BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 09:13 AM

""Kevin: Yes, it's obvious that those of you from countries that have a single payer system are very satisfied. Perhaps it will come to the U.S. someday. I don't think it will happen at this time. I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?""

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 08:23 AM

Doug, 7% of Canadians would prefer an American style health care system to the one we've got. 7 per cent. 87 per cent of Canadians approve of our health care system and consider it much superior to the one in the USA.

Fox News wants quotes from Canadians who don't like our health care system. That's what they look for. If they want to find someone they can to the 7 per cent of our public who have a complaint of some kind. 7 per cent of 25 million people is 1 million, 750 thousands people!!!

Don't you think Fox can find a Canadian to criticize our health care system????? Duh! Of course they can.

But 87 per cent of our people like our system and think yours sucks. Doesn't that tell you something that Fox isn't bothering to tell you?

They're not bothering to tell you because they've been paid off by the Big Money people who run your present system or benefit from it.

Wake up and smell the coffee, Doug. You're a victim of corporate propaganda, and your country has the worst public health record in the developed world. Period.

You ask why the government wouldn't find it cheaper to just insure the people who don't have any coverage right now.

Well, Canada insures EVERYBODY....and we spend 1/3 less in government health costs PER CAPITA than the USA does...and everybody has health care. Everybody. How do we do that, Doug? How does western Europe do it? I wonder. You ought to give it some thought.

When you are lied to from cradle to grave, the truth just sounds unbelievable, I guess...

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 02:29 AM

"...people who can afford health care but prefer to drive a Rolls Royce or live in a 8,000 sq. ft. home," DougR

#1. That must be a whole new category, Doug.
#2. If the Rolls or the digs are the equivalent of monthly health care, them is some premiums.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 02:23 AM

The points:

(1) Long after this reform debate ends, we are going to need a national discussion on cost containment in Medicare that will make this debate look like a walk in the park. I imagine we'll have to let you baby boomers bleed it almost dry, because that's the way you have always lived your lives.

(2) Cost savings from destroying the employment based model would save far more, to be used for funding the unlucky, than "eliminating waste" ever possibly could.

(3) We need a modified Swiss model. Modified, but not hammered into trash by our routine legislative processes.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 02:05 AM

Government now pays for nearly half of all health care in the U.S.


The average family making COBRA premium payments (after getting canned, for you Brits, you have a right to take over those employer sponsored premiums for 18 months - and a lot longer in California)pays $1,078 per month.

http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7875.cfm

The average monthly premium for an individually purchased policy was
$217.75 for one person and $483.25 for a family in 2007.

http://www.ahip.org/

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 01:09 AM

Supposedly, although I haven't found the direct cite:

Breast cancer: 54% survival UK versus 75% US
Prostate cancer: 43% survival UK versus 81% in US

National Cancer Intelligence Center
http://www.swpho.nhs.uk/dataandstats/default.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 09:57 PM

Doug, would you have expected FOX to interview someone who was in favour of the Canadian system?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 09:26 PM

Hmmm. I just heard Dr. Brian Day, MD, a orthopedic surgeon, in Vancouver, and former president of the Canadian Medical Society, interviewed on the Fox News Network by Bill O'Reilly.

The Doctor's evaluation of the Canadian plan is not as rosy as most Canadians here have reported. The two major faults: high cost, and rationed care. He said that the accreditation group that evaluates European health care plans recently ranked Canada's plan 29th out of 29 plans evaluated.

He said that the cost of the program has increased to the point that it likely will not be sustainable.

He also said that reports of rationing are not exaggerated and has become a very serious problem.

He did not recommend the US modeling it's program after Canada's.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 09:12 PM

(Of course the Swiss only have 7 or 8 million people and extrapolation won't work. I'm not suggesting that we would be facing $1,000/mo each!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 09:05 PM

Propaganda everywhere so the extreme ends are 12 millon and 47 million. So, yes, why not target that ~20 million people with the public option, at least making the voluntarily uninsured chip in and funding the rest from taxes and surcharges on private pay premiums (and adjusting for the existing public programs - even rolling them in to one program: Medicare for All Who Need It.) That would be one hell of a lot more honest and salable than just layering on employer and insurer mandates in the same old crappy fashion and pretending it's "reform" and a job well done.

