RedwoodGuy, “Never worked before. Why will it work now?”  I don’t know if it will work, what will?  Because we don’t know doesn’t mean we just give up without a fight.  I am not so defeatist that I say die before giving it all I can to make a change.  While one can do a lot to get something started, it is not a job one person can do alone, so others have to be convinced to join in the effort.

JDmysticDJ, “a rational analysis of human history must show that progress has been accomplished, in some areas of human behavior, if not in all areas of human behavior.”  Most likely a lot. It depends on what is looked for and looked at.  These forums reflect to me that many people have consciences and the desire to change the world for the better.  Acting on those desires is the next step.  Changing a species behavior is certainly not an easy thing to do and the human species is a most complex organism both singly and in groups.  Our society is probably the most mixed in the world.  The laws, the constitutional laws makes this country unique.  I’ve been told this by those who have migrated to America.  But the law is incredibly complex and the judiciary system can be as well.  Nevertheless, it signifies progress.

Seems to me the Ryan plan and the Republican agenda would set us back (us meaning middle income Americans) to a medieval America putting us more and more in the thrall of the corporate powerhouses, literally wiping out any progress that has been made.

Every now and then I run across someone who voted for the Republicans back when they were taking the straight razor to the throats of the poor and disabled, cutting off funding that helps support the most helpless people in this country. They’re fairly easy to spot—-their facial expressions reveal the look of shock that comes with total betrayal. Back when they voted for Bush, they were in good health, working, happy. No problem. The conservatives were right in wanting to cut off the funding for all those useless eaters sucking on the public tit.

Now, a few years later, they’ve discovered what happens to good Republican voters when they get disabled and can’t work. Surprise! Suddenly it’s them in the role of the useless eater, and them desperately needing medical help that’s not forthcoming, since Federal support for each state’s Medicaid was hacked to pieces. Suddenly it’s them waiting in line to apply for food stamps, and accepting third class doctors and dental care because that’s all who will see them, if they’re lucky enough to find one! Now it’s them forced into taking second-rate generic medications—-medicationss claimed by their obscure makers to be “just like the real thing.” Anyone who’s been backed into this particular corner knows better from experience.

What these sad, ordinary hard-working Americans discover is that they now mean as little to their supposed conservative heroes as do those “dirty liberals”. It doesn’t matter who you voted for “way back then,” now you’re just another drain on the taxpayers, one of the enemies of conservatism that contributes nothing but still expects to eat and survive.

Like to have that vote back now?

From my perspective, the solution to the myriad of problems that confront us is an easy one, and yet, unattainable. So, if it’s unattainable, why mention it: Desperation, profound psychic angst, hope beyond hope? As I see it we’re confronted by a moral decadence so pervasive that the hope of overcoming it is an exercise most futile, and yet, most desirable.

By my appraisal, what’s needed is not so much a new paradigm, but a return to an old paradigm; a once existing paradigm where values and beliefs espoused the good and the virtuous. I’m not referring to the need for a religious revival, but the need for a moral revival.

It’s clear to me, if to no one else, that since the dawn of time the weak have been manipulated, exploited, and abused by the powerful, but it’s also clear to me that the evolution of mankind has been accompanied by a quest for justice and virtue. It’s also clear to me that this quest for justice and virtue has been met with reactionary resistance. I’ll proffer that this quest for justice and virtue has been characterized by a long series of steps forward, and steps backward.

I understand that Chris Hedges’ latest major literary work has to do with the myth of human progress, and given what has transpired over the last Century, arguing against that dialectic might seem difficult, but a rational analysis of human history must show that progress has been accomplished, in some areas of human behavior, if not in all areas of human behavior.

The human condition is marked by variances in behavior between individuals, and although broad sociological characterizations can be deduced and assumed about human behavior, it is these variances in human behavior that stand out.

Being human, I’ll argue that we are all subject to what can only be described as human failings. For lack of a better word, I’ll proffer that none of us are saints, but that some of us are more saint-like than others.

I’ll proffer that we have entered a Randian era, an era where the sociopathic philosophy of Ayn Rand is being espoused by many of our economic and political leaders; a pragmatism most foul; a collectivist era where the needs of the whole take precedence over the needs of the individual. Recently, in intellectual circles, Ayn Rand’s sociopathic philosophy and her hypocrisy have been subject for discussion. Ayn Rand, an outspoken critic of collectivism, apparently failed to see that what she espoused was the ultimate in collectivist philosophy.

