with.  The irony is this, while I keep working hard, paying taxes, my cohorts polictal power will not match that of the retired freeloaders who have bankrupted us.

Seniors will soon be the largest voting block.  Mark my words at that point taxes on those still working will be raised to pay for the care of the retired.

When a person in their 70’s costs more to keep alive than we pay a single mom with two kids on welfare, we have a problem.  When a person in the last year of life costs more to keep alive than the average 20 year old makes in a year we have a problem.

Such a good post, Louise that I had to give you applause.  rollzone makes an astute opening comment that the waging of massive tax increases is the latest distraction from getting the reform bill actualized.  The rest of his comment, eh.  I disagree with him.  He/she does not know what “The Public” wants or does not want.  They want the truth!  The media and partisan bloggers are trying to invent an All-American Consensus.  Bullcrap.  Out of 23 townhalls, 17 of them had no outbursts but proceeded peacefully, civilly, and information was actually exchanged.  Obama is promoting healthier lifestyle, one has to just take the rotten potatoes out of the ears to hear what is actually being promoted.  Of course, one only hears what one wants to.  You still smoking rollzone?

While pure capitalism means miserable anarchy, pure socialism means miserable chaos!

Rep. Waxman totally obfiscated when confronted by Amu Goodman on Democracy Now! as to why the House no longer supported HR 676:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/4/rep_waxman_on_healthcare_reform_the

He also gives excuse after excuse as to why the Global Climnate Change bill is so weak and useless.

You guys really think that the “free mkt” should apply to stuff ilke necessary health care? Really?? So people should “compete” and “make choices”, even when they are at their most vulnerable and, possibly, unable to think correctly?

You really believe that it is all this “choices” stuff? Studies show that smoking, compared to other western countries, is way down in the uS. Overeating and obesity is not what it is in UK or Austrailia. Yet lifespans and health are better in the EU and UK on almost all counts.

They inject food animals, give us filthy, unregulated food mkts,(not to mention, ag industry subsidies!!) test expensive drugs on USANs like guinea pigs, push tobacco, going so far as to put it in Viet vets MRE’s , build suburbs and Malls and destroy the public transport system, by subsidizing oil an gas—-and then you let the insurance industry and people like the genetically fortunate Obama blame you—hey, it has to be YOUR fault! So now YOU are “responsible for fixing it” right??!!

Sure some things are choices, but that is very much clouded by genetics and circumstance..they count on you accepting blame, though, so , good little sheeples.

In the background, I hear an Obama ‘town hall mtg” openieng in Grand Junction, Colo—-yesterday, it was Georgia, I think , before that NH—I thought he was smartr than that?Does he think he is going to win these people over or something? He could walk in with gold bars and they would scream at him…its not about the lousy health care bill, silly.

This bill sucks and that is why he doesnt have more Left supporters there. But these hecklers dont give a shit about that….

Rodger Lemonde,

“This sort of makes the “death panel” health care lie seem pretty stupid by comparison.”

~~~

Oh my ...

Dear Rodger,

The “death panel” lie is pretty stupid, by ANY comparison!

As you know, when someone makes the decision to join the military, they are responsible for that decision. Does that make abuses by REPUBLICAN and so-called CONSERVATIVE politicians acceptable? Of course not! Those idiots made the decision to start an unecessary, costly war! They ran out of warriors because they were too stupid to see the consequence of their stupidity! And their incredible stupidity is equalled only by the stupidity of those who continue to support them and make excuses for their stupidity!

And, as you probably also know, folks in the military are now firmly behind the dems. Maybe not because they like dems so much as they have come to intensely dislike repubs. At least the batch that got us into this mess!

But, as a military mother I can safely report, those who are firmly committed to a military life understand, while they certainly do not want to overthrow the government, (that would not be an act of intelligent self-discipline, besides it’s unconstitutional) they do vote. And they did vote. And they now have a Commander In Chief they actually respect!

So if and when they manage to clean up the mess the previous commander in chief and his stupid minions made, things will improve. At least that’s the goal.

And I personally think we ALL owe a great debt of gratitude to them, for their stick-to-it-ivity, even if they did have a complete jerk-off idiot giving them their orders! One which by the way, all the bitchers and moaners who voted for that jerk-off idiot blessed them with!

hello. the new health care insurance reform distraction by the fourth Reich includes massive tax increases. they are not to be called taxes. currently 85% of Americans have health care insurance, and the federal government is already the largest health care insurer (...of 13%) of these insured. the administration wants a health czar, along with another agency, of another few hundred thousand federal employees; to oversee regulated and controlled health care. an example of these employees are the security personnel at the airports. the American people already labor from January thru August: to pay for the present operating cost of government; and do not need this, do not want this, and the administration is ignoring and angering the public. the mouthpiece cheerleader is manipulating the media while grasping for a direction to expand the role of government control. if the administration understood the benefit of promoting healthier lifestyles, before lobbyists and special interests, around the beltway (that they promised they would change) had their way with them, they have long forgotten. smoke your cigarettes.

I’m interested in how much profit and how much are the payments (both salary and stock options) to the executives of the insurance companies that cover medical malpractice.  How much do these medical malpractice insurance companies spend on lobbying and advertising?  What kind of slush monies are syphoned off from the medical malpractice premiums paid to the insurance companies.

Just asking.

Many, many (many) years ago, when I was young and dumb and Republican, I was comfortable in the crowd that surrounded me, because I learned very quickly how to get a response. The most guaranteed to produce a chuckle was an off-hand jibe at the “liberals” who everybody knew were evil and out to get us all. We knew that because, like everything else, we knew very little.

For example we knew the proposed health care program for Senior Citizens was actually a “socialist, liberal, commie” plot to destroy America. We knew that because that’s all we heard, or listened to. We knew that because our religious and professional leaders never missed an opportunity to present it in the form of “humor” guaranteed to make us chuckle. We knew that because mom and dad told us so. We knew that because, well ... we knew so very little.

People tend to get after me when I target repubs and so-called conservatives, blaming them for the majority of our social ills. But that doesn’t bother me. I’ve been there. I know how repubs and cons trick people into NOT thinking! And time and again, over and over again something happens to validate my personal prejudice.