Make a public option for 20 million people and work on it. Calibrate the funding and the subsidies and level the playing field while starting at the heart of the matter.

Regardless of special interests there are many people who don't want to be conned, on one side AND the other. How in the world the public option moved from the central issue to a side issue is just beyond my comprehension. (I have a feeling that the Dems were afraid to set out the true costs, and may have been willing to blur them with the lobbyists' obfuscatory proposals. The Swiss Menace article profiled a family of three which elected for some extra benefits and ended up at a current premium of $1,000 per month.)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:54 PM

I was derided, hooted, called an idiot, etc. for stating such a low figure.

And rightfully so, Doug, since your figure (see the post following yours & other reliable sources)then, and now, is bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:27 PM

Coincidentally, I read a news report of the US census bureau figures on this very subject this morning, as Republicans are putting out propaganda about the numbers.

This is one article regarding the problem, written in January 2008, while Bush was still president!
From medscape.com

Census Bureau: Number of U.S. Uninsured Rises to 47 Million Americans are Uninsured: Almost 5 Percent Increase Since 2005

Click here for article http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/567737

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:00 PM

That is why, McGrath, I think Obama should have concentrated on helping the "have nots." Those who cannot afford health care, those who have pre-existing problems that prevent them from getting it, and those who lost health care when they changed jobs. When this thread began I mentioned a figure of (as I recall)15 million that would fall in those categories. I was derided, hooted, called an idiot, etc. for stating such a low figure. The figure is closer to 50 million, they cried!

The latest reports I have heard peg the figure at around 12 million. The figure is arrived at by estimating the number of people who qualify for a federal program and have not applied, people who can afford health care but prefer to drive a Rolls Royce or live in a 8,000 sq. ft. home, and young people who don't think they need it. Estimates of the number in this group is around 15 million. Then there are an estimated 12 million illegals living in the country who are owed nothing.

Making health care available for 12 million citizens would cost a helluva lot less than trying to completely overhauling the entire health system, and probably would be doable.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:47 PM

"I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?"

We HAD no health care. Now, everyone does.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:03 PM

I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?

Do you really honestly wonder that Doug? There've been accounts quoted in the thread, and linked to, of person after person who has experience the American system and the alternatives, and who come down emphatically for the alternatives. And the countervailing examples where people prefer the American system having lived under other systems, they just aren't there.

True enough, you've got good medical care, if you can afford it, and that's great. Sometime it's going to be better than people have elsewhere, for those who can afford it. After all, you pay enough for it.

But for millions of Americans it's out of reach - and for millions more Americans it is liable to be snatched away from them overnight, if (and when) they lose their work-related insurance, through no fault of their own whatsoever. Your neighbours, your friends, your relatives, hung out to dry.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:00 PM

I wonder what kind of person feels good about people who buy private heath care then are canceled if they try to use it
or
people whose rates go up if a co worker gets cancer
or
if their insurance company uses the pre existing condition scam
or
when rates have doubled in 5 years
or
when poorer people are denied bone marrow transplants for their children who only have months left to save their life.
or
the dozens of other despicable excuses the middle men of health care make money by denying the help people paid for.

Is it a person like the single payer critics that post here?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:49 PM

Since I can trust most here to commment without reading the rest of the article, I'll post the end...

"Democrats have floated the idea of going it alone and passing health care reform. Some have said the president will pay a big price among independent voters if he does that.

Well, tough.

If health care was his first priority to getting elected, that should remain the case. Damn the 2010 midterm elections, and damn the 2012 presidential elections.

Congress has been trying for more than six decades to achieve health care reform, and the Democrats have all the stars lined up to do so. Of course, even with their large majority, it won't be a cakewalk getting a bill passed in the Senate.

If it doesn't happen now, I don't want to hear any carping from the left. Your own party had a shot and screwed it up. Democrats, you will have no one to blame but yourselves. It's now or never. So stop whining about the Republicans and get your own house in order."

about the author

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:41 PM

It isn't a question of Right and Left. To believe that is as foolish as believing that the future of professional wrestling depends on who wins the match: Hulk Hogan (for the Left) or The Undertaker (for the Right). But the wrestling audience is dumb enough to believe that! And the American public (and quite a few other people) are dumb enough to believe that it's a fight between the Right and the Left.

