The latest recommended revision to the Health Insurance Reform Bills (4 of the 5) includes a REPLACE ALL of the words Public Option with Medicare Part E. File this one under it was too obvious, we previously overlooked it. It’s about time the Democrats started using their brains on this. The term Public Option was so nebulous; it gave opponents, of this reform, entirely too much room to make things up and create further confusion (e.g., death panels, rationing of care, unfair to private insurers, etc). Everyone knows a little something about Medicare; at least people have heard of it and the seniors that currently use it generally like it. It fosters a better understanding and provides a more positive connotation of the intended reforms. Most people that, for whatever reason, oppose a government-run health insurance option today will gladly fully utilize the services of Medicare in the future, which incidentally is a government-run health insurance option (imagine that).
For the last several weeks, after all the residual noise of the town hall meetings died down, this legislation has picked up steam. More senators (and voters alike) seem to have gotten on board with the idea of a public option, of some form; Olympia Snowe has provided more clarity about where she stands on the issue (bi-partisanship does not exist); and the Democrats have finally decided to play hard ball by threatening to strip away the anti-trust waiver that health insurance companies have enjoyed for the past 60 years.
Over 44 thousand Americans die and thousands more go bankrupt every year because they don‘t have health insurance. More than 46 million Americans are uninsured.
Please call (202) 224-3121 and Tell Congress:
We need a Public Health Insurance Option NOW
An update on a previous post
As of Thursday, October 22nd over 17,000 people had responded to Keith Olbermann’s appeal to help fund free health care clinics in key cities, of five of the states, represented by Democratic senators who have not yet said whether they support the public option. Keith has pledged $50 thousand himself and more than $1.2 million has been raised thus far. This is enough for two of the clinics (New Orleans, LA – Nov 14th & Little Rock, AR – Nov 21st). The three remaining states are Montana, Nebraska and Nevada represented by Senators Max Baucus, Ben Nelson and Harry Reid respectively. If you’d like to contribute to this very important call to action, please visit the website of the National Association of Free Clinics. The link is at the end of my original post (below).
Is the U.S. Becoming a Third World Country?
With Halloween fast approaching, I am reminded of childhood memories. Did you Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF? As I got older I’d stay up till all hours of the night watching TV. Do you remember those Sally Struthers programs asking for money on behalf of poor children in Africa? Back then, she was a running joke for the late night talk show hosts. I also recall mail coming to the house, asking for gifts of just a penny a day to help support a family in a remote village somewhere. Even 60 Minutes got into the act – on occasion, they would dedicate an extra segment (a full forty minutes), of the show, on international humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders. All of these things (UNICEF, Sally, etc.) made us feel sorry for the people who needed this kind of help. Of course, we were grateful for the country we lived in, but some of us maybe felt just a little bit superior to those other countries.
Then about 25 years ago, I noticed something that was just a little bit different. It all started with Farm Aid in 1985, which was similar to the Live Aid Concert that raised millions of dollars for famine victims in Africa. Only, this time, the beneficiaries were Americans. After Farm Aid came Comic Relief and then after that Hands Across America (I was part of that human chain).
Then something seemed to change again. Charitable organizations like Remote Area Medical (RAM), who like Doctors Without Borders, also began as an international relief organization, now provides free health clinics in the United States. The clip below reports on a RAM clinic, from August, that was held in Los Angeles.
A week ago, Keith Olbermann dedicated an entire program to healthcare and called on donators and volunteers to help the National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC) to put on a series of clinics in five states. Here is the link if you’d like to donate or find out more about the organization (http://www.freeclinics.us/).
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Comments
Keith Olbermann did a JOB on his program and on his support for America's version of Doctors Without Borders. Too fine, and what a way to demonstrate grace and care for others while he is going through his own hard times with his father.
Rated!
45 million (or so) uninsured--
so relax...
In a thousand years, problem solved.
And isn't relaxing what our Congress does best?
We throw these numbers around like they mean nothing. My son, when he was 8 years old (seven years ago), taught me how big a trillion is when he asked me if I had been alive for a trillion seconds. I told him I didn't know but let us do the math.
Here is what we discovered: From the year zero to the year 2009 one trillion seconds has not yet expired. One trillion seconds will expire in the year 31,709.
That is how big 1,000,000,000,000 is. Congress does not have the intestinal fortitude to fix Medicare because the changes that would have to be made would irritate those insured (who now see Medicare as an entitlement) and they would not reelect anyone voting for the necessary changes. So nothing is done but to pass the unfunded liability down stream to each new generation. This is the disgusting act of cowards.
This is how Government run health care works and it is how it will bankrupt all of us. If you truly love your family, your children and your neighbor you should fear government run health care like you fear H1N1 or any other pandemic because it will destroy who we are as a Nation.