Whether myth, or reality, the story of the Inuit people placing their old, infirm, disabled, and non productive on Ice flows, to float away into oblivion, seems to be the collectivist philosophy of today. At a time when our society needs to come up to speed with the rest of the industrialized world in providing health care, we are instead moving in the opposite direction.

In comparison to other expenses, the expense of caring for the old, the sick and the disabled, is negligible, it’s only made expensive by: the opportunistic, the exploiters, the greedy, and those lacking in empathy. Pain, suffering, and misery, is unnoticed by those free from such experiences, and this is the ultimate result of moral decadence. In today’s law of the jungle, the predators bitch and complain about the difficulty of catching and consuming their prey, while the prey dumbly turn a sympathetic ear to the complaints of predators.

Inherit The Wind, June 4 at 1:55 pm

” But Obama didn’t have courage and ruthlessness to get that through.”

Obama had no intention, in fact there’s hardly any light between Obama and Ryan.
The Only reason that O. is not out there sounding like Ryan is that the
Democrat(ic) voters (You?) would leave the party in droves if he did.

http://mosquitocloud.net/

I think you mean POPULAR support, and what I said was there is no POLITICAL support. Which there isn’t.
************

OK. Can’t argue with that. I think we are saying the same thing.

@Inherit
“There is ENORMOUS support for single payer, but it’s been squashed by the GOP and by DINOs who follow the GOP line on just about everything.”

I think you mean POPULAR support, and what I said was there is no POLITICAL support. Which there isn’t.

Think about. Before negotiations even began in 2009, the WH and the Congressional leadership tool single payer off the table. That was with 59 Dems in the Senate, a majority in the House and a so-called liberal Dem in the WH. Honestly sir, what more could you ask for?

The establishment is refusing to entertain this thought and that’s all there is to it. You can kick and scream all you want - they don’t care.

Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger here. I’d love to have SP. But it is not in the cards.

You know what? When it’s you mother or grandmother that can’t afford insurance, or your kid that’s going to DIE because you aren’t one of the lucky ones making 250,000/year, you’ll change your tune.  There is ENORMOUS support for single payer, but it’s been squashed by the GOP and by DINOs who follow the GOP line on just about everything.

But if you buy an entire party, and 1/4 to 1/3 of the other party, they will all lie every which way to stay in office and find anything to crush an opponent “Look at that guy! He had a speeding ticket in 1978! Do we really want a low-life like that in office?” Nothing to do with the popularity of single payer.

We already have several single payer systems in place:
1) Medicare
2) Medicaid
3) The Federal insurance for Federal employees.
4) The Rolls/Royce Lifetime Insurance for Congresscritters, Senators, Supreme Court Justices, Vice-Presidents and Presidents.

Simply extend Medicare to all Americans and you’re done.  But Obama didn’t have courage and ruthlessness to get that through.

But watch: As it becomes crystal clear that Ryan and his fellow fanatics want to kill Medicare but ensure the richest don’t pay taxes, ordinary people will wake up.  They already did in upstate New York, and are waking up in Wisconsin.

@Inherit
“I’m now totally convinced single-payer is the way to go. “

Well, you’re about 40 years too late. There is ZERO, and I really mean zero, political support for this. None. Well sure, there is always Dennis Kucinich. But, who listens to him?

Adopting the Dem v. GOP paradigm is not going to get anyone anywhere. Don’t forget, over at the right wing version of this web site, the same kind of people are pushing the exact opposite agenda, because they don’t see the actual battlefield either. Stalemate folks.

Everyone is simply depending on The Washington Government to dictate some policy and law to follow. That’s deadly. It won’t be to your advantage, that much is for certain. People need to break off from that, and begin to build communities from the ground up in their local world. Painful, difficult, hard to imagine, harder yet to do, but that is how to defeat the beast. Find a way to deliver some health care locally, with your own talents and tools and ideas. Think outside the bun, man.

I’m now totally convinced single-payer is the way to go.  Took me years to get there, and lots of convincing, but the health insurance companies and the GOP beat all doubt out of me.

READ that article I put a link to! It will curl your hair!

@Shenonymous
“By opposing them, in the finality of a vote, means to reset the government as one for the people and end it for the corporate and wealthy 1% of the population.”

Never worked before. Why will it work now?

Concur fully with Shenonymous.

