Medicare for All

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And now, perhaps, the BEST argument for a single-payer system--Medicare for All--or, at least, a public option.

The situation begins, finally, to highlight why it is essential that health care be completely and forever severed from employment. Until that happens, the banker-owned companies, and the CEOs that run them, will continue to whine and moan and screw employees in the name of keeping their "shareholders" happy.

You see, the oligarchs are grumbling, frothing at the mouth, shaking their fists and stomping their tiny, little, Louis Vuitton-clad feet over ObamaCare.

Surely, you have already heard about the miserable jerk (Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy--you know, the ass hat who ordered his miners to take the day off, without pay, to show up at a campaign rally for Mitt Romney) who recently prayed over his employees before letting approximately 150 of them GO. But, wait, it's about to get better.

Papa John's Pizza CEO John Schnatter, who has declared he will cut employees' hours to bring them below the full-time threshold which would require him to provide full coverage for those employees. Evidently that 14 cents per pizza is just too heavy for Wall Street to bear.

Schnatter also said he has a legal duty to shareholders to provide the maximum rate of return. Might be worth knowing who the shareholders are? Seems 74 percent of Papa John's stock is institutionally owned; that is, owned by investment firms and other Wall Street funds.

Darden Restaurants: i.e., Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, The Capital Grille, Eddie V's and Yard House

Yes, Darden Restaurants which is a public corporation, but largely owned by bankers and hedge funds to the tune of about 84 percent.

Darden's solution to the problem is, also, to cut employees' hours so that those hours are under the minimum required to provide health insurance because Darden's just will not tolerate the idea of actually doing something that might cost a little bit in order for employees to live better,  happier, healthier lives.

Zane Tankel, CEO of a large New York Applebee's Franchisee

Zane Tankel, the CEO of a very large Applebee's franchisee in New York (only in New York), explains how he will jack the rules in order to avoid providing health insurance to his employees.

This one is particularly nasty, because other Applebee's franchisees--in other areas--do offer health insurance to their employees.

"Bad Actors"?

Each and every one of these greedy CEO's is NOT trying to figure out HOW to get health insurance for their employees. NO, they are trying to figure out ways to avoid paying the penalty for NOT providing health insurance. Because they have no intention of providing health insurance to their employees despite the fact that in every case they could, in fact, adopt a nationwide group insurance plan which would be less costly after tax deductions than paying the penalty. You see, it is a temper fit--you know, like a two year old would throw?

Next?

It is time these corporations and banker-owned franchise chains learned they must play by the rules. If they don't like the employer penalty, perhaps the government could slap a transaction tax on share trades to help pay for the health care benefits they don't give a damn whether their employees get or not! And with Elizabeth Warren on the Senate Banking Committee, we just might get it.

Medicare for All

Medicare for All

(Different links to different sites)

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Just One More Sign....

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This past week, I experienced just one more sign that I am truly getting old!

My gentle snowflakes, I was driving down the street and I actually swerved to MISS an empty drink cup lying in the street!

Since I first started driving, as most of the teen-aged-drivers did, I have made it a test of steering acuity to plow across any empty cup I encountered--given, of course, a lack of oncoming traffic. But that day, I swerved.

As soon as I had swerved and missed the cup, I realized the implications:  creeping old age.

You can bet your bottom dollar that next time I am driving and encounter that well-known, rolling cup or plastic bottle, I will once again attempt to flatten any that I come across in the roadway. I am now aware and will not make that mistake again!

Fight it off as long as possible!

Medicare for All

Medicare for All

(Different links to different sites)

How Long?

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My gentle snowflakes, I first started screaming about Medicare for All in June 2009, linking to an article about how to implement it in a reasonable fashion. It seemed then, to me, to be the only fiscally sustainable answer.

Then, in December of that year, I actually began to link to the original bill calling for Medicare for All.

Now, a real economist (Gerald Friedman, University of Massachusetts-Amherst) has put pencil to paper--well, probably keystrokes into a spreadsheet template. (As an aside, I really hope some vocabularist is devising words & phrases to describe current activities as well as some of the old words & phrases.)

