Donna Smith (of "SiCKO"): Middle Class Healthcare Reform? Bend Over…

[marmar]

from CommonDreams:



Published on Sunday, May 17, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Middle Class Healthcare Reform? Bend Over…

by Donna Smith


It's coming. You and me and every middle class, working person in this nation is about to start handing over more and more of their hard earned cash to the private insurance industry, courtesy of our own elected members of Congress and our very popular President. Fire up those Treasury Department presses. We're going to be printing and providing money for insurance companies like no bail-out we've seen yet this economic crisis cycle.

The healthcare legislation under design and so far under wraps for the American people is slowly being leaked via carefully staged forum and meetings and a few well-timed hearings and grand press announcements. Much of the work is still going on behind closed doors in private meetings attended by those who are deemed appropriate participants and industry friends.

Remember how open these proceedings were to be following all the Clinton plan debacles of the early 90s? Well, today's stagings are far more sophisticated and planned out. So learning did occur by the industry giants and their political friends over these last 17 years, I will give them that.

And what do we know so far about what middle class Americans can expect from the legislation being privately crafted?

First, no matter what percentage of your take home pay it takes, you will be legally required to buy private health insurance. Second, if all you can afford is a policy that leaves you financially exposed to bankruptcy and foreclosure, then you will still be legally required to purchase that private insurance product. Third, should you fail to buy a policy, you will pay a fine. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/17-0

[scentopine]

1. Kick - Please Read The Link!

My daughter cut her chin on Monkey bars. 20 minutes of driving to doctor (not emergency room). 30 minutes of waiting. 10 minutes to put glue on her chin. $350. Of course in the free market we have blind faith. Free marketers will say - let sick people die. Otherwise they won't have an incentive to work. If they can't afford $350 dollars for some glue on the chin, they deserve an infection. That's the magic of the market.

I have been warning that having private companies formulate health care policy for citizens is just like having oil companies formulate energy policy before the 2nd Iraq war. We are not seeing the regulation, control and benefits for the middle class with this administration. Obama is like a bad dream.

For sure he's been very charitable with his republican base.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I still don't understand why people think this plan is a good idea. "People will be covered" Well,

maybe and maybe not depending on how the system works. It may be that all it will do is add another bill on to a pile that many people are already struggling with. And in the end the coverage may only be negligible anyway.

*frustrated sigh*

[eridani]

9. FUCK "coverage"! We should demand CARE! n/t

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. Rec #5. It may look suspiciously like Zeke Emanuel's plan: mandatory insurance, NO public option....

....and a phasing in of PRIVATIZED MEDICARE...... In short, the most gargantuan piece of CORPORATE WELFARE ever envisioned, paid on the backs of the middle class, who will be mandated to purchase from the insurance industry........ It will be sold by evasive promises of voucherized federal help for those unable ito afford nit, conveniently avoiding discussion of the inevitable massive increase in insurance premiums in future years, which neither American citizens nor the federal government will be able to afford.....

They also will not discuss the EASE with which a future Republican Congress or administration, strapped for revenue in the face of skyrocketing premiums, would be able to transfer an increased proportion of the financial burden to citizens by simply freezing the value of vouchers while insurance rates rise.

Thus, in contrast to the Medicare model, where the feds would be forced to confront rising rates, individual Americans, mandated to purchase insurance and with little bargaining power, would be the ones forced to confront the insurance industry.

Zeke Emanuel, Rahm's brother, has remained out of the limelight. But (despite being an advocate of a plan diametrically opposed to Obama's promise of inclusion of a public option and no mandates to purchase insurance), since Emanuel was hired an a "White House adviser", the movement has been progressively away from public option (not even allowing discussion of Single Payer) and toward an insurance friendly mandatory insurance scheme similar to Emanuel's plan.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/3684

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Faryn%20Balyncd/2



It looks like we are either going to have to gladly be screwed, or else we are going to have to raise enough hell to DEFEAT the coming insuance industry bailout.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I say we take away all health care coverage for the people on the Hill and force them to pay

out of pocket, with everything costing several times more than it does for your average person. See how they like it.

[Faryn Balyncd]

6. ...out of after tax income.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Even better!

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. Just what Edwards was going to do. Luckily for those people on the Hill, he messed up.

Unlucky for the rest of us. But hey we got Hope and Change that We can believe in!


:eyes:

[Juche]

5. She sums up our contemporary plutocracy pretty well

It's as if we've been beaten a few times every month by an abuser whose violence and anger is increasing over time, and we know by calculating the trend that we'll be beaten daily within a very short time. Up steps the abuser to say, "Wait. I will still have to beat you more than I do now, but I think I can hold it to 25 times a month instead of every day." That's the sort of promises we're supposed to see as victories with the healthcare industry involvement in crafting the legislation that will determine our families' financial well-being and matters of life and death.

[Wednesdays]

8. K&R

:kick:

[Fumesucker]

10. ""I can envision a day when you will have to show proof of insurance at the job interview""

-Hilary Clinton.


I've been predicting this for months, it's a foregone conclusion and there's not a fucking thing any of us can do about it.

Change you better believe in.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. I remember that!

That was back when she was pretending to be 'for mandates' and Obama was playing the 'against mandates' role. Remember how he claimed that was a huge difference, so large that people should base their vote on the fact that he'd never allow a mandate?
He ran on no mandates.

[Fumesucker]

15. Aggravating, ain't it?

You can't trust any of them as far as you could throw them.

[bvar22]

12. The "Centrist" Democrats ar going to do...

...what their Republican friends FAILED to do.

[fascisthunter]

14. Centrists are Republicans who Infiltrated the Democratic Party

let's call them what they are.