Like when dad had an unexpected heart attack and thanks to that evil Medicare, the care he received saved his life. Like when mom who had retired and exhausted her pension, was able to receive end of life care in a fabulous facility till the day she died. Again, thanks to that evil Medicare. Of course I never mentioned to them that had they had their way, way back when, there would be no Medicare. No sense aggravating their condition. Besides being as how both were still firmly “committed” repubs, I really don’t think they would have grasped it. The absurdity of positions taken based on ignorance, that is.

A while back, I met a beautiful young and dumb and Republican Ms., who had also discovered the off-hand jibe targeting “liberal, commie bastards” was guaranteed to produce a chuckle. Unfortunately she had never hung around with us, so she was a bit non-plused when we didn’t chuckle.
Seems she had failed to pay her taxes back when Bush was still in the White House, and now the IRS was coming after her to collect several hundred dollars she owed, but didn’t have. “Well,” she said, “I guess somebody has to pay for Obama’s socialist, liberal, commie stimulous.” And paused waiting for the chuckle ... which never came.

We were polite. We also didn’t point out her absurdity or state the obvious. Like, “It’s not Obama’s fault you didn’t pay your taxes.”

Now I confess I do not know how to define this condition beyond, as I stated before, “folks who are simply victims of generational ignorance encouraged by right-wing control ...” Which thank goodness I was fortunate enough to “grow” out of. But as I grew, I discovered something totally unexpected. That with thought and study, and by paying attention, it is possible to understand lies and disinformation. It is possible to recognise phonies when you bump into them. And most important, it is possible to understand the thoughtless comment or action comes not from understanding, but from NOT understanding.

So I am happy to report the beautiful young and dumb and Republican Ms. I mentioned, is getting smarter! She’s offended by the behaviour of that so-called grass roots movement attacking Obama’s plan for health care INSURANCE reform. Because, as she stated, “It makes me look bad!” Which proves, to me anyway, when someone truly cares, even if it’s only pure ego, it is possible to learn the truth.

It probably helped that she had one of those life altering experiences that opens the window in the attic and lets in a little light. Her dad got sick, his insurance got cancelled, but thanks to Medicare he’s on the road to recovery.

Oh my gosh! She discovered Medicare is GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED HEALTH CARE!

Here’s a thought. If death panels are a bad thing for government to be involved in what about the panels that send our youth back for tour after tour of duty in the war? Oh you didn’t get killed after three tours in the war zone, you better go back and try harder.
This sort of makes the “death panel” health care lie seem pretty stupid by comparison.

Well good morning Outraged...you are so affable this morning.  I’m a little bleary-eyed but alert to pompous bigotry.

That you have appeared all wigged out because I said essentially that I do not mulishly carry a magisterial attitude about Republicans, or their ideas, may be a tell-tale sign of your own blind overzealous intolerance.  Do take stock Outraged.  Your rather stupid question does not deserve an answer but I will be courteous and say, take it and shove it!  Next:  A Dr. Arnold Relman interview appears at the BlueCross site, I happen to have BlueCross insurance, f you! And I am quite happy with their timely and 100% coverage! A plan provided by my employer!  I shouldn’t like a hunnert pacent?  But that isn’t why I navigated to their website, it was googling for a Relman’s discussion of why he didn’t think the Obama reform wouldn’t work.  I think healthcare reform is an obligation this country has to its people.  So asshole, get a life!  Tort reform doesn’t mean what you so illogically concluded.  You must be a lawyer who has enjoyed enough frivolous lawsuits to provide a really cushy and opulent life. Say, how is that Maserati doing?  Still zipping around the suburbs in it?  (BTW:  that was using your kind of logic, again you show your simple mindedness.

You know we have interacted many times on TD and my positions are as clear as a glass of vodka!  Now you will probably conclude I am a Russian!

Foolish boy, get a hearing aid why don’t you?

Re: Shenonymous

Your comment: “I think all should be heard and evaluated for merit.”

Absolutely.  I couldn’t agree more.  In this light, I question your link to http://bluecrossfoundation.org/?  Are you engaging “Blue Cross/Blueshield” as a reliable source…?  Sad, but illustrative of your stance.

Your other comment, which I regard as a much more OBVIOUS presentation of your “vantage point:,  “I agree that Tort reform would release doctors from the chains of unreasonable litigation…  (are you saying that when doctors fuck up or are incompetent they should be “freed from what you are claiming to be the supposed chains of unreasonable litigation).... suspect, to state the very least.

Your other comment: I do not retain perfunctory or dogmatic suspicion of all Republicans or their ideas.”  Sure, sure…. but my question would be…. are you paid or in any way affiliated with the health care “industry”/death camps?

Please….. enlighten us ALL as to your claim “Tort reform would release doctors from the chains of unreasonable litigation”.  I’m all ears, so to speak.

Thanks.

jmr I watched Dr. Relman from the link you provided before and was highly impressed with what he said, except we disagreed that Obama’s healthcare reform would or would not work.  Now I admit Dr. Relman is much more expert at this business than I but I have been listening to the debates, see what is being pummeled out in Congress, and think there will be a plan that does work when all is said and done.  The debate is far from over.  Today Obama spoke in Montana and gave the best explanation to the issues that I’ve hear yet. 

In looking for a transcript of the NPR interview, I was unable to find one, which is a faulty tower of NPR.  I have listened twice to Relman but want to read his comments so I can ruminate over them for logical consistency and soundness.  So in the process I did run across the following interview that is transcripted at
http://bluecrossfoundation.org/
with a link to Relman’s Press Release: New Episode of “Prescriptions for Health Reform” Featuring Arnold Relman, M.D. Up At BlueCrossFoundation.org
July 10, 2009 – PDF on the rightside inside the scrolling box of New and Updated feature of the website.  I don’t know if that listing will stay there or if it is cycled out to let New and Updated articles in.  I downloaded it in PDF format and it is very readable.  I think it must overlap his comments on NPR but I would still like the NPR interview transcription.  Oh well, ask for the world and get Podunk, USA.

I agree that Tort reform would release doctors from the chains of unreasonable litigation…  I do not retain a perfunctory or dogmatic suspicion of all Republicans or their ideas.  I think all should be heard and evaluated for merit.