That's just the stage show, folks. That's what is put in front of the public to divide and conquer them.

The people who are actually running the show do not represent either the Right or the Left, they represent themselves and their huge money interests. The show is put on to keep people divided against each other and distracted while the Big Money interests walk off with the spoils.

They put presidential candidates in front of you like a couple of professional wrestlers and let you fight over who's going to win for nearly a year! After the phony "victory" is won by either one side or the other, the next figurehead president plays the game...and the game is owned and controlled by the richest interests in the land, and your vote makes no difference to those people.

You are mesmerized by the stage show. All Doug can think about is how bad the Democrats are...and he waits hopefully for every sign of trouble for Obama. All you faithful Obama supporters can think about is how bad the Republicans are, and you wait hopefully for every sing of trouble for them. And it doesn't matter, because it's just a wrestling show to keep you distracted.

Both those parties (with the exception of a few courageous outsiders like Dennis Kucinich) supinely serve the great monied interests that really run the USA and determine policy. That's the major corporate entities and the largest banks. The medical insurance companies are part of that consortium of rich corporate interests. That's why they're getting their way on this health care thing, while the public tilts at partisan windmills.

You don't live in a democracy, you live in a corporate oligarchy with managed elections and bought politicians. It isn't a case of Right and Left at all. It just looks that way, because that is the easiest way to keep ordinary people divided and wasting their time and energy fighting with each other for their whole lives, instead of challenging their real (but hidden) masters...people whose names they don't even know, people whose faces they would not recognize.

Check out this link:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/inside_the_great_american_bubble_machine

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:41 PM

"CNN) -- Democratic members of Congress, party strategists, and even President Obama have tried their best to portray Republicans as obstructionists to health care reform, and want us to believe that if the effort fails, it's all because of the GOP.

That's bull. The failure to pass health care reform would be a yoke around the Democrats' neck, and the cause of losing the moment would be their inability to achieve unity among themselves.

Democrats have the perfect political hat trick. They control the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, with a strong majority in both houses.

But I'm reminded of something Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, told me nine years ago: Democrats know nothing about party unity.

Conyers was being interviewed for an election special I was working on for a now-defunct black cable network, and he said that if Democrats had a majority of the votes in the House, they had a unified group of only about 165.

That's because when you throw in the 50-something Blue Dog Democrats -- strongly conservative members whom some party loyalists liken to Republicans in Democrat clothing -- then you have a different kind of dynamic than you do in the GOP, where the strong base of conservatives typically stays in line.

Then, of course, you have the far-left members, loud and noisy, and oftentimes unwilling to compromise their positions in order to move legislation forward.

When you put the far left and the far right of the Democratic Party in one room, you will see fireworks that rival a Democratic-Republican fight.

And that's exactly what we are seeing on health care reform."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/20/martin.democrats.health/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:07 PM

And those protesting what THEY see as "lies and ulterior motives" on the part of the Democrats are somehow different ?

I guess it should be " Almost all men are created equal, as long as they agree with the Left."


To bemoan the same behaviour that was demonstrated by the Left when Bush was president, now that it is the Right acting out and Obama that is being criticised seems a lot like demanding special treatment for a specific political viewpoint.

I have given up on Amos actualling applying the same level of critical observation of Obama that he applied to Bush, but I see no reason to allow the march of the Ubermensch to go unremarked.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:00 PM

When a country's leaders go to war, bb, would you not agree that the action should be based on a "clear and present" threat and not on lies and ulterior motives? LBJ furthered a war based on a lie and the ignominy will taint his name indefinitely.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 02:55 PM

"This is sedition but Palin lovers believe they are taking their country back"

I think that some said the anti-Bush protests were sedition, but the Anti-Bushites believed that they were taking their country back.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 02:51 PM

Alice: "Setting the Record Straight?"

How can you post that with a straight face. Surely you have tongue planted firmly in one cheek.

Who do you relay on, and expect everyone else to rely on for "setting the record straight?"

ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA, a project of the Democratic National Committee.

Give me a break, Alice, please?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 02:43 PM

Freedom Works are DC lobbyists who are coordinating with several of their health insurance clients and will be pumping millions of dollars into the 9-12 march that was first introduced to America on FOX by Glen Beck back in May.