HTB - First, there is no true discussion of a single payer system at the moment. Secondly, the Public Option is simply what its name implies (i.e., an OPTION). Conservatives are always talking about the free market economy and competition. Well, here you go. Has Canada or England or France been destroyed by their universal health care systems? I think not.
So I submit, yes, in-fact, Canada is paying an enormous price for their health care system and it is the ill that pay the highest price of all. While your argument hits emotionally it does not address the cost. Congress and the President are not addressing the cost. What is the cost and secondly who is going to pay for it? WHO?
There are 307,000,000 US citizens and currently only 108,000,000 actually pay taxes. Payroll taxes from corporations already match what citizens pay and the interest on our debt is the fourth largest item in our budget. We have borrowed ourselves into a black hole and now we are going to add this?
Take a look at how well the Government runs the flu vacine. Prior to the Government taking over the program and regulating the profitability of researching, manufacturing and distributing flu vaccines there was never a shortage, the drugs were always delivered on time and there were programs in place for the economically less fortunate to get the shots for free. Now there is never enough, the drugs are always late, half the time the vaccine is for the wrong flu and this all due to bureacratic burden. You wish for that?
When I examine what is wrong with health insurance here in the Northeast it is clear and obvious that the State regulations have chased the companies out of the states. In New Hampshire we are down to just four health insurance companies because the regulatory burden is so great the companies cannot be profitable with such a small pool of potential insureds. (The population of NH is 1.3 million.)
Sixty insurance companies have left the State because of the regulations the State has imposed. The same is true in Massachusetts. These regulatory blunders, all done with good intention, has virtually illiminated the oppotunity for consumers to purchase competitive health care. More regulation will not solve the problem of too much regulation.
No I do not believe corporations will complete solve the crisis, and I do believe it is a crisis. However, the Federal Government does not have the right constitutionally to tell me or any American they MUST purchase a product or else pay enormous fines. We need to find other solutions, we need to think creatively, we need to work with the drug companies, the insurance companies the Hospitals, the AMA, the nurses and all other facets of the industry and take our time to produce a well thought out effective plan to help minimize costs, balance the system with great care, and provide coverage without bankrupting the US. There is no program, not one, where you can point to the Fed and say WOW, now that is a well run program! And you want to turn over the care of your persoanl well-being to them?
And again, WHO is going to pay for it?
"Health Insurance Reform Update: Public Option Moves Closer
This week, Speaker Pelosi got America one big step closer to enacting health insurance reform that includes a strong public option. As the Speaker said, "We will send our negotiators to the table with a strong public option." This late-breaking momentum for the public option is all thanks to you.
But it's too early to celebrate. With the Republican defenders of the status quo now digging in even harder to kill reform, we need to keep the pressure on."
It came from the DCCC. The ultimate prize is Government control, don't kid yourself or anyone else.
As for Government not having the 'right' to take money from us to do things for the greater good, I suggest you take a look all the way back to the first taxes President Washington instituted on alcohol production.
Yes, there is and always will be a level of corruption. It is our responsiblity as tax payers, citizens and voters to investigate and weed out that corruption.
We must not sit silent on the issues like that, and pressure our represenatives to make positive changes.
I'm with you that we shouldn't be fined for not having health insurance. That's why it needs to be a single payer system or don't touch it at all.
Unfortunatly, that's not what we're going to have in the short term, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't fight to get Singer Payer.
HTB - you didn't mention Sen. Reid (the Senate Bill will contain a Public Option / states can Opt-Out). And yes, I do think that it is good news. I'd rather pay for health care than subsidizing a made up war and the "looters" who Bush gave contracts to.
Trying to fool ourselves that the profit in the system, or recovering cost overruns, or just taxing us what we pay in premiums is going to cover the 75 trillion we already own for partial coverage on a part of the population is poppycock. Think rationally, there is not enough money in the system. Our total national debt is greater than our total assets. Are you kidding me? Piling on NOW in a poor economy when revenues are down and unemployment is skyrocketing and the government own GM, AIG and who knows what else? Are you serious, or delerious?
And Mr. Wright...really? During a discussion of a current issue brought forth by the current administration you are going to enact the Bush's name? What the heck is that?
You say there's not enough money in the system. You mention we're in serious debt.
Of course that's true, but that dosen't mean we always will be. Once, not IF, once our economy gets back on its feet, a great deal of the money we loaned out to the big corporations will be returned to the system.
As for medicare, just because it's been mismanaged is no reason to believe that a part E would be. These problems can be fixed. Better voting leads to better represenatives.