I will watch the Frontline program you linked. 

Your defense of the Blue Dogs seems a reasonable assessment.  I will restrain my apprehension of their motives.  Yes, I agree, we do not want to lose any Democratic vote, however much they might be on the edge of democratic convictions.

I am a she, jmr, ergo Shenonymous. 

Thank you again for your posts that show much composure and thoughtful consideration.  Your style of writing helps me to think through these very complex subject matters.  Much obliged.

By the way, at first I did say, “Is he kidding?” about your first comment, then realised you were being facetious and had a good chuckle.

I think the Blue Dogs are getting a bad rap.  They are a significant part of the Democratic majority.  They come from conservative states or districts, and many only barely edged out the Repugs.  They are in a very, very difficult spot.  I want to protect the Dem majority at all costs.  Anything is better than a Repug majority.  Really!

I figure the leadership has a list of seats sorted by “safeness”.  The Blue Dog seats are way in the unsafes.  The leadership will count votes and decide which Blue Dog they can afford to allow to vote Nay.  I do not want the Dems to come even close to losing a majority, just to force a Blue Dog vote we don’t need.  Of course, if they are crucial, then that’s another story, but the Dem majority is wide enough to allow some wiggle room to allow the Blue Dogs to stroke their constituents to stay in office.

The Repugs are committing suicide by isolating their moderates. (Believe it or not, there used to be GOP liberals!).  There is such a thing as Democratic moderate-to-conservatives.  Let’s not make the GOP mistake of anathematizing them.

Shenonymous, thanks for the kind words.  I refer you to Dr. Relman.  He talks about salaried doctors. You really, really should take a few moments to listen to him, here.  Yes, a not-for-profit scheme that isn’t single-payer like the Danish, UK or Canadian system is fine—Germany’s is a good example.  Also Taiwan’s, which is a hybrid.  In fact, there’s a survey of five systems around the world by Frontline on PBS.

In fairness, some MDs in Germany are not happy campers.  They consider themselves very poorly compensated, though Frontline claims they make 2/3 of what American doctors make, they pay far less in malpractice insurance, and med school is often free.  That ain’t too bad.  Anyway, I know doctors in Denmark, and they live quite well, thank you very much.  I think this is more a reflection of different priorities in different countries rather than anything inherent to the systems.

When you say “salaries,” I guess you mean fees set by others rather than doctors themselves.  Doctors have private practices in countries with single-payer systems.  They’re just paid by the state instead of the patient.  It’s outrageous to claim that this breaks the “sacred” doctor-patient bond.  What doctors who make this claim are saying is that their oath goes where the money is.

Speaking of malpractice, if you believe Krauthammer, who’s an MD himself, the fee-for-services scheme isn’t about greed but about self-protection.  The U.S. tort system, which in my opinion is a monstrous lawyers’ protection racket, has forced doctors to treat defensively.  First, they must pay exhorbitant malpractice insurance; then, to avoid lawsuits in the first place, their workups and treatment must be overkill to protect themselves in case something goes wrong.

Krauthammer says losing a license is incentive enough for MDs to be careful.  To be perfect is, given the nature of clinical practice, a ridiculous expectation, but an expectation lawyers have exploited and courts have condoned.

I know Krauthammer is a guy the left loves to hate, but he has a point here.  Tort reform should be a part of any healthcare reform proposal.

Felicity, thanks for posting something real & verifiable. I’d add that the 6% savings might vanish into corporate coffers because one can never underestimate the greed and criminality of the “health” care industry. Even so, that wouldn’t be an argument against single-payer (here comes the caveat) in a rational discussion.

A popular rant among all-of-a-sudden-Republican-fiscal-conservatives (who have no problem allocating more than half of the government’s discretionary funds to the military/industrial complex, by the way) is the cost of so-called Obamacare.

Obviously, arithmatic is not their strong point - Canada spends 12% of its GDP on health care: France spends 12%:  The US spends 18%. Reduce our cost - adopting a health-care system ala Canada’s - will increase the percent of GDP going to health-care?  Fascinating.

Solution to the “Aging of America”:

Logans Run

(that’s really what the townhollers think Obama wants anyway, right?)

Louise you have an excellent point, and I think StuartH would agree that the lack of understanding what even one word can do to seeing the world as it is, I think the whackoism to which you allude is planned whackosim by the obfiscators of the insurance issue.  It is a strategy to confuse, a strategy to throw jingoism into the mix so that ordinary people who don’t reason about the world they must live in, so that will excite the ignorants to appear to march shoulder to shoulder with the whackos.  It is a hiding in plain sight.  There is not one thing you said that doesn’t portray the public scene right now about the healthcare reform business.  What needs to be done?  We need better spokespeople, more articulate, more of those who know and can tell the truth louder and more dramatically since the public have been anesthetized and only wake up to wild ravings of those who have the most to lose financially.

All the talk, constantly on the news does little by little give insights, but it takes training to mine them out them as they trickle in.  At least it is in the public forum.  It is the most talked about issue out there when we should be keeping another eye on things like the treachery of the Taliban.

Obama and the Democrats are playing a game with the American people to raise more and more money. That is why they like us to fight. What will probably happen is that people who do not want to vote for the other side will just stay home.

The Democrats have to take the moral high ground to succeed. When they don’t, people hold them to scrutiny far more than the right. Which is why I believe they will fail again.

That is why I say that it may be easier to reform the conservative movement. Don’t confuse that with the neocons, Rush et al. They are playing the conservatives just like Obama played us.

I think the third party movement will come from the right and it may not be something we prefer. But that movement will probably end the wars and lower taxes and shrink government. Maybe even balance the budget. They could reform some of the financial entities. I believe the Ron Paul movement wants this. I know they will end torture and maybe prosecute it. All of my conservative friends are rabid environmentalists. Our local democratic politicians in Florida are anti-environment/pro outrageous growth. A lot of people don’t realize how much the far right and conservatives agree. I can deal with that for four years.

Again, you have to separate your conservative neighbors from the neocon media players. Rush and the others are not really for reform, they are pro big business and wall street.

A lot of it will come down to trust. The Democrats and Obama are coming across as extremely untrustworthy. If the right is honest about things they will get farther.