The USofA is the mother lode of insurance company margins. We pay the excess of a 30% intervention by these companies. We pay twice the cost most modern social democracies because they’ve had the yarbels to refuse to pay the inflated costs of insurers, drugs, mmedical equipment and the inefficency of a procedure based system.

Reseach is funded to a great extent by the NIH. The private sector benefits immeasurably and we foot the bill on the way in and on the way out. The complaint that without the U.S. market as structured, research will collapse is another red herring.

Defense of the status quo is the Republican strategy. What they have succeeded in doing is convince a marginally informed electorate that there is only one way to procede. Blame in regard to that should be placed squarely on the Dems, [who I reckon found it convenient and a requirement] to consult with the foxes and not forcefully defend a better approach.

To demagogue or not to demagogue, that is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, especially if you were never able to make decent and fair wages, have safe working conditions, and have the ability to pay for medical care or affordable insurance that would help defray the costs to live healthy or be treated when you are not, or to take arms against a sea of troubles called the self-serving, exploitive, corporatocratic-serving Republicans whose agenda is to shrink the government and at the same time shrink the population by setting up the conditions for more of them to die without unafforded but direly needed medical attention?  Taking up arms in this case, since we are a democratic nation, means to vote the damn Republicans and Democrats who are trailing after them in the thrall of some mysterious force called “in the pocket of the masters” out of their cushie office.  By opposing them, in the finality of a vote, means to reset the government as one for the people and end it for the corporate and wealthy 1% of the population.

Single payer health care insurance is the most rational way to go.  This thwarts the medical industry that includes pharmaceuticals, the two domains in health care that has deliberately and methodically exploited the people’s pocketbook for at least half a century.  It is time to end it.  That means superior and winning arguments must come to rest on the heads of those who administer this country’s government and that they be forced by popular opinion, real popular opinion, not that tinged opinion politicians say “the people” want.  The kind of public opinion I mean is the kind where the people speak through every means possible.

Demagoguery is an intentional plan for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations of the public, which is typically done through impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes.  This is a perfect description of what the Republicans do.

Wildeye, June 3 at 8:02

“In fact, vampire squid do not suck blood.”

The ones on Wall Street do, and then some…

In fact, vampire squid do not suck blood.

http://tolweb.org/Vampyroteuthis_infernalis

“Here’s the basic difference before us: Conservatives want government to play less of a role in paying for health insurance. Progressives believe that government will inevitably play a
growing role in the provision of health insurance because if it doesn’t, more Americans will lose their coverage.”

Wow there, little cocksucker, that is the kabuki in congress, so speak for yourself!

The difference between the Left (I’m clueless about the conflicted and unprincipled Progressives) and that kabuki you present as “the difference” is that the Left want’s the government
to play a direct role (single payer/universal coverage) in the delivery of health care!!! Not to have a monopolistc, profit driven, blood sucking, intermediary vampire squid sitting athwart
our access to what the left believes is both a human right, and the sworn business of government to make us feel secure.

And certainly, ending wars aimed to secure more profits for transanational corporations, and extending Bush’s Tax cuts, should be the primary debate when discussing how to pay for
the healthcare which an increasing number of citizens is being priced out off.

If E.Robinson and E.J.Dionne are the company R.Scheer keeps, then R.Scheer is a (pick your 4letter word here) Neoliberal shill.

http://mosquitocloud.net/

This is not a plan. It’s just another sneak attack on the American people. Nothing more and nothing less.

“WAKE UP PEOPLE!” - JOIN THE REVOLUTION
Read “Common Sense 3.1” at ( http://www.revolution2.osixs.org )

FIGHT THE CAUSE - NOT THE SYMPTOM
We don’t have to live like this anymore. “Spread the News”

Ignore the words, follow the money.  The big health
corps want the money currently going into Medicare. 
This is all about stealing more and more of our
money.

Currently, there’s no point in working for the future
when you are young.  Because, when you get old,
they’ll steal every dollar you’ve saved for health
care.  And, you will need health care when you get
older, no getting around that.

If you are young, stop working and go to the beach. 
The whole game is rigged against you anyways.  This
is just a part of the way they are rigging it.

The Democrats already support the big health
corporations in stealing everything you have before
you turn 65.  This is just the Republicans saying
they should also steal all the money for health care
of people over 65.  With the Democrats of course
eager go compromise on the issue.

The solution is simple, the retirement age for social security needs set at 60. The medicare age needs set to 0, and (here’s the big one) the current social security payroll tax and medicare tax need applied to ALL INCOME, not just the first $106,000.