His conclusions? It's cheaper!

Medicare for All

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You Don't Own Me!

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With many thanks to Mark Sumner who has managed to say most of the things I have been struggling for some time now to get into some sort of reasonable order. So, here it is.

There's a basic, historical misunderstanding at the root of modern Republican philosophy. A little fact that seems to get overlooked. It's not their insistence that the road to fascism begins with good health care. It's not even the pretense that President Obama somehow masterminded an economic collapse, bank bailout, and massive deficit weeks, months or years before he came into office. No, the incident that the GOP has let slip is a little more basic:  The South lost.

See, Republicans seem to have mistaken "wage slavery" for ... that other kind of slavery. They must have, because anyone who understood that workers are employees, and not property, would recognize that workers have rights.  Not just some rights, not a neatly restricted little subset of rights, but the same rights as the people who employ them. They would recognize that the rights of an employer do not include the ability to abridge the rights of an employee.

Only they don't. When you see Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum or John Boehner railing against government overstep on religion, conscience, what-have-you, you can be 100 percent certain that their concern is that somewhere, somehow an employer might have to allow his employees to do something that, you know, miffs them. That millions of employees might be forced to do without needed health care ... doesn't enter into the equation. 

It's easy to see how employers might be confused, considering all the love being lavished on them by both parties, and with the paeans being sung to them as magical "job creators." And hey, we already pretty much handed over that fourth amendment to them, what with peeing in a cup or being able to fire people because of an old photo on Facebook. Republicans have been busy reinforcing that lesson by insisting that anyone who collects so much as an unemployment check should be subject to any rules they want to set. It's no wonder that the line between handing someone a paycheck, and holding someone's title, should have gotten blurred.

So consider this a primer to the confused American business owners and executives who might have listened just a little to long to all that sweet praise. 

As an employer, you have the absolute right to religious freedom. Attend any church, temple, synagogue or reading room you like. Give as you feel obligated. Worship as you please. Place on yourself any restriction in diet, activity or anything else that you feel is in keeping with your beliefs ... but only on yourself. You don't get to impose these restrictions on your employees.

Your employees are separate from you. Not only that, they are equal to you in rights, no matter how unequal you may be in income. You do not get to tell them who to vote for. You do not get to tell them who they can love. You do not get to use your religious beliefs as an excuse to limit their health care.

No matter how strong your personal faith, your employees are not obligated to live according to those beliefs, expressly because they are personal. You may find it frustrating, but your employees have just as much right to their own beliefs as you do to yours, and whether you pay them pittance on an assembly line or six figures as a manager, you have zero right to carve off a slice of their freedom. The direction of the pay arrow has no effect on who gets to dictate to who.

If the government was telling you, as an individual, that you had to use birth control, that would be a violation of your rights. That's not happening. They're just saying that you don't get to make that decision for the people who work for your company. Because, really, you don't own them.

If you're still mad; if you're upset that healthcare has to be funneled through employers at all ... there's a cure for that. It's called "single payer."

Medicare for All!

Alan Grayson Says:

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Alan Grayson explained the Ryan Plan to end Medicare. The MSNBC host, Cenk Uygur, asked Grayson why every Republican Presidential candidate has lined up in favor of the Ryan Plan.

This is what Grayson said:

AG: “Listen, only 4 percent of all Americans ever vote in a Republican primary. That’s 4 percent. The other 96 percent are the normal Americans. The 4 percent are people who must never get sick, because they don't want to have Medicare. Now think about that. Every other industrialized country in the entire world not only provides health care for its seniors, but health care for everyone. And the Republican right wing is trying to tell us that somehow we can't afford health care for our seniors. We’ve got 40,000 Americans under the age of 65 who die every year, because they can't afford to see a doctor when they're sick. And now they want to extend that [tragedy] to the most infirmed, most victimized, sickest part of the population, our senior citizens, so that more will die. I honestly believe that if Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck announced one day that they were in favor of the Black Death, you’d see every Republican primary candidate for President go along with it.