I think it is useless to call the white house or senators. Obama’s first order of business was to tell the left to shut up and put all Bush’s bad activity into practice again. But I wish you good luck.

Maybe it’s in the wording. Maybe that’s the mistake Democrat leadership made. Allowing right-wing whacko’s to control the conversation.

I just read an email from the president, and in it he very clearly states, “fighting for health care insurance reform.” Health Care INSURANCE reform.

Now think about that for a moment.

Because we’ve allowed the phrasing to be shortened to Health care reform, the doors have been flung wide open for folks who cant get the big picture, to be misled.

On the other hand, if Obama’s target label had always remained in place, the folks who attack the “plan” would be forced to recognise the plan is to attack INSURANCE! And the excess and greed and bad management that are the single cause of our health-care crisis.

And were their tiny little brains to repeat that phrase - health care INSURANCE reform - over and over again, they might come to understand, their position encourages even more abuse from Health Care Insurance!

Amazing what a difference ONE word can make, isn’t it?

Granted, some right-wing-whacos are so hopelessly whacked out NOTHING will trigger a spark of understanding in their foggy brains, because there is no spark of understanding in their foggy brains. And nothing will influence the “mobsters for hire”, because they want that little bit of money they earn every time they create mob hysteria.

But for folks who are simply victims of generational ignorance encouraged by right-wing control, adding that one word might cause a pause. And then, some sort of effort to understand why THEIR health care is in such bad shape. And then, they might ask themselves -

“Do I really want to support and encourage even more obscene profit and control to the already obscenely profitable Insurance Giants in control?

“Why should I?”

“What’s in it for me?”

Well of course there’s nothing in it for them. Which makes their behaviour all the more absurd! Any rational thinking person will then realise, they are being used in a most unhealthy way. And there are some rational, thinking repubs and conservatives.

You wont find them in the Senate or the House of Reps, but they’re out there struggling to make ends meet, just like you and me. And they’re smart enough to know, Repub and Con Leadership created the economic disaster that still hurts ALL of working America! And Repub and Con Leadership protecting the Insurance Giants and Big Pharma from losing control is an extension of the outragious GREED that’s brought the working class to their knees!

Corporate Insurance abuses daily heaped on the people. Corporate Insurance abuses protected and defended by Repub leadership, Repub talking heads, and so-called Conservatives, which serves to prove - Repub leadership, talking heads and so-called Cons are just as abusive, just as greedy and just as inclined to hate the people they claim to serve, as the Insurance Industry!

The Insurance Industry! A misnomer if ever there was one. They are NOT an Industry! They are a Corporate monster daily looking for an excuse to refuse to honor the insurance coverage the people are forced to pay for, if they want to get medical care! And heaven help the people if the cost of their care exceeds what the MONSTER has decided they will cover!

What true conservative voter is going to think that’s a good thing?

By the way, those who call themselves Blue Dogs, who are actually red dogs in blue drag, are just as guilty of lying to the people and protecting the greed, as the Reds who proudly call themselves “right”!

Why do so many Democrats refuse to say it like it is? “Fighting for health care INSURANCE reform.” Are they afraid of offending the people?

Maybe they need to be made to understand, refusing to call a liar a liar, when the people know darn full well they are being lied too, IS an OFFENSE to the people!

“There isn’t a health care system in the world that doesn’t have stories of people suffering; there isn’t a country in the world that doesn’t have waiting lists. In the United States the waiting list is pretty long—if you don’t have the money, you wait forever.”......Michael McBane, National Coordinator, http://www.medicare.ca

I was being facetious in my first and only comment.  Your argument JMR was calm, logical, well spoken and persuasive. 

Somethings you didn’t mention was a not-for-profit system and doctors on salary and would appreciate your comments on that.

In his speech, Obama said he was not proposing single-payer because it was too complex to install immediately.  I think he realizes it would be the best system but wants a plan beaten out by Congress because that is where it has to emerge as bipartisan if that is possible.  He did say he would veto a final congressional bill that did not include things he found imperative or did have things he could not agree with.  It looks like there will be a hybrid of public and private factors involved.  We have to wait to see what is crafted.

CG, long-term care must be part of the calculation of taxes needed to provide future care.  You are basing your costs on the assumption that they will remain at current levels, but the cost benefit of healthcare reform is significant, at least 40%, as Dr. Relman has pointed out.  Of course, when only 1 in 8 are paying premiums for long-term care, there’s going to be a problem when the uncovered need it; but when everyone is mandated to pay in, then everyone is covered. 

Let’s say that everyone will be lucky enough to live long enough to need long-term care of some kind.  We make a projection of the cost for each individual.  Since we’re assuming everybody will eventually need long-term care (they won’t but for the sake of argument…), we then multiply the population by the individual cost to get the aggregate cost.  Of course, private insurance can’t do this because it uses a limited risk pool and so must, as you say, “raise rates and limit coverage”.  But when the risk pool is everybody, when healthcare is universal and mandated, then the pool is funded by everybody. In reality, everybody will be paying into a pool that not everybody will end up drawing from.  Of course, this is the principle of insurance.  The only way you can bring everybody into the risk pool is by making healthcare univeral and mandated, and the most efficient way of doing this is single-payer.

Again, you are making assumptions and using numbers derived from current conditions.  The whole point of universal, mandated healthcare is to change those assumptions and those numbers.  Furthermore, you are turning good health and a long life into a liability.  I’m not sure that should be looked at with trepidation.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Danes are very healthy and long-living, and that Denmark has a terrific long-term care system.  Believe me, if that small risk pool can afford the premium cost, then imagine how the United States, with it’s huge risk pool and its huge economies of scale, could achieve even lower premium cost per capita.

As for enfeeblement, I mean that if we live to 100, then our productive years—physically productive—will also lengthen.  Now we come to the problem of making way for the young.  Perhaps we can still do the job at 75, but there’s another generation that needs that job.  OK, then, insofar as that generation wants the older generation to make way, then they can help pay for them to do that. 

This returns us to your original point, that we must decide if we want the younger generation to be obliged to care of the elders.  Aside from the fact that the cultural norm of the young caring for the old has been around for millennia, I don’t think it’s expecting too much, as a practical matter, for the younger generation to realize that one day they will be the elder generation, so out of self-interest they must set a good example.