And just in case that’s not enough revenue (which it would be, by a far shot) the people of the USA, who, through their government, pay for much of the medical research going on in large public colleges, should keep a portion of all patents on medicine and medical equipment developed with OUR money.

Of course, it goes without saying that the buying power of 315 million americans would give us sizable leverage in the negotiations of medical prices.

Why are we discussing trivialities like healthcare, budgetary shortfalls, unemployment, and the like?  Doncha know that Weiner’s crotch shot photo tops today’s national vital interests list?

@felicity

Indeed. Regular people soon won’t be able to afford health care at the “Premium” level. Which means, certified doctors, prescribing FDA approved drugs and given by real degreed nurses.

Common people - which means most people - are going to have to develop a “Sub Prime” health care industry. A kind of WalMart of health care. Instead of licensed doctors, you will see an EMT, or an ex-medic, or just a guy who is good at setting broken bones. Maybe he was an expert mechanic or carpenter. Nursing is more and more being done by vocationally trained ex-hamburger flippers. It’s not actually difficult to draw blood, take a urine sample, read blood pressure and so on.

A smart guy with a computer program and a laptop can diagnose 90% of what ails people. If you get major stuff like brain cancer, you’re just out of luck - like getting hit by a Greyhound bus, or a stray bullet.

So, in place of a $200 doctor visit, it will be $20 bucks. No suing allowed though! Real doctors will serve the wealthy. Maybe they will oversee the sub-prime clinics by checking in once in a while. That sort of monitoring. You know, like the USDA monitors the meat packers. Riiiiiight.

Let’s face it, most of us are faced monthly with the
dreaded task of opening our bills and trying to
figure out how we can pay them and still have enough
left over to buy food for dinner that night.

Since 2002, health insurance premiums have increased
by 87%.  We learn that since 2002 health insurance
providers have increased their profits by 428%.  So
along comes the Ryan plan and any even perfunctory
reading of it informs us that the obviously
ballooning costs of health care will soon show up in
that dreaded stack of bills we have to pay every
month.  Is it any wonder the Ryan plan scares the
bloody bejesus out of us.

What I don’t understand about TruthDig, is why they publish this kind of rubbish from establishment journalists. “Digging beneath the headlines” doesn’t mean publishing the mass-garbage created by the NYT, does it?

I am kind of new to this site, but as far as I can tell, the only “digging” that occurs here is by the readers, not the published writers.

Gee, where’s Thomas Friedman? Why not publish editorials from the WSJ? The WaPo? What is this crap?

Here’s a short primer on the rise in cost of diabetes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/health/research/01prog.html

The basic cost of treating diabetes is $10,000 a year. That’s not including complications like amputations. Let’s do the math! Ryan is offering seniors a $6,000 a year voucher to buy private insurance. Now, the insurance company has to spend less than $6,000 to make a profit, so maybe at best people will get $5,000 worth of actual care per year. That won’t even cover your basic diabetes care! Now, add high blood pressure, clogged arteries, congestive heart failure, Alzheimer’s, a hip replacement, and a few cancers, and what on earth is $5,000 going to cover?

Now, this works statistically. Which means, over time, and over the whole population, the effect is to statistically reduce the care given, which will statistically reduce the average lifespan, which will statistically reduce how much wealth rich people have to sacrifice for the poor.

This rollback is coming, and you will not stop it. Sure, the numbers may change on the margins, but that’s it. Maybe the voucher will be for $10k, or maybe the voucher will be phased in, etc. But the rollback will not be stopped, because wealth has its own imperatives. And the #1 imperative of wealth is preservation. You only need to carefully study the disease statistics for diabetes, and Alzheimers to quickly grasp the problem here. A growing population that is becoming sicker is a trend that must be reversed, and it will be.

The roles of Republicans is clear. They are the vanguard, bringing the rich agenda to the table. The role of Democrats is to be the negotiator for the poor, and to give an appearance of “two sides” battling it out. It is not. It is one side - the establishment - with two players. By having a push back player (the Democrats) the people will accept the ultimate defeat as “the best we could get.”

This is so simple, and so transparent, and so theatrical, it is a laugh. The role of all the EJ Dionnes in the media is to narrate this “epic battle” for the public consumption. To flesh out the script with villains and good guys, and battles won and lost, so that the public can swallow this rollback thinking they put up a good fight.

