health-care and rebellion

[luckyleftyme2]

I STOMPED TO GET OBAMA AND COMPANY ELECTED! I WILL STOMP JUST AS HARD TO THROW THEM OUT IF THEY PASS ANYTHING BUT SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE REFORM!
I AM SO PO'D THAT I AM THINKING ABOUT JOINING THE INDEPENDENT PARTY. THIS COUNTRY CANNOT CONTINUE TO CATER TO THE INSURANCE COMPANIES AT THE EXPENSE OF IT'S PEOPLES HEALTH!
AND NO WAY DO I WANT THE REPUBLICANS BACK IN POWER!
I HAVE REFUSED TO GIVE ANY MONEY TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BECAUSE OF THEIR BACK TRACKING ON HEALTH-CARE!
PUT IT TO THE PEOPLE ; MAKE IT A REFERNDUM VOTE AND SINGLE PAYER WILL PASS 70-30 EASY!
SO WHAT DO YA SAY? MY VOTE AND POCKET BOOK COUNTS HOW ABOUT YOURS?

[maryf]

1. I'm with you, How about a General Strike for healthcare???

K&R

[cali]

2. all caps don't make an argument more effective.

hey, geniuo, what'd you work for Obama for? He didn't support single payer during his run for the presidency, so why the outrage now? furthermore, we don't have a system for national referendums- other than elections.

I expect to support Obama in 2012. I will be supporting Pat Leahy and Peter Welch in 2010 and, of course, Bernie in 2012.

Nope, I'm not with you. I realize that we won't get single payer for all. I'm putting my support behind an open enrollment public option.

[maryf]

4. So fuck the 47 million and rising, up to 89 million

who on any given day don't have healthcare?? fuck the 60 people who die everyday because of lack of healthcare?? Fuck the 2/3 of the bankrupts due to healthcare costs? (3/4 of them had healthcare) and many of these end up on the homeless roles, AND WHO CARES ABOUT CAPS? Passion is needed, COMPASSION even more so...Healthcare based on profit vs. people is egregiously evil...More people die from lack of healthcare than from drunk driving accidents...

[cali]

6. what's with the compulsion to put words in my mouth that I didn't utter?

And just what does your post have to do with mine? Reality is a harsh mistress, and the reality is that all your fuming and foot stomping, won't help a single solitary person. Not. One. Furthermore, if there's a viable open enrollment public option in healthcare reform, people will have healthcare. It would be a VAST improvement.

[maryf]

10. The Massachusetts system isn't working...

its regressive and penalizes the poor, and the system they are trying to put in place is similar. To not go with single payer is to tacitly accept all these millions without healthcare and all these people dying to continue. Can you say collateral damage? Go to the sites, check it out, two are in my signatures. Why should there be anyone profiting off peoples' health? We are abysmally low on the infant mortality rate, and the life expectancy rates. Look into it, you might be surprised. My rant was not personal, btw.

[cali]

16. the system they are trying to put in place is not fleshed out yet.

and in the real world single payer is not on the table. I wish it were. I love Bernie for pushing- though he knows that it's not on the table and he's pushing it more to ensure a viable public option (yes, I know that. Went to dinner and a meeting with Bernie last week at the local h.s. No, we aren't especially low on the life expectancy rates. U>S. life expectancy is 78.06 compared to the EU rate of 78.7. Yes, countries such as Andorra have much higher life expectancy rates, but it's rather silly to compare a country of 300,000,000 with one of 89,0000. As for infant mortality rates, we certainly should do better.

As for people profiting off of people's health, that hardly is singular to the U.S. Doctors profit off of people's health and ill health. Private insurance companies still exist in countries with single payer. You can never strip profit completely from healthcare.

[INdemo]

3. Well I will never vote for a Republican but I will support a true progressive

candidate.. and I dont mean just some token candidate representing a party of protest. Lets face it though Insurance Companies have grown to become very rich and powerful..Obama and other Democrats can talk about health care reform from now till dooms days and nothing will really change because Insurance Companies are not about to be pushed out for single payer coverage..CEO's and others are reaping millions and they will have Republicans pockets stuffed as well as some Democrats(probably more than we would think) to block any real reform that will tap into their profits. Health care reform could have been a reality 20 years ago but Insurance Companies have gained an enormous amount of wealth since then...