In the end, as the Danes and others understand, a truly humane society is people who take care of each other.  I think that in America, where the cult of the individual reigns with a vengence, we have lost sight of this.

Listen, good folks, it is an inverse ratio.  The more people die from not having any insurance, the less a universal health care program is needed!  It’s only logical!

By the way, does anybody know any Republican who does not have health insurance?  How about a Blue Dog?

jmr
Thanks for your interesting response.  The cruel calculus of triage is something that I truly hope we can avoid.

Your comment about older folks having funded their care is largely and unfortunately not common.  For example, only 18% of Californians have long-term care insurance.  Statistics indicate that 8 out of 10 people will need long-term care insurance. So only 1 of that 8 are insured.

As to personal wealth taking care of old age support, the average skilled nursing care facility averages about 220.00 per day in California.  That’s 6600.00 per month or 79,200.00 a year.  The average person who enters skilled nursing lives on average 5 years, so that grand total is 396,000.00 just for living cost and nursing care.  This does not cover drugs, doctors, and hospitals.

Since only 1 of the aforementioned 8 is covered by long-term care insurance, the other 7 must be taken care of by family members or the state via Medicaid because Medicare has almost no benefits for long-term care.  This is a fact that really upsets elders when they are told that Medicare won’t care for them as they thought it would.

As to your comment about emfeeblement, I hope to maintain my faculties and be valuable to society till I die, but unless some economic value is given to “the wisdom of elders”, I don’t think I will be paid much for “my wisdom”.

Speaking of “elder wisdom”, these elders that attend the town hall meetings and scream about socialized medicine while taking Medicare dollars are a perfect example of lack of education on the subject.

Just think how they would scream if they knew that Medicare has no benefits for long-term care and that most of them will have to go bankrupt apply for Medicaid to get help.  They really have no idea of the magnitude of the problem.

We are in heated debate in this country about healthcare that only covers acute care needs, we haven’t even discussed the chronic care needs issue and it is far larger than Medicare and Medicaid combined. 

When the time comes that they need help for chronic care as 8 in 10 people will, and nobody is there to help, including Medicare, then the “real” screaming will begin.  It is a quiet national tragedy now, but will become a national scandal as the boomers find out what is in store for them.

We should all show up at our city halls on the day they pass a gutted “single-payer” so anemic, so pathetic no one in his right mind would want it. That’s how I see this concluding, and it’s unacceptable. Every other developed nation on earth cares for their people: this government in Washington is the glaring exception.

National Strike on the day following the sellout. Bring pots & pans & whistles & bullhorns. Lots of noise. Raise hell!

ChaoticGood, you certainly hit on an important issue that’s indeed being demagogued on both sides.  I’ve had some first-hand experience with the issue in Denmark, which has an excellent single-payer system.  I should say that the Danish government is very pro-business, about as Republican as Denmark can be.  But the single-payer healthcare system is virtually sacrosanct.  The only thing a government can do is to refine it and make it better or take measures to ensure its long-term viability.  For example, some coverage has been limited, because the government feels that funding should have a bigger reserve, because, in typically Scandinavian thinking, “the good times won’t last forever.”  On the other hand, the private option has been expanded.  If one must wait for more than 60 days for a procedure, then he can opt to go private, and the state picks up the tab.

But I digress.  What you’re talking about is triage, where you are forced by limited resources to make a “quality of life” judgment.  What this means is that someone else is deciding how much value your life has.  The notion that old people at the end of life must be subordinated to young people at the beginning, when faced with limited resources, is a cruel but compelling calculus.  But this begs the question of whether resources are indeed limited.  Government can print money.  I know this sounds glib, but only the government, printing money, could have saved America from another Great Depression brought on by the private sector.  They’ve done this Keynesian thing in the 30s and now, and it works.

A major factor that you may overlook is that those old and super-old folks you speak of have already contributed to funding their care, during their productive years.  Sure, there may be huge growth in the old population, but this population have also provided for themselves. (Assuming the funding hasn’t been raided in the meantime.)  They are not being financed by 20-40 year-olds.  When (to use insurance jargon) the “risk pool” becomes the entire nation, and premiums, i.e. taxes earmarked for healthcare, are based on this pool, the costs will be managable, depending on the covered cohort’s GDP, when they were contributing to the pool.

Another factor to consider is that, if a lot of us live to 100, then won’t our productive years be extended apace?  Or do you think enfeeblement is a constant?

Well, the issues you raise are extremely important, but I think they can be addressed.

What gets me is that the same group of freeloading baby boomers that ran up the debt, destroyed the environment, raped the third world, ruined real estate, now want generation x and y to pay for their super expensive end of life care.

These same “me first” assholes, are now gathering at town halls spouting drivel.

The best thing is that nothing happens, then the private insured base will shrink, and the uninsured costs will skyrocket, and affect more and more people.  Then finally everyone will not have insurance the government will have not choice but to act.

Wexler, what am I willing to do for it?  Pay higher taxes, for starters.

Single-payer is indeed the only real solution.  Of course the gangsters of the healthcare racket will be saying, “The mobs we’ve called out for Obamacare are just a taste of what you’ll get if you try to float single-payer.”

I think we’re dealing, here, with a self-fulfilling prophecy:  if the conventional wisdom is that single-payer is a non-starter, then it is.

Here’s a possible long-range scenario.  It’s been done by other capitalist governments with better political acumen than ours.  You get healthcare universal and mandated.  At that point you can gradually co-opt the private insurers, control Big Pharma and abolish the doctors’ corrupt fee-for-service scheme.  Frankly, I’d rather the government just drive the insurance bastards out of business.  Any way is fine with me, as long as it achieves the same end—healthcare for which the patient is not billed.

Out here in California, there’s an effort to create a state-level single-payer system.  Of course the state has been hard-hit by the recession, so the proposal is on hold, but I think Californians aren’t as bloodyminded about single-payer as the rest of the country apparently is.  The state effort is called, Health Care for All.

Who said the practice of medicine is a profit making enterprise?
The hippocratic oath does not mention this anywhere and “good” doctors care more about the patient than the money. So why is providing health care for everyone, such a big problem.

The major reason for this problem is the “Great Experiment” going on right now under our noses.  That is the life extension experiments that are happening.

Soon, if the trend continues, we will have 100+ year olds in resthomes, lying right next to their 80+ year old children, being tended by their 60+ year old (retired?) grandchildren. All this being paid for by their 20-40 year old great-grandchildren.
To fund this arrangement requires moving large shares of the Healthcare dollars to the old, older and really old people.  That’s ok, if that’s what you want to do. 

But if the healthcare dollars are limited then keeping great grandparents alive for another day steals “well baby” care from infants. How in the world do you balance the needs from the elderly infirm to the needs of the infants and children, not to mention the needs of the workers.

This is a dilemma to put it mildly.  As the population ages this problem will become the greatest fiscal drain on all industrial nations. The insurance companies are struggling with this issue and have decided that raising rates and limiting coverage is the answer.  This is just a “thumb in the dike”. Rates are projected to double in 10 years and that will remove many more people from the insurance rolls. Medicare and Medicaid will be bankrupt in a few years.

The rage over “death panels” and “pulling the plug on grandma” is the real fear that elderly have that society will be forced to allow them to die so the next generation can live. Everyone who has looked at this aging “problem” has come away wringing their hands and warning of disasters.

If we are going to have a healthcare debate in this country, we should have the courage to confront the real issue and create public and private programs that will allow for the “aging of America” to proceed with dignity for all.

Tough questions are not being addressed and any who try are villified as Nazis.  The “final solution” does not necessarily involve limiting life-span, but it will if we don’t confront this issue head-on.

Lie #1: Death Panels!
Lie #2: Universal will cost us more!

Death Panels = The current state of “health care”

Universal Health-care = Care for all Americans

Now is the time for all people of good conscious to make their voices heard write/fax/phone your Representatives to let them know that you’re watching and you support Universal health-care and controlling costs for prescription drugs!  For far too long the wing-nuts on the right have hijacked the conversation and promulgated LIES - we each of us has an obligation to make sure that this does not happen again! 

It is time that “Our Representatives” start to feel the heat of the American people!  Talk to your friends, neighbors, co-workers, everyone and discuss what the real issues are an affordable system that controls costs, promotes health, doesn’t disqualify you for a trumped up “pre-existing” condition, will control drug prices, and is portable for the average working American!  It is time to get the Corporate Oligarchy off of the WELFARE ROLLS of our tax dollars!  Now is the time to make our voices heard!!!

Tropicgirl, in response to your concern regarding limitation of care I can offer my father’s experience. He was over 80 years old and had been in very poor health for 10 years. His second coronary was massive and he did not fit the profile of a patient who could benefit from triple-quadruple-bipass surgery. Dad was over 10 years too old, and wasn’t in good health when it hit. HOWEVER, he had Medicare and a great Blue Cross/Blue Shield Medigap insurance policy.

Guess what? The bastards disregarded his living will (they could do so legally, at that time which was 18 years ago) and he got the surgery he didn’t want, and post-operative care, then nursing care, and finally (I threatened the doctor with media exposure and a lawsuit) the health care system let a dying man die.

We need a STRONG single-payer option and if they don’t allow this I’m leaving the country, again. And not coming back—I can’t afford this bullshit anymore. I’m getting too old & going into a “McDonald’s” hospital can cost you your life.

America is a rubbish nation. We’ve got to take it back.

to tropicgirl…

Thank you for your thought-provoking post.

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote but I have a couple of issues.  Maybe I just don’t like the facts.

First, I know that millions of Americans are suffering greatly under the present system.  How many more deaths and bankruptcies can we tolerate while the Democrats play fiddle for the insurance companies’ square dance?  There are real people being hurt and killed by this, and I have difficulty accepting that we have to just let go of it and try again after the next election cycle or two.  But you could very well be right on, the facts seem to predict what you say.

Second, I don’t know how you go about reviving the third party movement.  I began working for the Nader campaign after the Iowa Caucus when Obama took a hard right on the issues you listed.  We got Nader on the ballot in 45 states, but we couldn’t get him on the stage at the presidential debates.  I carefully watched MSM outlets during the course of the campaign, and almost all of them completely ignored Nader.  Whenever he got any ink from them it was all about “here’s that old crackpot running again”.  I was totally dismayed by the so-called “progressive” sites like Alternet and HuffPo that refused to cover Nader at all.  They were totally engaged in the Hillary/Obama foodfight, and then when Palin came along, well, it was all over for any real political discussion.

So, please humor me while I humiliate myself begging people to get off their chairs and do something.  I’m going to keep trying.  I don’t have a lot of resources, but I am highly motivated.

-Wexler

to wexler—

Of course you are absolutely right about single payer.

It is absolutely amazing to me that so many so-called “progressives” have:

1.  removed their brains.
2.  become liars about what is in this proposed bill and past things Obama has said, whether right or wrong.
3.  talk about Rush and Beck all damn day long because they have nothing new to say about anything. No one knows who they are talking to… even the regular listeners to progressive radio and tv have turned off the shrillness.
4.  become verbally abusive to questions from sincere independents and conservatives.
5. don’t realize that Dems and Obama will never get re-elected by bashing half the electorate as crazy. These people are our relatives and friends.

Obama was incredibly dishonest with the liberal and progressive movement that got him elected regarding torture accountability, rendition, drone bombing, spying and so on. If you want to be honest, he has rammed through all the bad things Bush supported. He has not been forthcoming about his “deals” with the insurance industry and big pharma and his wife’s patient dumping. He “stole” trillions of tax dollars for the banks who did not use it to clean their toxic assets at all.

I really think Obamacare will be a windfall for the insurance companies and pharma, but my recommendation to you is to let things play out this summer. Several things will probably happen:

-many democrats will not be re-elected.
-many Blue Dogs will not be re-elected.
-whatever Obama passes, it will be looked upon as a failure because it will be implemented (if at all) like the porkulus and the scandal will bring him down eventually. (you can’t get re-elected by calling half the electorate names, dumbass)
-the single payer people will re-emerge after all this with suggestions to expand Medicare, incrementally, while leaving the insurance companies alone.

Don’t soil yourself with politics just now, none of it is sincere. Most serious people for single-payer are laying low.