9-12 is supposed to be the big show for the tea baggers and give superfisical credence to the grass roots movement of people who have been told that the Federal Government is totally fascist and Obama is similar to Hitler.



THis is one helluva extreme way to rid corporations of the bounds of regulatory law and taxes. Destroy the Country and instigate civil war to stop corporate regulation.

This is sedition but Palin lovers believe they are taking their country back.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:56 PM

. . . and if the public option were such a real threat that it would drive private industry to collapse, they could inhibit or even cap enrollment for a decade or so while they test drive it, to include ironing out the funding to prevent "unfair subsidies."

It could even be subcontracted out to some extent, but the basic guaranty would be there.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 11:53 AM

The public option PLUS private insurers reminds me strongly of the last administration's effort to privatize Social Security. On the premise of SS going broke, it wanted to funnel more money out of it.

And now they postulate that if the American people were presented with the option of federally funded medical care, private insurers would go out of business. It doesn't seem to work that way.

The analogy of the US Post Office competing with FedEx and UPS, et al, is a good one. The US Postal Service, being federally funded and therefore cheaper, should command an allegiance from the American people that would drive competitors out of business. But it isn't true.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:25 AM

I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?

Right you are Doug- William the Conquerer brought The National Health to Britain & the Canadian System was implemented by Samuel de Champlain.

I do not for a second doubt that, Donuel. They [Health Insurance Companies]are the culprits.

I beg to differ, Bruce. The health Insurance Companies are the source. But the he CULPRITS are those, like Doug, who distribute the lies & bullshit the health insurance companies come up with.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:31 AM

And THAT is the reason for nationalized health care. Art, I wish I was a millionaire . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:05 AM

Nationalized healthcare is the only chance I have to not be totally destitute for the rest of my life. That's simply a fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:58 PM

Did you mean QED, Heric?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:49 PM

That's the first I've heard from Wendell Potter. In the clip he is speaking 90% nonsense. (Health insurers "want" you to pay 30% of all of your medical care even if it makes you go bankrupt.) (That way they get 30% profit whereas casinos are limited to 20% on gaming odds.)

We must think for ourselves. There is nonsense from Congress, nonsense from the White House, nonsense from corporation and industry lobbyists and their lackeys. Nonsense from public interest groups. Nonsense from the media. (Supporters of "the reform plan" are outspending opponents two to one, btw.)

You are on your own.

(My vote on the main bill, and I have calmed down: Regardless of how we got here, if the public option is dead, the betrayal is complete and unmitigated. We'll get more employees covered and more regulatory protections from insurance practices. BFD)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:20 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/73765.html analyzes who's behind the flaps.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:49 PM

I do not for a second doubt that, Donuel. They are the culprits.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:46 PM

Peace
Health Insurance Companies are spending a known $10,000,000.00 per day on lobbying, commercials, websites resembling grass roots organizations and rallies with paid protestors - in the form of transportation and sundries.

They are probably spending even more that can't be easily found.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:40 PM

Click here for my view of Senator Grassley

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:28 PM

Wendell Potter, whom several of us have posted about on this thread, was interviewed on MSNBC's Countdown tonight.

VIDEO, Wendell Potter, whistleblower, Countdown 8/19/09

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 10:26 PM

Just read this while I was lookin' at the news--such as the news is.

'Another protester, 12-year-old Micah Vandenboom, was there with her parents.

She held a sign that made clear her opposition to the president's health-care reform plans.

"Under Obama, everyone will get the same health care, that's socialism," she said. "It has failed in other countries, you know, like Europe."'

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:34 PM

DougR - "I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?"

That is precisely the problem with Americans, Doug! They've never known anything else. They've been told all their lives that they live in "the greatest country on Earth", and they think that means the greatest in EVERY way! That's ignorance. That is gross ignorance in fact. But it's not a sin to be ignorant...it simply means that one doesn't know about something, that's all.

I do know the difference, however, by direct experience. I and my parents lived in the USA for 10 years. We now live in a country with a single payer government-run health plan, and I regard it as the only sane and responsible alternative.