[maryf]

5. So are we just going to sit back and let them continue

to profit off others' health or lack thereof?? Please speak out, this is the movement that just might get the people some leverage...

[cali]

7. Sorry, any "true progressive" will be just some token candidate representing

a protest vote. but, hey, do what you gotta do. go for it.

[Hepburn]

29. +1...n/t

[WeDidIt]

8. Uh, dude. All through the campaign Obama said no way was it going to be single payer

Maybe you were screaming too loud to listen.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[maryf]

11. ad hominem attack

please keep to the message said, not attack the messenger...

[blindpig]

15. Typical...

when ya ain't got nothin else.

It is not a matter of who 'promised' what, it is a matter of what is needed.

[cali]

18. it's a matter of whether you live in the real world or not.

really, that simple. And it is amusing to see the OP freak out now about something Ohama was clear on last year.

[blindpig]

22. Your 'real world' is a Potemkin Village.

You accept the so-called 'givens' without reflection. For myself and others, the world has broader possibilities. You allow the ruling class to define your possibilities. That is the viewpoint of a child or a beaten down slave.

[cali]

24. nope. my real world is one in which the insurance companies wield undue influence

over the Congress and the men and women who will decide what form of healthcare reform legislation is passed out of that body. Don't like it, but it sure ain't no Potempkin Village. Recognizing reality doesn't really have jackshit to do with your pathetic and tired (and incessant) loganeering. Do you ever utter a word that doesn't sound like it comes from ssome little booklet?

I realize that revolution won't be trucking down Route 66 anytime soon, and that the way to change things is to, as Pema Chodron said, Start where you are. I understand that such a concept eludes you.

[blindpig]

26. There ya go...

Such thinking would have snuffed out the Abolitionists movement or the Civil Rights movement. Real change is not given, it is taken. They may own the process, if so, we circumvent the process. You are content to play a crooked game.

Nope, the revolution is not around the corner. I am starting where I am, that's why I say what I do.

[cali]

38. No, it wouldn't have. That's completely wrong.

Yes, real change is often taken, but it's taken by men like MLK, who abhorred the violence you relish. And you don't have a clue as to what Pema means. Sorry.

[cali]

17. not even close, dear.

[maryf]

20. Really??

how are the words you said, and I quote "Either he/she was totally irresponsible and ignorant about his/her candidate's postition on healthcare reform, or he/she is simply being dishonest now." not attacking the messenger?? I stand that its an ad hominem attack.

[maryf]

12. Here's some talking points for you from pnhp.org

Talking Points: Why the mandate plans won't work, and why single-payer "Medicare for All" is what we need
PRINT PAGE
EN ESPAÑOL

By Len Rodberg, PhD

1. Americans are afraid that they can’t afford to get sick. Those of us with insurance are paying more and more of the premium and more out-of-pocket as well. Studies show further that we face bankruptcy if we get sick1. Many among us have to choose between paying for medicine and paying for food and housing. And with the recent economic downturn, the ranks of those without insurance are growing.

2. A majority of physicians (59 percent) and an even higher proportion of Americans (62 percent or more) support single-payer national health insurance or “Medicare for All.”2 In spite of this, all we are hearing about today are mandate plans that would require everyone to buy the same private insurance that is already failing us. These proposals don’t regulate insurance premiums, they don’t keep the insurance companies from refusing to pay many of our bills, and they don’t improve the insurance we now have. Some offer a “public option,” but this will quickly become too expensive as the sick flee to the public sector as private insurers avoid them, abandon them, or make it too difficult for them to get their bills paid.

3. These proposals won’t work, either to expand coverage or to contain costs. Plans like these have been tried in many states over the past two decades (Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington State, Oregon, Minnesota, Vermont, Maine).3 They have all failed to reduce the number of uninsured or to contain costs.