Obama is becoming known as a liar. He lied to the progressives and now the conservatives have caught him red-handed and they will nail him like we could not or would not. With his lack of sincerity and lack of true moral intent, he CAN NOT bring change and that will be apparent very soon, if it hasn’t already. What he wants is a re-incarnation of the Reagan years, the time during which he grew up and formed, taking credit as a so-called progressive while being FAR from it, even doing things that would make Reagans hair stand on end…

Set your sights on 3rd party and independent movements. I think the Dems are “done”. The republicans are not worth mentioning and I believe even the true honest conservatives will be looking for a new home.

Obama is so incredibly boring.

OK, everyone’s wringing their hands about Obama, the Senate Finance Committee, the current broken system, and so on.

What are you willing to do for it?

I have sketched out a “Single Payer Action Plan” which is simple, direct, and could be implemented using the existing networks of single payer advocacy groups.  I have begun contacting these groups to see if they are willing to work together to push single payer forward.

So far no response.

That doesn’t surprise me.  I think most people have given up on single payer and are willing to settle for whatever Obama will sign.  This is defeatist and I am not willing to let this go without at least trying to do something.  I keep hearing the Democrats saying “Oh, we’re closer to reform than we’ve ever been” and then what they propose is an expansion of the same old for-profit employer-based system. 

Assuming the Democrats are able to ram something through, I fear that it will be such a crummy bill that it will be wildly unpopular.  It will fail to do what it is advertised to do because the GOP will be be fighting implementation of it every inch of the way.  They will challenge each and every ambiguity in the bill in court. They will run their election campaigns against this failure and they will win.  When the GOP regains control of Congress they will try to repeal the bill and by then the people will be so sick of it that they will succeed.  At least that’s one scenario.

Another scenario is that the bill will be such a windfall for the health insurance industry that they will support it while they continue to put the screws to us.  We’ll get everyone insured, all right, at current inflated rates or even higher.  They’ll send the bill to the government (meaning YOU).

I could go on with imagined scenarios.  I don’t want scenarios, I want results.

If you are willing to suspend your own disbelief long enough to imagine the US with Medicare for All, then please join me in trying to get the single payer ball rolling again.  I am nobody special, just a person with an idea, a website, and a stubborn streak.

I have gotten emails from a few others who are not willing to give up yet.  I have not heard back from single payer advocacy groups who are either too busy or have given up on it.  However, they have email lists, and we all have a really crummy bill pending to sell against.

Let me know what you think.  I’m open to any ideas.

-Wexler

Lie #1:  “Death panels”
Lie #2:  Universal healthcare would mean higher cost to the taxpayer.

Obamacare, maybe, because it still rewards the industry that has brought us to this mess in the first place. (Sound familiar?)  But Dr. Arnold Relman, emeritus Harvard professor and former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, whom I’ve cited before and who thinks Obamacare is not a good plan, has said removing the profit chain will save at least 40% over current costs.  Listen to his important interview on NPR’s Science Friday.

The mobs mouthing off at the town meetings—the ones who love their Medicare—are afraid of paying higher taxes.  These cretins fail to realize that the premiums they currently pay, either directly or through their workplace, are far more than the higher taxes they would pay, for making Medicare universal or for a co-op plan or any other plan that eliminates the profiteers.

Not to defend for one minute the insurance companies, the fears of the death committees are well founded. Even as a liberal, I read Sara Palin’s CLEAR explanation of the fears Real Clear Politics today. Here are a few quotes. Even if you are on Obama’s side, you should check this out (from Sara Palin):

“”“Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.”

Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens….An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”  Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.””

I believe Obama has lost anyone with a disabled family member and many, many over-50.

Here is the original article of Sara Palin:
ttp://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin?v=app_2347471856&viewas=6190&ref=search

Obama has said that single-payer would be too radical. Turns out, because it is ALREADY in effect, it would be simpler, cheaper, easier, more ethical and more fair to extend Medicare, phasing in age groups.

Obama has proved to be a very discouraged, former progressive. He has absolutely no faith in change and covers up his real attempt to reconstitute some sort of Reagan era, the president he admires so much, and calls it “democratic” or “progressive”. It is the thinking from the past, not the future.

I think he has a lot to hide, and he is certainly not against using the courts to hide whatever he wants.

Obama is caving in to the insurance industry. The fascist goons unleashed by insurance industry fronts must be confronted by supporters of real public healthcare at townhall meetings. We need to inundate our misrepresentatives with pro public healthcare letters and calls and we need to pressure Obama not to sell us all out.

In other posts I’ve noted how the insurance companies and other “bloodsuckers” who profit off sick people use lies and scare tactics and political bribes to block healthcare reform.  We have now witnessed the mobs they have incited to intimidate politicians at town hall meetings around the country.

Now, we have not only evidence that the health insurance industry are gangsters, but proof.  A former insurance company executive claims that lies and intimidation are in fact industry policy.  Wendell Potter told CNN that the industry is playing “dirty tricks” and that “that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry.”  Potter said he resigned after a policyholder’s daughter died when his company Cigna’s death panel refused to pay for a liver transplant.

The insurance companies not only are liars and bribemakers, but murderers.

Progressives must take to the streets to counter the mobs of old farts and other neanderthals trying to hold center stage in the debate.  Unfortunately, healthcare is an issue that mainly concerns older people.  Young people, those who would be the loudest and most energetic progressive activists, are too narcissistic to fight a battle that does not directly concern them.  (The era of youth activism, the 60s, was about young people being sent off to war, so the kids in the streets had a personal stake in the issue.)

Obamacare bends over backwards to accomodate the healthcare profiteers.  This has been the fatal flaw of all healthcare reform proposals.  The attempt to accomodate the industry has resulted in bloated, 1000-page, tricked-out proposals that actually play into the people’s fears of big government “taking over” their healthcare.

It’s would be easy to provide universal health care, no muss, no fuss:  merely extend Medicare to everybody.  This is, in effect, single-payer, but doesn’t need to be called that.  It would be a one or two page bill—requiring only that the administration and budget of Medicare be scaled up—that Congress could quickly pass and the president sign into law—a fait accompli that people would barely notice until it was in place and they realized they didn’t have to deal with the bloodsuckers to get care, and the bloodsuckers realized they were out of business.