CU: (Laughter). You know, it depends. If Obama said, “Hey I’d like to cure the Black Death,” they’d be like, “Oh, I don’t know, the Black Death sounds pretty good.” So, now look, I think they’ve done tremendous damage to themselves. The polls are 70 percent and higher. They’re on your side, Congressman Grayson. They say, “We don’t want you to touch our Medicare.” So what are they doing here? Do they have a plan? You know, is Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, are they doing some sort of strategy that we can't understand? Or are they just plain stupid?

AG: They are tools. It’s that simple. They are tools. You know, George Carlin said it back in 2005, they have made us ignorant, these people who own the country. They have made us ignorant and they have made us poor. And now the next thing they want to do is to take away our Medicare and our Social Security. He said that in 2005, and it's taken six year to make it obvious that that’s true. And God bless them, these Republicans like Ryan, you know, they may be cruel, they may be heartless, but at least they're honest. They’ve told us exactly what they want to do with the power that they have accumulated. They want to take away Social Security and Medicare from our senior citizens.

CU: You know, I think you nailed it. I think what it is, is corporations that have, you know, run amuck. It’s out-of-control greed. Whether it's the banks with all the risks that they're taking, it’s gonna crash our economy again. Whether it's the oil companies at the height of being the most profitable companies in the world, they still want to take billions in subsidies from the American taxpayers. And whether it's these guys trying to cut your Medicare so they can cut taxes for the rich. I think they got the note from the, you know, the richest people in the country, from the corporations who said: “Hit the gas pedal. We don't give a damn. We're going to out-raise these guys. We're gonna get more money, and this is the time to put ‘em away. Just tell ‘em what you’re going to do. It doesn't matter; we're just going to outspend them during the elections.” I think that's what's happening. Now the problem is they are going to outspend the Democrats in elections, so how do you deal with that problem?

AG: Well, it's apparent now that what these owners want is nothing from the rest of us except for cheap labor. And that makes the senior citizens particularly vulnerable to their plans, because the senior citizens don't work. So from the perspective of the owners of this country, they're useless. Their time in the economy is over and therefore they serve no purpose. But senior citizens still do vote and they voted in huge numbers in the last election, because the Republicans lied to them, and they told them that the Democrats wanted to take away their Medicare. Now they see that the Democrats are the only ones protecting their Medicare, and Republicans are out to destroy it. There’s a reason why we call Medicare “an entitlement.” It’s because you're entitled to it. It’s not Medicare any more if you are not entitled to it any more. They want to take away the privilege of Medicare. They want to take away the right to Medicare, and replace it with a piece of paper they know will not be enough to cover the costs of care. And that’s how malevolent they really are. So I will say to senior citizens of this country: “Now you see the truth. You see their true colors. And the only thing you can do about it is turn out and vote for the only people in this country who are actually trying to protect you and your interests: the Democratic Party.”

Medicare for All.

Death Panels--Again

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Nearly every other industrialized country recognizes health care as a human right, whose costs and benefits are shared among all citizens. But in the United States, health care is treated as a commodity that is purchased, in one way or another, by those who can afford it. Conservatives embrace this notion as the perfect expression of the all-powerful market; though they make a great show of recoiling from the term, in practice they are endorsing rationing on the basis of wealth.

The public option for universal coverage was the one provision that addressed the cancer of the system: private insurance. When the whole system is designed so that private insurance companies can make as much money as possible, the incentives are always going to be wrong. Since they have a permanent incentive to lower costs by denying care and increase profits by charging more for premiums, they will always find a way around the regulations and reforms. And they have an army of lawyers and lobbyists to help them do so--and a whole department full of public relation operatives to sell their right to do so to the citizenry.

In a country that already spends more than 16 percent of each GDP dollar on health care (PDF), it's easy to see why so many people believe there's simply not enough of it to go around. The US spends 134 percent more than the median of the world's most developed nations, but we get less for our money—fewer physician visits and hospital days per capita, for example—than our counterparts in countries like Germany, Canada, and Australia. (We do, however, have more MRI machines and more cesarean sections!)

Where does the money go? By most estimates, administration and insurance profits alone eat upward from 30 percent of our total health care bill (and most of that is in the private sector—Medicare's overhead is around 2 percent). In other words, we don't have too little to go around—we overpay for what we get, and we don't allocate our spending where it does us the most good.

But in the absence of any serious challenge to the health-care-as-commodity system, we are doomed to a battlefield scenario where Americans must fight to secure their share of a "scarce" resource in a life-and-death struggle that pits the rich against the poor, the insured against the uninsured—and increasingly, the young against the old.

Rep. John Conyers fought for universal health care throughout the Bush II administration. But when it came time to legislate, his bill was passed over for the current behemoth crafted by lobbyists. On 10 March 2010, Rep. Alan Grayson introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would give the option to buy into Medicare to every citizen of the United States.

There are answers out there. The solution is available. Medicare for All!

Precious Moments

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Confucius wrote: "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

Cornel West: "Next time we will fail better."

On 10 March 2010, Alan Grayson introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would give the option to buy into Medicare to every citizen of the United States.

Grayson said, “Obviously, America wants and needs more competition in health coverage, and a public option offers that. But it’s just as important that we offer people not just another choice, but another kind of choice. A lot of people don’t want to be at the mercy of greedy insurance companies that will make money by denying them the care that they need to stay healthy, or to stay alive. We deserve to have a real alternative.”

The bill breaks the citizenry into eligibility age categories:

(A) Individuals under 19 years of age.
(B) Individuals at least 19 years of age but not more than 25 years of age.
(C) Individuals at least 26 years of age 25 and not more than 35 years of age.
(D) Individuals at least 36 years of age and not more than 45 years of age.
(E) Individuals at least 46 years of age and not more than 55 years of age.
(F) Individuals at least 56 years of age and not more than 64 years of age.

Now, where have we run across this idea before?

Medicare for All.

Senate Bill 1218 [110th Congress] Sec. 2202 introduced April 25, 2007, by Senator Edward M. Kennedy!

The thing about precious moments is that most of the time you have no idea how precious they really are until much later. And then you can only wish that you had savored them a little more, held on tighter, locked that feeling away so that it wouldn’t be lost.

We could have been there already!

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I Really Can Not Stand It---

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A new report: Insurance Company Rate Hikes Driven by Greed, Not Underlying Medical Costs. Quell surprise, eh?

The cost of medical care is rising faster than inflation and doctors and hospitals are making more profit than they used to. BUT, insurance companies are raising their rates much faster than even that - over 20% faster than the amount they are paying doctors and two times the amount the underlying cost of care is rising. To put it another way, insurance companies are making more profit than ever (and they are making record profits) because they are raising their prices faster than their costs.

Rates go up for small business. Small business drops coverage. And then people have to seek insurance on the individual market where insurance companies make more profit because they deny coverage or raise their rates with impunity because individuals have a harder time fighting back.

And what, pray tell, are the insurance companies spending all that moola on? PERKS!

Anthem spent $27 million on 103 executive retreats to locations like Hawaii in 2007 and 2008 alone. From 2000 to 2008, insurance companies spent $716.4 billion of their premium dollars on administrative costs, salaries for their CEOs, and investor profit -- practically enough to fund the entire health reform bill.

And, so, this is why we must have--

Medicare for All!

And we must have it NOW.

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Another Good Argument for Singe-Payer

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If this is how the insurance companies are going to behave, we should STRONGLY threaten our Congress critters to just pass single-payer, Medicare for All.

Anthem Blue Cross apparently isn't taking any chances. The company recently informed many of the approximately 800,000 Californians who buy its individual policies that premiums will rise sharply March 1. Although Anthem provided no details, insurance brokers say they're already seeing increases of up to 39%. That's on top of even larger rate hikes last year.

Medicare for All!

Even the Cubans Can Get It Right

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This should be required reading for all Senators and Representatives.

If they see that the Cubans do "health" better than the good ol' USofA, maybe that will be enough catalyst to make our elected animals get off their keisters and really make some meaningful health care delivery reforms!

Cuba-trained students, unencumbered by the massive debt that plagues grads from US medical schools, have the luxury to do the kind of medicine that Cuba instructs — family medicine. The island's medical schools focus on nutrition and other preventative approaches. Cuba also is well known for its focus on the "social determinants of health."

Cubans also enjoy a better doctor-patient ratio than Americans: 59 doctors per 10,000 people compared to 26 for us.

Cuban life expectancy also matches that of the United States, its infant mortality rate is lower, and the island's HIV/AIDS transmission is among the lowest worldwide. Cuba's aggressive health-care delivery system also costs much less — around $200 per capita annually, compared to our $7,000. And it provides timely and primary care for every citizen — near universal accessibility.

To the Cuban government, health care is a right.

Hoh, boy, schooled by the Cubans. We really, really, should be ashamed.

Medicare for All!

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And So It Goes...

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The Office of the Actuary, an independent arm at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), released a new report showing that "National health spending accounts for the largest share of the U.S. economy since federal auditors began tracking the data in 1960." And, minus some sort of reform effort, it's only going up.

In 2009, national health spending made up a record 17.3 percent of the gross domestic product, a 1.1 percentage point increase from 2008, the largest-ever one-year increase reported, the CMS actuaries report based on preliminary estimates.

Total health spending grew 5.7 percent to $2.5 trillion last year. That rate of growth is faster than the 4.4 percent in 2008 but still less than the 6 percent reported in 2007. The 2008 figure was the lowest growth rate since the CMS actuaries began issuing these reports 50 years ago.

WE CAN'T AFFORD TO WAIT--

Medicare for All!

Hope

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Hope, when it dies, dies in the gutter.
(Steven Weber)

Medicare for All!
[This is a new link to an actual bill introduced in 2007.]

Since it appears that whatever the Senate passes may be the bill the President will sign using the ping-pong strategy, some 1 (one) brave Senator should simply offer "MEDICARE FOR ALL" as a reconciliation bill.

If the Republicans won't ever say anything except "NO," go around them. Leave them standing in the cloak room pouting. Let them--and their DINO compadres--have their temper tantrums.

If you have ever dealt with a two year old, you have encountered the "Tyranny of the Tantrum." Someone in the throes of a tantrum is expressing a great desire for things to stay just the way they are. They don't want to get into the bath; they don't want to get out of the bath. They have trouble with change. When they are unable to keep things just as they are, they throw a tantrum. They cry, they kick and they scream. They go limp, or rigid, making it difficult to move them. They hold on to whatever is handy, and don't let go.

This behavior is one thing in a two year old, but in an adult it resembles nothing so much as insanity. Now, I get the whole "insane = disconnected from reality" definition. But there’s a huge difference between an illness that disconnects you from reality as a result of neurochemical processes and the condition of being willfully disconnected from reality because you don’t want to have your opinions challenged. One is an illness, the other is a character flaw, and the two ought never be confused. The problem is a lot of our terminology quite purposefully does confuse the two.

Remember, a bill sent to the floor as a reconciliation bill takes only 51 votes.

All in. All over. All done.
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Only the Healthy Can Be Strong

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“This great free enterprise system of ours has made it possible for more Americans to have more things, more of the good things of life, than any people anywhere on earth or anywhere in the history of the world. Can it now also make it possible for every American to protect his health? I would not call such a goal socialism. I would call it a goal of enterprise. American free enterprise. Meeting the health needs of our people is one of the most important ways we can make our American promises come true. It’s also one of the mainstays of national defense. Only the strong can survive and only the healthy can be strong.” Harry S Truman

Medicare For All

What if cancer in the United States has less to do with overuse of insurance or improved diagnostic tests and more to do with contaminants in our water or air -- or in certain aluminum and plastic containers in our kitchens? What if the rise in asthma and childhood leukemia reflect, in part, the poisons we put into and on ourselves and our children?

More than 80,000 new chemicals have been developed since World War II, according to the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai. Yet, the center says, of the major chemicals, fewer than 20 percent have been tested for toxicity to children.

One class of chemicals that creates concern is endocrine disruptors, which are often similar to estrogen and may fool the body into setting off hormonal changes. This used to be a fringe theory, but it is now being treated with great seriousness by the Endocrine Society, the professional association of hormone specialists in the United States.These endocrine disruptors are found in everything from certain plastics to various cosmetics.

What can you do?

Avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. For storage opt for using “safer plastics"--those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5. Throw out--RIGHT NOW--those numbered 3, 6 and 7 (unless they are also marked “BPA-free”).

Be healthy.

Be strong.

Survive.
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HR 3962 As Passed

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I was going to get on my soap box and rant about HR 3962 as it passed the House on Saturday night. But I was having a great deal of trouble being even marginally coherent. Then I read this by Rep. Dennis Kucinich. 'Bout it in a nutshell. (All emphasis is mine.) So, just in case you missed it, for your reading pleasure, Rep Kucinich will explain--succinctly.

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies—a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states, “since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.” Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that “money will start flowing in again” to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The “robust public option” which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy—in which most Americans live—the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

Medicare for All

Single payer is really the only way to go. Let's all hope that after the Senate works their "magic" and the reconciliation committee weaves the 2 bills together, we get a better bill than this gift to the health insurance lobby. I am really beginning to think ugly words.

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medicare for all

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I promise, even I am getting tired of this subject. So, just once more, with feeling.

We really need HEALTH CARE for everyone in this country. And we need it now.

We need it because this is a fight against death. Not the death that comes for the old and hurting, as a welcome friend. But the death that lurches in and plucks the 11 year old boy suffering with nothing more than an abscessed tooth that will not be treated because the dentist does not "take" medicaid patients; the death that snatches the 17 year old girl who needs a kidney transplant that has been denied by some nameless, faceless insurance clerk. We need it because HEALTH CARE fights for life: the life of each and every citizen that wants it and can hold it.

This is how it should work:

Build a national care system by expanding on the existing Medicare program... This restructuring would involve gradual changes in the age of eligibility for the Medicare system...

(1) Enroll children under 5 years of age, pregnant women and those with lifelong illnesses by the end of 2010.

(2)In 2011, those between 55 and 65 would be enrolled...

(3)In 2012 those from 5 to 15 and those from 45 to 55 would be included.

(4)Those between 15 and 25 as well as those from 40 to 45 would be added in 2013.

(5)Finally, by the end of 2014, by adding the remaining population between 25 and 40 the entire U.S. population would be covered...

There would be Medicare for all in a single-payer system. There would be no limitations based on pre-existing conditions... The changes proposed under the Medicare Expansion program would be relatively easy to make from an administrative standpoint since age is easily verified and the basic system is in place and functioning... [from "Health Care Reform by Medicare Expansion" by Eric W. Fonkalsrud, M.D., and Michael D. Intriligator, Ph.D.]

The medicare rate (of withholding and self-employment tax) could be increased--and adjusted for dependents--to help cover the costs. Any subsidies for low wage earners could be given back through expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit--which can, even now, be received as an advance against withholding for wage earners.

And we have to get a handle on the cost of Medicare fee-for-service, as it is now practiced, in which doctors and hospitals are paid for each suture, fancy diagnostic test and pat on the arm.

We need salaried doctors, too. I know, catch your breath, breathe. Yes, this is socialized medicine. But there ain't no such thing as a "free market" in medical care. There is a free market in food. You can eat beans instead of dining at Emeril's. But you can't tell the surgeon, "No thanks, I can't afford a triple by-pass today. I'll just have this wart removed."

So, we change the way we train doctors. We--the government (that's you and me, my gentle snowflakes) pay for the full cost of the medical education of the young doctors-to-be. And then we treat them as humans during internship. (Not, as in the current system, where interns are virtual medi-slaves.) And then, in return for the public paying for their medical education, each young doctor pledges a ten-year commitment to work for the new Medicare For All system at a reasonable salary. (Sure wish I could take credit for this idea, but I stole it whole-hog from Ted Kennedy! ) Similar arrangements should be made for all other health professionals.

Now, what about the cost of medications? Medicare Part D must be changed to allow for negotiations between Medicare (that's the Government--remember, you and me, my gentle snowflakes) and big Pharma over the price paid for drugs.

After all this, if for no other reason than the utter terror that the Government--you and me--will nationalize them, the hospitals will get in line and support Medicare for All.

Costs will be controlled, contained, made manageable.

There it is: Let the CBO score that!

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We Are in Trouble Now

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I had to go change my pants.

The insurance industry LIKES the Senate's latest "reform" bill.

WASHINGTON BUREAU -- The Senate Finance Committee has rejected amendments that could have created a government-run health insurance system, and it has accepted an amendment that could let agents participate in a proposed health “exchange” system. [Cowards! Exchanges don't work.]

“We are pleased by the rejection of both the Rockefeller and the Schumer amendments containing public plan options,” says Tom Currey, president of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va. “But, we will continue our educational efforts. There are currently three other reform proposals with government-run options, and lawmakers need to understand the negative consequences. A strong private health insurance system is best equipped to provide options for families and businesses.” [Yeah, they have done such a sterling job of it so far.]

The government-run plan is a roadblock to reform,” AHIP [America’s Health Insurance Plans] spokesman Robert Zirkelbach says. “A new government-run plan would dismantle employer coverage, bankrupt hospitals, and add to the federal deficit. The same goals can be accomplished by enacting an overhaul of the market rules and new consumer protections so that nobody falls through the cracks of our health care system.” [Sure, just change the rules & the industry will find ways to go around, over, under & through those rules.]
(National Underwriter, the industry journal)

And that, my gentle snowflakes, is exactly why this offering from the delicious Max Baucus should be thrown onto the compost pile. At least there, it could eventually do some good. Remember, if the insurance companies win, we lose.

Medicare for All

Bill Moyers Explains It All

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Want to know who is behind the "tea-baggers?"

Well, it is something called "Freedom Works."

Want to know who is behind Freedom Works?

Ah, my gentle snowflakes, watch and learn.

Medicare for All

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48 Assertions & Max Baucus

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If you have received (say from you ever-so-caring Republican/Conservative/Christian Coalition brother-in-law) that email that has 48 claims about HR 3200, FactCheck.org has put those claims through the fact checker, just for you.

Guess what? Included in the 48 claims are 26 LIES, 18 misleading statements, & 4 barely true things.

And yesterday Max Baucus delivered that bloody mess he calls a reform bill. Guaranteed payments for health insurance companies, guaranteed withholding from wages of "we, the people," extra taxes on our Form 1040's for the self-employed.

Yep, here we are ravaged, pillaged, plundered again while the insurance executives & stock holders make out like bandits.

Pheugh. (Please insert the dirty word of your choice here.)

What we really need is:

Medicare for All

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Why No Public Option?

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Mandating coverage of all, without a public option, is nothing more than a HUGE GIFT to the insurance companies.

47 million (roughly) new customers. Think about it. 47 million new customers. That's 47 million new customers to abuse, deny payment to, allow to die while waiting. That's premiums from 47 million new customers--much of it subsidized by tax payers.

Without a public option, the health insurance companies will be handed such a windfall of profits as has been heretofore unseen in this country.

The availability of health care for we the people will be no greater than it is now. The health insurance companies have been very bad players since the Clinton administration tried to force an overhaul in the early 1990's. Premiums have exploded. Payments made by them for care has diminished or vanished.

A mandate without a public option is like sending the uninsured through the mountain pass with no weapons with which to fight off the bandits (the health insurance companies, in case you don't get it). No cavalry to ride to the rescue. No ninjas to appear to save them. The bandits will make out like, well, like bandits.

Pheugh. (Please insert the dirty word of your choice here.)

Medicare for All

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The Lion Sleeps

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For all those whose cares have been our concern,

the work goes on,

the cause endures,

the hope still lives,

and the dream shall never die.

Edward M. Kennedy
1932-2009