4. These mandate plans will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s health care costs. In this economic downturn, we need assure health care for all without adding to the nation’s cost and the government’s deficit. The bottom line is: these proposals don’t reform our fragmented, inefficient system, they just add to its complexity and costs.

5. As long as we continue to rely on private for-profit insurers, universal coverage will be unaffordable. Their administrative costs consume nearly one-third of our health care dollar.4 We will never have enough money to provide everyone with decent care until we eliminate private insurance with its enormous waste and inadequate coverage. And we will never be able to keep costs down and get the care we need as long as the wasteful and unnecessary insurance companies stand between us and our doctors.

6. Every other industrialized country has some form of universal health care. None uses profitmaking, investor-owned insurance companies like ours to provide health care for all their people. 5

7. We have an American system that works. It’s Medicare. It’s not perfect, but Americans with Medicare are far happier than those with private insurance. Doctors face fewer hassles in getting paid, and Medicare has been a leader in keeping costs down. And keep in mind that Medicare insures people with the greatest health care needs: people over 65 and the disabled. We should improve and expand Medicare to cover everyone.

8. A single-payer “Medicare for All” system is embodied in H.R. 676, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers and 92 other members of Congress. It would have:

* Automatic enrollment for everyone

* Comprehensive services covering all medically necessary care and drugs

* Free choice of doctor and hospital, who remain independent and negotiate their fees and budgets with a public or nonprofit agency

* Public or nonprofit agency processes and pays the bills

* Entire system financed through progressive taxes

* Help job growth and the entire U.S. economy by removing the burden of health costs from business

* Cover everyone without spending any more than we are now.6

9. The growth in health care costs must be addressed if any proposal is to succeed.

* Single payer offers real tools to contain costs: budgeting, especially for hospitals, planning of capital investments, and an emphasis on primary care and coordination of care.

* Mandate plans offer only hopes: competition among insurance companies, computerization, chronic disease management. Competition among the shrinking number of insurance companies has already failed to contain costs and, in the absence of single payer and reformed primary care, computerization and chronic disease management will raise costs, not lower them.

10. Single-payer Medicare for All is the right answer:

* It is right on choice. It provides free choice of doctor and hospital, the choice Americans want and value. In mandate plans, we lose those choices.

* It is right on efficiency. Single payer would slash administrative costs and promote efficient primary care. It would also enhance evidence-based quality assurance.

* It is right on accountability. It will be a public, nonprofit system that will respond to what doctors and their patients need, not what corporate executives and their stockholders want.

[Buck Eichler]

13. The all or nothing approach will give us nothing, or worse..,...

Obama did not promise single payer. He only said it would remain part of the discussion. There is one huge reason for this. It won't pass. It's that old reality check rearing its ugly head. You seem to be having an ideology vs. strategy war in your head, and strategy is losing badly.
I'd rather make incremental progress than none at all, or worse, go backwards. Obama is moving health care forward. He's smart enough to understand that there is intense and overwhelming resistance to single payer only. Having a government plan in competition with private plans still has heavy resistance, but not as much. That is presently our best shot at health care reform. Obama's assessment and plan of action is correct. If you turn against him, you may as well tune into Rush and shout Amen. You will be serving that agenda by helping fracture the progressive vote.

[maryf]

14. But he hasn't allowed it to remain part of the discussion...

13 people may be doing time because they spoke out for single payer...HR 676 has provisions for insurance workers, for easy implementation, it is not as impossible as the insurance corporations would like you to believe...read up on it...

[cali]

19. drama much. 13 people won't be doing time for protesting- a protest

I cheer. I've done quite a bit reading up on it, and yeah it's impossible. Bernie Sanders admitted it last week at the dinner meeting he had in my town.

[maryf]

25. I'm glad you cheer the protest

If enough protested we'd trump the insurance corps.

[luckyleftyme2]

27. I AGREE WITH YOU MARY

UNLIKE CALI A LICK YOUR BOOTS LIB-I;LL STICK TO MY GUNS! and the capitals are to draw out the people like him.
Mary I HAVE RESEARCHED aLot.OBAMA DID SAY HE WOULD CAVE IB BECAUSE THE VOTES WEREN'T THERE!
BUT IT'S NOW OR THIRD WORLD FOR OUR GRAND KIDS!Baccus is a stodge for the ins. companies!