Proponents of total “free market” approaches to problems ignore the results.  Health “care” in the US has evolved into a virtual labyrinth of providers, insurers, and intricate data.  Paranoid fear about health information prevents physicians from collaborating effectively.  And private insurers, even with the best of intentions, must make profits to satisfy stockholders and boards - a built-in margin that guarantees additional costs. 
The mutual companies of the 60’s no longer exist - they provided health insurance for pennies on the dollar - all now replaced by rapacious for-profit monoliths.  While a physician may be driving a Lexus, insurance board members are driving Lamborghinis.
Until the profit motive is removed from health care the costs will continue to spiral higher.

Fat Freddy interesting article, did you read it in it’s entirety? It is a business article and reveals its freemarket bias throughout, note to complaints about unions. While it bemoans the problems of government intervention it does layout the base problem with our insurance system.
Health care for a population as large as we have in this country is costly and complex.
People want to be able to get treatment when and as required.
Doctors and hospitals and pharmacies want to provide these services.
This would be a match made in heaven if the problem of cost was not involved.
What can solve this cost problem? Insurance, a bit paid in advance of need to provide the funds to accomplish the goal of appropriate treatment. The free market has insurers that can step in here. This third player of course needs to see some return for this service. So far the equation is working. Where in the equation is the insurer? between the patient and the service. Friction occurs and the government attempts to protect the patient. That is a legitimate function of government,to protect the people.
As cost rise all parties start look at the cost instead of the result. The circus begins, now everyone is worried about any change bringing the tent down and the show goes on without a finale in site.

THE CHASE.
We have free market players who are concerned about a robust profit not robust patients and certainly not weak and needy patients.
We have a large group of dedicated health care workers dedicated to providing health care caught in the middle. 
We have a government that has a moral duty to protect people.
We have the people with a wide range of means that are not getting the best class health care if theycan afford care at all.
When the tent collapses, who will count the money,who will ride the elephant out of the arena, who will be pinned under a tent pole and who will get seltzer down their pants.

re: By Fat Freddy, August 13 at 8:18 am:

Freddy, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, government regulation is not the problem. We in fact need more of it. The problem is that the existing government regulations only apply in certain employment situations.

Those Americans who are satisfied with their “free market” health care coverage mostly have the GOVERNMENT to thank. That’s because if you have your health insurance through employment in certain kinds of large institutions or companies, for example, university or government employment, there are GOVERNMENT regulations that keep your premiums down and protect you from being thrown off the rolls for becoming sick. Insurance companies are always trying to get around these GOVERNMENT protections, and sometimes they succeed, but by and large these GOVERNMENT protections work fairly well for this limited population. What’s needed is for these protections to be extended to all, not just those who are protected by regulations which apply to certain kinds of employer-provided insurance arrangements.

re:By godistwaddle, August 13 at 5:42 am:

This is exactly right. Insurance company executives and their staffs are the real death panels. They regularly decide to exclude from care anyone who threatens to reduce their profits by becoming sick. They deny coverage to people for having ever been sick, or cut off coverage to enrolled members who become sick, or increase those members’ premiums so much that they are forced to cancel their membership in order to have enough money to eat and have a place to live. The “free market” is the enemy of public health in this country.

7 Out of 100 Births result in infant death.
where the hell are all the so called “Pro Lifers” on our ranking on Infant Morality Rates??? Somewhere between the 26th -29th ranked ‘Best’??? That is nowhere near the marketing slogan ‘We’re #1’ is it?
When only about 17 abortions are performed for every 1000 pregnancies, I would say our bigger concern when trying to ‘protect babies’ is addressing the lack of accessiblity to healthcare before during and after pregnancy.
As for Who’s ‘Killing Granny’- Which Party Created Medicare Coverage? Has vigorously fought to sustain it (and Soc Sec & medicaid) for decades. If Repugs had their way the Social Security system would have gone the way of subprime mortgages.
Let’s get something absolutely clear here, those ‘seniors’ screaming about their Medicare benefits are the same generation which has tried to derail Medicare for decades. They wanted to deny this ‘entitlement’ to their parents & Grandparents, but are now reliant upon it’s generosity. So now they have decided to deny healthcare to the rest of US instead. Willing to deny a prenatal check up to an expectatant mother so Hubby can get his Viagra.
This is the Generation which inspired the phrase “Greed is Good” in the movie ‘Wall Street’.
Generational Theft has been their MO since the Reagan era.The “W” era was merely the finishing touches-‘Mission accomplished’.Pray Tell, What is left to Steal from our Children anyway? It’s all Gone and we’re up to our necks in Repugs Unpaid bills!!!
Having worked with the elderly population- they are not all sweet nor wise. Some are the same ignorant, selfish assholes they were at 30.To claim otherwise is in itself ageist.
I submit those aged Teabaggers,Birthers, Townhollers, and ‘Holier than Thous’ are the same assholes who got US in to this clusterfuck to begin with. Certain safeguards were put in place and they went about dismantling them, poltically, economically,socially and internationally. Apparently their idea of ‘Disestablishmentarianism’ was Wrong. No other generation has fucked this country up more than the Boomers with there self servicing, righteousness. The Term “Boomer” should now describe what they did to our country, instead of just demographic numbers.

godistwaddle

Health insurance companies have a huge incentive to kill you, once you’ve paid their premiums over the years and then have become old and feeble.

Um, people who are “old and feeble” are generally on Medicare, not private “Capitalistic” health insurance.

I think you are confused. Perhaps you should try reading this article from 1993.

How have we in the United States come to find ourselves in this kind of a mess? An investigation into the evolution of the medical industry in America will expose not the competitive market that most Americans assume has been operating, but stifling regulation and government control as well as regulations originating from interest groups such as medical organizations and insurance companies. This system is chaotic for both doctors and patients and is one that appears to be a free-market operation but is really an industry legislated and regulated from behind the scenes.

Health insurance companies have a huge incentive to kill you, once you’ve paid their premiums over the years and then have become old and feeble.  Capitalism, in fact, DEMANDS that you be killed, since capitalism’s ONLY objective is profits for the shareholders.

How many murders has Prudential carried out over the decades?