Redwoodguy- For the most part, you are correct. The aging population and our current HC system are on a collision course for disaster. Actually, one lone voice in this conversation is Susan Jacoby who, in her recent book, “Never Say Die,” encapsulates many of the impending and disasterous troubles that face our society due to the huge number of new “old, old” that will be utilizing our HS and social services systems. It’s not a pretty picture.

@Dione
“Here’s the basic difference before us: Conservatives want government to play less of a role in paying for health insurance. Progressives believe that government will inevitably play a growing role in the provision of health insurance because if it doesn’t, more Americans will lose their coverage.”

That’s a superficial and misleading explanation. This isn’t about conservatives and progressives, it is about the rich and the poor. Here is what is happening, and why.

Lifespans are increasing rapidly. It is moving into the low 80s and soon will be into the 90s. The rich have decided that they are not willing to pay the health costs of keeping people alive for some 25 years after they retire from production. It’s just that simple. 50 years ago, people lived about 5 years after retiring. That’s a manageable cost to bear for society. But, living 25 years after productions stops is a cost that the rich are refusing to bear.

Populations are growing and lifespan is increasing. This is the worst possible scenario for the wealthy of the world. Politics aside, it is obvious to them that the bulk of the cost of maintaining these non-productive lives will be ultimately charged against their wealth. How could it be any other way?

In the USA, two bad things are happening for the wealthy. There is a massive epidemic of diabetes and obesity, and the Pharma companies have expensive patent drugs to treat these sick people to keep them alive for a long time. I am not arguing the ethics here. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the economics. And the wealthy just aren’t going to bite to keep 40 million diabetic, congestive heart failure, obese, cancerous, leeches consuming $30k or $40k worth of medical treatments a years for 25 years after they stop working.

Everything you see happening in the budget with Social Security, and Medicare, is being designed to slowly roll back the statistical life expectancy and consumption of health care. If they could roll it back just 5 years it would be a savings of enormous import. If they could get away with rolling it back 10 years, they’d be in hog heaven.

But make no mistake. They are going to roll it back. This is way, way above “party” discrepancies. This is the global rich saying “NO MORE BABY!” They are drawing the line in all countries, in many different ways. People need to see this big picture, and get off the “Democrat v. Republican” paradigm, because that’s just the superficial mechanism which will decide HOW the rollbacks happen. 

This is a forbidden subject in the USA. No one can talk about death with common sense. It isn’t allowed here. But seriously, when you have an 85 year old with multiple life-threatening illnesses being kept alive for 5 extra years at immense costs. Maybe more than that person earned in their productive lifetime! When a person who earned maybe $30k a year, starts consuming $200k/yr worth of health care in the 80s, it is going to be noticed. It is a gargantuan economic problem and moral problem that exists whether you talk about it or not.

So, instead of talking about it, the Rich have simply put a poison pill in motion. They don’t care how it is presented to the public any more, they just want it fixed. So, you will have all these “EJ Dionnes” of the world offering political claptrap discussion about mean conservatives and so on. Nope. It’s just about the money.

Lifespans WILL be turned around for the poor. They are not going to be allowed to live 30 years after retiring using up the wealth of the rich to stay alive. Take that to the bank.

Why is it Republicans can fight dirty, use bare-knuckle street tactics, but Democrats can’t?

Ryan’s plan is nothing but an attack on Medicare, designed to make EVERY senior in America give corporate insurance companies another $6500/head.

That’s all it’s ever been, another way to transfer money from working class and middle Americans to wealthy dishonet corporations like Wellpoint.

Here is what Ryan is protecting and helping:

http://firedoglake.com/2011/06/02/the-2011-wellpointanthem-shareholders’-show-“one-thing-you-can’t-hide-is-when-you’re-crippled-inside-”/

As the truth is not partisan neither is it demagoguery.

I suspect Republicans have gone this route to 1) obfuscate the truth about the Ryan Plan from voters and 2) make the press even more unlikely to critically examine the Ryan Plan by making such criticism appear to be not only partisan but active collusion.

Of course, reporting on the actual facts is neither partisan nor demagoguery but true objectivity. Journalists abandon that objectivity and impartiality when they refuse to directly and publicly refute the lies and half-truths of those in power regardless of political affiliation.

Single payer health care is an idea whose time has come. It has been thwarted from being born here only because of the vast sums of money the health care and insurance industries lavish on our legislators.