[maryf]

33. Hear, hear, llm2

Thanks for this thread...

[stray cat]

21. Some maybe many Americans will pay more and get less

so if you want a single payer health care plan you need to make a solid educated case for it - tell me what benefits it will and will not provide, what will be the cost, how will it be funded, how will it effect health care not just for you but for all income brackets, why is it better for those of us who get subsizied health care that may now get taxed on those subsidies. Single Payer - means nothing w/o details.

[maryf]

36. No copays, no deductibles, no limits, no preexisting conditions....

check out here: http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/facts and here www.healthcare-now.org.
they will pay those who lose their jobs for two years. Your medicare tax will go up minimally, but you will save plenty of money and the convenience will be astronomical. There is also a plan to tax stock transactions, just.001%, pittance. the amount of money saved with a single payer system in administrative costs alone is 400 billion. Oh and in today's climate if you lose your job you're still covered... on edit, and the only one's who might pay more are the filthy rich...here's more in post #12 here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5794471&mesg_id=5794569

[Coyote_Bandit]

23. So what did Obama say about single payer?

See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE




Can't say I'm disappointed because I never expected much of this president. I have a growing list of failures during this administration. They started with FISA and telecom immunity.....

[Dappleganger]

28. This is why I've been an independent for so long...

we have to hold their feet to the fire so they won't take our votes for granted.

Single payer or nothing!

[scipan]

30. Politics is the art of the possible.

Support the public option as a second choice.

I'd prefer single payer but will actively support the public option with no triggers, etc. It would be a tremendous tremendous improvement.

[luckyleftyme2]

31. never roll over and play dead

this is something I posted in an other forum:
I FOR ONE THINK IT'S TIME WE BECAME COMPETITIVE WITH THE WORLD IN PRODUCING AND SELLING GOODS.OUR INDUSTRY HAS TO PROVIDE HEALTHCARE INS. WHICH PUTS THEM AT A DISADVANTAGE.
WE ALREADY PAY APROX 8,000 DOLLARS A YEAR FOR EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD IN THIS COUNTRY YET WE HAVE CLOSE TO 50 MILLION UNINSURED AND PROBABLY ANOTHER 100 MILLION UNDER INSURED.
YET IT HAS BEEN PROVEN WE PAY TWICE THE PRICE OTHER COUNTRIES PAY FOR HEALTHCARE.
NOW YOU KNOW SOMEONE IS GETTING RICH OF YOUR BACK. THEY WILL POOR MILLIONS INTO ADVERTISEMENT,FALSE FACTS ETC. YET YOU KNOW WE PAY MORE NOW THAN SINGLE PAYER INS. WOULD COST; AND THE FACT IS WE WOULD HAVE BETTER COVERAGE!
Don't Fall for the Health Industry Barons' Empty Promises


Obama is welcoming the health care lobby's Trojan Horse -- a pledge to cut the growth of costs to "only" 4.7 annually.




I am awed at people's capacity for self-deception. On Monday, the Obama administration and SEIU joined with Big Health lobbyists to trot out a six-month old, non-specific, non-binding "promise" to cut the rate at which health care costs grow to "only" 4.7 percent annually.

This is very simple: the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical devices industries see the writing on the wall -- American health care puts an unsustainable economic burden on families and employers, leaves 47 million people without coverage and results in some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. Fearful of a growing movement towards real, substantive reform, they are trying to co-opt the process under the guise of "getting a seat at the table."

There's no news here -- "voluntary" codes of conduct, self-regulation and industry-driven initiatives for the private sector to address complex policy issues have long been a standard tactic for heading off real regulation, real accountability measures, systemic reforms.