Recent polls have been done here about our Canadian health system. 87% of Canadians approve of it and consider it far better than what the USA has. 7% of Canadians would prefer a USA-style system with coverage by private insurers. The remaining 6% had no opinion.

I repeat...ignorance is not a sin. I am not condemning Americans in terms of their character when I say that many of them are ignorant regarding government-run single payer health coverage. I am simply saying they don't know much about it (if anything) and that their fear of it and their fear of "socialism" is based upon their fear of what they don't know about. They'd rather have the devil they're familiar with than the angel they've never met.

That is exactly what your private insurance companies count on...they are protected by public ignorance. Public ignorance will keep them in control of the situation and will keep them rich. The fact that they ARE rich will enable them to keep the American public ignorant by filling the media airwaves with disinformation and false scare stories about "socialism". It's a self-perpetuating fraud, and it is accomplished by lobbying with massive amounts of money.

You have a society now that is of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. That's not what your founding fathers promised you back in 1776. Were they lying? Not necessarily. But things have changed since then.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:28 PM

Tom paraphrase Congressman Frank: What the fu$k planet does Douggie live on?

His grip on reality is getting more tenuous by the post.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:22 PM

"I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?"

I can recall hardship caused by inability to pay for medical services for my mom, Grandmum (when Grampy died), my sister and me. I have thought for decades that Tommy Douglas shoud be sanctified--but I guess he already is in the hearts of most Canadians.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:21 PM

Another link regarding the lies being told about the health care proposals:

Setting The Record Straight

"Enough is enough.

It seems like a new lie about health insurance reform crops up each day. These lies create fear and anger – and we're seeing the results around the country.

It's time to work together to set the record straight and expose the special interests and partisan attack groups who deliberately spread these rumors and lies in a desperate attempt to preserve the status quo."

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:13 PM

(No, it wasn't me - not recently anyway. I did think that.)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:07 PM

Stringsinger: Bush corrupt? Vicious? Obviously you have a right to your opinion, but that's all it is ...opinion.

You may not remember, but Bush did try to improve the health care system by establishing health savings accounts. An excellent idea that was shot down by the Democrats in Congress ...not enough government control with health savings accounts.

Your comment about Specter is a bit puzzling. You seem to be under the impression that Specter is a Republican. Perhaps you didn't hear that he abandoned his post in the Senate when polls showed he could not win re-election as a Republican in 2010. Better not to lose his seat even if it meant abandoning his principles, so he made a deal with Harry Reid. Now Specter is a Democrat.

Heric: Are you the one who thinks the Republican Party is shipwrecked? This whole health care debacle Obama authored has renewed and united the Party like nothing else could. Obama awakened the "sleeping giant", as one patriot who attended a Specter Town Hall so informed the senator. Democrats in Congress are running scared and the turnover in seats in 2010 is going to be a site to see!

Kevin: Yes, it's obvious that those of you from countries that have a single payer system are very satisfied. Perhaps it will come to the U.S. someday. I don't think it will happen at this time. I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?

Ebbie: Nice to know that you admire Congressman Frank and Senator Specter's "handling" of people who do not agree with their point of view. Perhaps, however, they should be reminded that they are "handling" constituents, not just "anybody" and both stand for re-eletion in 2010. Some people have long memories.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:07 PM

Access to medical insurance should not be provided through one's employer. It should be provided as a basic civil right to everyone through the government, and it is so provided in most of the developed world. It's asinine to have a situation where people get medical insurance primarily through their employers, because it is the unemployed who are the ones who most desperately need it...they have less money to spend when an emergency comes along. But everyone actually needs it and everyone should have it...equal access to all citizens...no extra fees to anyone.

We do that in Canada, and it costs 1/3 less to do it than public health costs per capita do in the USA. And there is no rationing. I've had several friends who needed treatment for serious illnesses, and no one faced rationing. Everyone got treatment when they needed it, without delay.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 07:17 PM

The 8% solution was going to populate the public option only with people who want or need to be there, protect the people who face bankruptcy or similar hardship when falling out of the employer-based system, provide competition to private insurers, force premiums out of the voluntary uninsured, and afford universal access.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: heric
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 07:03 PM

I don't see it the way you do BillD. I see the insurers keeping a stranglehold on the money pipeline.

To repeat:
"The proliferation of Obama's gaffes and non sequiturs on health care has exceeded the allowable limit. He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money). He has failed to explain why increased demand for medical services without a concomitant increase in supply won't lead to [a reduction in services.] And he has failed to explain why a Medicare-like model is desirable when Medicare itself is going broke."

But it's worse. He has failed to explain why he allowed people to believe a Medicare model was even a substantial part of the proposals, when it wasn't, and failed to explain that increasing employer mandates and increasing insurer mandates funnels far more money to the providers so that costs rocket without ensuring full coverage - just more people ignorantly enslaved to the employer "benefits" industry that separates them from cost and true competition (choice). Worse, he has failed to explain how it can possibly be that "the public option" isn't essential when it was the only backstop for people falling out of their employer coverage, the only substantial mechanism to reduce the irrational cost-shifting, and the only mechanism to spur cost containment and competition by insurers and providers.

Look again at the 8% solution. That was the one ingenious (if risky) idea but it is irrelevant without the public option being available.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 06:27 PM

On YouTube I've watched both Arlen Specter and Barney Frank in action. Both have had nasties there but I agree - neither of the Senators appears to be fearful or even intimidated. My guess is that both of them do wonder what kind of nation we have created.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 06:19 PM

A friendly comment, Doug. ;-) You said "I think the centerpiece of his (Obama's) campaign was to get elected"

Well, yeah! That is the centerpiece of EVERY politician's campaign. They will say and do absolutely ANYTHING as long as it gets them elected. Obama's campaign was brilliantly handled in that respect, while McCain's was handled quite clumsily (but he was set up to lose anyway).

The reason you "saw through" Obama, Doug, was simple. He's a Democrat. ;-) You're not nearly as good at seeing through Republicans.

******

And to Bearded Bruce...who said: "He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money)."

Dead simple, Bruce! just change it to a single payer government-run universal health plan exactly like we already have in Canada. Canada pays about 1/3 less government money per capita for health care than the USA does, and Canada covers every citizen at no up-front charge, and our average national health levels are better than in the USA. This is also true of a number of other western democracies in Europe. The USA is way behind other developed nations when it comes to providing its citizens with quality health care...and it pays MORE to do it! Why? Because profit-seeking entities are running the show in the USA.

Because the US government is in thrall to profit-seeking privately owned health insurance interests, Big Pharma, and the professional medical organizations which are milking the public cow for all they can get.

You have a rather poor national health system as they go, the worst among the developed western democracies...and one of the most expensive per capita too...and a third of your people aren't covered!

You also have a citizenry many of whom are so utterly ignorant about the real situation that they will happily support the corporate vampires who are sucking their blood while hyperventiating over the supposed dangers of "socialism". It's incredible to watch. The slaves are fighting to keep themselves enslaved, the robbed are fighting to protect the ones who rob them...and all in the name of "liberty" and "free enterprise"! Talk about living in denial.

If Obama really tried to change this situation in any radical way so as to benefit the general public, he'd be a marked man. If he quietly serves the real corporate bosses, however, who are the profit-seeking private entities who run the show, then they will get what they want and he will go on being the presidential figurehead for at least a whole four years. Maybe even 8 years. We'll see. It depends how unpopular pursuing the corporate agenda makes him in the next 4.

Someday not too far off, though, the Republicans will come riding to the rescue as the supposed "White Knights" to "kick out the rascals" in Washington, and the whole farce will move into its next predictable stage. What a sickening thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:59 PM

"He has failed repeatedly to explain..." etc....

No he hasn't...you just don't like the explanations. When the explanations are analyzed, they indicate that institutions supported by Republicans (like BIG insurance and drug companies) will no longer have a stranglehold on the money pipeline. To avoid this, they will make any claims and propound any misinformation about 1)the plan, 2)their own good ideas and 3)their good-faith 'negotiations'. It all comes down to: "If change involving YOUR benefits interferes with MY historical business model, we will kill it in any way possible."

I see their reasoning, but that doesn't mean I appreciate it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:59 PM

...to have to go back home and face what they have faced in the Town Halls.

What they have faced in the town halls are lies, bullshit and unreasoning,ignorant hysteria whipped up by Republican operatives even slimier than the "SwiftBoat" scum.

No-one should have to put up with that.