As for more revenue for the entire system, why not start calling in some of the money owed us by governments around the world? I know, laughable right so why not something even better.
How about we stop hemorraging funds into unnecessary spending in foreign countries?
Or better yet, let's legalize a harmless drug like marijuana, eliminate needless spending on filling up our prisons with non-violent, victimless crime offenders? Then let the federal government MAKE money by taxing the sale of it?
On top of that, we scale down some of the bloated agencies we have that are eating up tax dollars like nobody's business.
Eliminate Homeland Security. It's a pointless monster and we all know it. The previous agencies could have had good coordination with better management from the directors of those agencies to begin with! How no one sees this is beyond me.
There are ways to balance the budget without saying 'cut medicare' or 'don't implement single payer health care'.
There are plenty of examples of mismanagement out there. It doesn't mean that corporate run healthcare is superior in any way to government run health care. Those cats are just as corrupt as any, denying coverage to people who need it and letting people die every day.
The smart choice is to start thinking of both the welfare of the common citizen and the legacy of our spending. These are not mutually exclusive concepts, in my humble opinion.
Undeniablyalmost every department in the Federal Government could be smaller and more efficiently run. Undeniably there are huge bureaucracies within the bureaucracy that could be eliminated entirely. The Fed is way too huge, overblown, inefficient and way too costly. Agreed.
So let's do those first. Let's fix Medicare first. Politicians are cowards and do not have the intestinal fortitude to fix Medicare (or Social Security for that matter, which is currently $14,000,000,000,000 in debt) for fear of not getting re-elected.
And if you don't trust corporations where you can vote with your money and watch the bad ones fail (unless the government bails them out) how can you trust these gutless wonders that are so irresponsible they continue to borrow over $200,000,000 per year out of Social Security issuing worthless I.O.U.s to the already bankrupt program put there to protect all U.S. citizens (and apparently those who are not U.S.citizens, never contributed to it, but are a huge voting block)?
Are you not distrusting the devils angels in order to trust the Devil himself? Please, I implore you, please, just point to one Federally run program where you can say look how efficiently and well run that program is. These thieves are stealing from you every day and they aren't voted out no matter how currupt they are. Look at Charlie Rengel, Harry Reid, and yes Tom Daischle (finally out) there are crooks, cheats and mongrels on both sides of the aisle whose only motivation is power. At least in a corporation there is an incentive for success. There is no such incentive in Government.
A Nationally run health care system controlling trillions of our dollars is just more control and power to a group of people who cannot be trusted with your money let alone your health and well being. Once these programs become entitlements we have to continually fund failed programs that are mismanaged into oblivion. There is not one federal program where this has not been the truth, not one. Why would you believe this would be any different?
I don't really fully trust anyone with my money, but the nature of the beast is that I must, to some extent, do so with the government.
We both agree it needs to be run better, I see no reason why we can't expand medicare and fix it at the same time.
As for government programs that were run well, I've got a very nice, vintage M1 Garand rifle from WWII that reminds me every day that at one point our country pulled together, produced a war machine that was superior to anything else out there, and won the good fight.
The Hoover dam came in under budget, and ahead of schedule.
Uncle Sam is capable of doing things right. As citizens we need to hold our government accountable to ensure it.
Our disagreement is in essence one that grips our nation as a whole. Everyone is pissed on some level about what is wrong.
The question, and this is a big one, is how do we fix what's wrong without destroying what's right?
The only way we're going to get there, is one step at a time in rational discourse, smart voting, and true and unbiased looks at our own stances on things.
As for motivating the government, I'm all for expanding gun rights. A government that fears it's citizens is a good government.
That's just me though.
Thanks for the reply and I hear your cool judgment and sane approach. We probably both get a little chuckle from the two examples of efficient Government; both involved lots of private industry contractors, neither was a total government job, neither was an ongoing program and both examples are 60 years old. That by itself is pretty sad commentary. (And thank heavens we don't have to talk about the warships built at the beginning of WWII!)
You have greater faith than I in both the Government itself and the electorate. Perhaps you are right, but I always feel that eventually "people will get the government they deserve" and I fear "eventually" has arrived. I think people have finally come to realize the possibility within a representative republic to vote yourself so many benefits you break the bank. The banks are broken and I fear the printing presses are next.
You have enlightened me however, I never thought of myself as the pessimist but I am sounding like one, sorry. I would like to see the gutless wonders in Congress actually have the intestinal fortitude to fix one of these broken programs before putting the enormous burden of one 1000 times bigger on our backs. The money isn't there, it just isn't. Fix first, prove you can manage, then perhaps I will acquiesce.
We are not so far apart as it may seem. I could not agree more with your final paragraph. And may we all pray it will not be necessary to turn them against our own leaders.