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) -- the insurance industry group descended from the organization that aired the infamous "Harry and Louise" campaign during the Clinton health care wars -- first trotted out this proposal 6 months ago. It wasn't big news then, but with Obama's nod and one of the major, ostensibly progressive players in the health care debate getting on board, it is now. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/139954/don%27t_ fall_... /
PLEASE JOIN ME IN TELLING ALL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS THE TIME HAS COME FOR DRASTIC HEALTHCARE REFORM;NOT A BAND-AID APPROACH THE INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE OFFERING SO THEY CAN CONTINUE TO SCAM US!

[luckyleftyme2]

32. bump

here's another:
HERES A LETTER TO THE EDITOR I COPIED:
Now 62 years of age, I reach out to everyone with the stark reality that so many in the United States have either no health insurance or are under-insured. Tip of the iceberg I believe, are those discussed in the current 46 million uninsured statistic used today: I believe the true figure is graphically greater than this number.

Married by age 20 myself, yet the child of a college professor and mother who had worked for the FBI early in her career, I don’t believe anyone would consider me either uneducated or under-educated. Even so, both I and many in my circle of friends have been either uninsured or under-insured most of our lives. With a husband who worked in the trades, and many of my friends professionally in the “arts” (I might add many with college degrees in fine arts ending either as musicians or painters), little did most of us realize early in our lives that we would struggle and often fail to be able to take care of our health because of being “outside” the big business availability of health insurance.

One close friend of mine, the same age and with a certificate as a teacher — along with me with 29 years of experience in systems, including a gnarly ball of program experience — have both been uninsured for a good part of our lives.

My personal health conundrums (arriving by my mid-30s) point directly to my gene pool — not use of alcohol or drugs or a narcissistic pursuit — and early on I was afforded the kinds of health issues that made 9-to-5 work fairly impossible.


My friend Rose, through divorce and the struggle to properly care for her four children early in their lives, also was generally uninsured. She is uninsured today, as is her husband for the last decade, who works in the trades.

The issue of health care for ALL in this country is visceral!! Down to my toes I believe that pulling EVERYONE into Medicare at an early age and providing this canopy of health insurance at a reasonable cost is tantamount to saving lives.

The sin of omission regarding this issue has been in the wording provided by the coalition from the various health-care sources in existence — saying health care in America is great and that we have good insurances available. Those remarks are pure media hype and marketing schemes because that is, and has only been, true for those who were fortunate enough to work continuously for an organization that provided the insurance.

Included in this fact is the bone-crunching reality of nursing home costs, which require other types of insurances, which no one I know is covered by, either!

In the late 1980s an executive with the corporation I worked for at the time, signed up for “Lifecare” insurance; the tab was $2,000 per month for him and his wife. I cannot name a single friend of mine who could support a premium of that nature — then, or now.

Under the health-care umbrella then: all of these problems then result in the fact that this as THE major cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.

Wisdom dictates that I do not hold my breath: and I haven’t done so. Personally, I managed to get into Maine’s subsidized program here but this year at 70/30 percent with a huge deductible. I still must make three long years to Medicare coverage with fingers crossed.

After the Clinton administration’s ovations toward changing health care failed miserably, my own glimmers of hope for change were overridden by knowledge that money and power still hold sway over the “good of the whole” here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.
70 % SAID THEY COULDN'T AFFORD TO RETIRE UNTIL THEY REACHED MEDI-CARE AGE BECAUSE OF THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE!
IT'S TIME FOR A NEW HEALTH -CARE CIVERAGE-PRIVATE DOESN'T CUT IT ANY MORE-BURY IT WITH THE STANLEY STEAMER,THE MODEL T,HORSE AND BUGGY WE ARE NOW IN THE 21ST CENTURY!



joefisherman
Joined: 10/19/2007
Posts: 2314 Posted: May/18/2009 6:44 AM

[scipan]

37. you never addressed the public option

and by the way, insurance companies are rabidly against it from everything I have read.

[Hannah Bell]

39. how do you know what's possible unless you fight for what you want?

crap, if you assume you know what's "possible," you'll get screwed every time.

[Joanne98]

34. K&R

[leftstreet]

35. Hell Yeah - put it to a vote!

:thumbsup: