Frontline: Sick Around the World

Frontline: Sick Around the World

Health Insurance is ruining me. The biggest problem as a business owner and individual that I have. Literally going to break me if something doesn’t change soon.

I saw this program from Frontline last week and it does EXACTLY what I have called for on many occasions: look at all the best health plans in the world and come up with the very best, selecting from the cream of the crop.

There is but one reason why it isn’t happening here and that is because Big Money rule everything. If all my congresspeople receive most of their money from insurance, then why would they vote against their interests? They won’t.

And neither should all you rednecks who keep voting these people in. You should not vote for another person who will not insist on taking profit out of healthcare.

This video is excellent and goes through 5 different industrialized systems in the world and compares them to ours. The USA spends 16% of its GDP on health, where Taiwan has 6%, Japan 8% and ALL others in the world much less than us.

In Switzerland administrative costs for “insurance” is 5.5% (in the USA it is 22%… including massive bonuses, etc) and the other countries have far less than us.

Preventative medicine is key in Great Britain and even tho many services are considered slow compared to here, try living in the rural south and say that. They are improving their systems all the time.

In all of these systems, no one has ever gone bankrupt from some medical expenses… but it is estimated in the USA that some 700,000/year go bankrupt for that reason.

Also note that these countries (and all the others which list ABOVE the number 37 the USA has, in spite of spending MORE money than any other country) have longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality and a much better quality of health and life.

In other words, we pay a shit load of money to Fat Cat Insurance Companies who control our healthcare and make huge profit windfalls from our health and live shorter, less quality lives (if we make it at all) than all those 36 above us who pay a FRACTION of the money (sometimes less than 1/2).

For Profit Insurance is killing Americans and making some dick head rich.

This video is excellent.

Having Health Insurance has Proven to be a Matter of Life and Death

From Facing South:

Health insurance: a matter of life and death

Families USA recently released a report, Dying for Coverage, from all 50 states on the number of uninsured and the estimated number of deaths directly related to lack of health insurance.

Commenting on the report, Executive Director of Families USA Ron Pollack said:

Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of people to an early death simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors. The conclusions are sadly clear — lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many people.

A study by the Institute of Medicine, tha basis for the Family USA report, found that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private health insurance. Another academic study found that lack of health insurance is the third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer, for uninsured adults between the ages of 55 and 64.

While the percentage of uninsured, working age (25-64) people in the South reported by Families USA in 2006 (20.5%) is similar to overall U.S. percentage of uninsured in the same age group reported by the U.S. Census (19.9%), several Southern states have a significantly higher percentage of uninsured.

For example, the Families USA report found that Louisiana had the highest rate of uninsured among working people at 26.2%. Florida (25.3%), Arkansas (23.2%), and Mississippi (22.1%) also exceeded the regional and national rates. Virginia (15.1%) and West Virginia (16.5%) are well below the regional and national rates.

Other state reports from around the South on the percentage of uninsured working age people include Alabama (20.1%), Georgia (19.7%), Kentucky (19.0%), North Carolina (21.1%), South Carolina (19.7%), and Tennessee (18.3%).

The U.S. Census report shows that the South has the highest percentage of uninsured overall, 19.0%, as compared to 11.4% in the Midwest, 12.3% in the Northeast, and 17.9% in the West.

When you add it all up, there are nearly 8.5 million working age people in the South without health insurance. Even more disturbing, the Families USA report attributes nearly 52,000 premature deaths to lack of health insurance in these states between 2000 and 2006.

The National Coalition on Health Care, an influential, bi-partisan alliance working to improve America’s health care, has published a fact sheet about health insurance coverage in the U.S. It explains who the uninsured are, why there are so many, and some of the consequences:

• Lack of insurance compromises the health of the uninsured because they receive less preventive care, are diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and once diagnosed, tend to receive less therapeutic care and have higher mortality rates than insured individuals.

• Regardless of age, race, ethnicity, income or health status, uninsured children were much less likely to have received a well-child checkup within the past year. One study shows that nearly 50 percent of uninsured children did not receive a checkup in 2003, almost twice the rate (26 percent) for insured children.

• Studies estimate that the number of excess deaths among uninsured adults age 25-64 is in the range of 18,000 a year. This mortality figure is more than the number of deaths from diabetes (17,500) within the same age group

Their report concludes:

The impacts of going uninsured are clear and severe. Many uninsured individuals postpone needed medical care which results in increased mortality and billions of dollars lost in productivity and increased expenses to the health care system. There also exists a significant sense of vulnerability to the potential loss of health insurance which is shared by tens of millions of other Americans who have managed to retain coverage.

Every American should have health care coverage, participation should be mandatory, and everyone should have basic benefits.

The state of health care in the United States is a national disgrace. And it’s only going to get worse. Even more so in the South, where the fastest growing region in America continues to struggle with poverty and unemployment which contribute to the higher rates of uninsured.

The upcoming elections could and should be a referendum on the problem. Unfortunately, none of the three leading Presidential candidates has a comprehensive plan to solve it. All they offer are band-aids that patch up various failing components of our broken system.

But that’s largely irrelevant, because the President doesn’t have the power to fix it alone. Congress will have to act to effect fundamental change.

HR676, which would open up Medicare to everyone and eliminate private and employer provided health insurance, is a radical idea. But it’s a good place to start a serious discussion about solving a serious problem. And complex, serious problems sometimes require radical solutions.

Big Military’s Take Over of America Illuminated

Big Military has a stronghold on this country… to the detriment of us all. We are being forced into a militaristic country and economy, just like the Roman Empire did to its demise. Just as Nazi Germany and The Soviet Union.

Being the world’s only Super Power is costing us everything. But rednecks don’t understand this. I had a good friend brag about the jobs that the military is providing the country while the other manufacturing that has fed him and his family for years is drying up and blowing away. Oblivious, just like Big Business planned for him.

I asked him if he had a job aligned in military once the furniture he has been supporting has completely left for China. No answer.

I monitor the extravagances and business cycle of Big Military and wanted to update those of you who may not know (and especially the lone redneck searcher who may have happened upon this blog):

Defense firms expand in Alabama
Several defense companies are expanding their operations in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin, for example, grew its work force by 9% in 2007. “From Lockheed Martin’s perspective, we recognize that there is a lot of growth potential here in the community,” said John Holly, top executive for Lockheed Martin Huntsville. The Huntsville Times (Ala.)

Aerospace business helps Honeywell post strong Q1 profits
Strong aerospace profits and overseas demand helped push Honeywell’s first-quarter earnings up 22%. Executives attributed the results to the company’s growing global presence. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Officials hope to double missile production by 2015
Missile Defense Agency officials want to double the production rate for the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense and Aegis ballistic missile by 2015. They noted a final decision would be made during the process of creating the 2010 budget. AviationWeek.com

EADS wants North American business to become U.S. “citizen” (The Washington Post)

 

No End In Sight | Charles Ferguson | Representational Pictures

This is a clip from the Documentary “No End in Sight” Directed by Charles H. Ferguson.Visit this website for More Information.
http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/

Interviews included in this documentary.
* General Jay Garner, who briefly ran the reconstruction before being replaced by L. Paul Bremer
* Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was placed in charge of the Baghdad embassy
* Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of the State Department
* Robert Hutchings, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council
* Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff
* Col. Paul Hughes, who worked in the ORHA and then the CPA

José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco

By Greg Palast

Monday April 21, 2008

(for TomPaine.com)

Psst!  George Bush has a secret. 

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three:  the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

You’re not supposed to know that – for two reasons: 
First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics.  Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership:  The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.
 
The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its real agenda.   More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible:  The North American Competitiveness Council. 

Never heard of The Council?  Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counselors:  the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe. 

And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a three-nation pajama party?  Their term is “harmonization.”

Harmonization has nothing to do with singing in fifths like Simon and Garfunkel.  Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in all three countries.  Or, more specifically, watering down rules – on health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on – in other words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their profits.

Take for example, pesticides.   Wal-Mart and agri-business don’t want to reduce the legal amount of poison allowed in what you eat.  Solution:  “harmonize” US and Canadian pesticide standards to Mexico’s. 

Can they do that?  Can Bush just say, “Eat your peas – even if they’re radioactive?”  Under NAFTA, at least the way George Bush reads it (or has it read to him), he can.  At any rate, he does.

The three chiefs of state will meet privately with the thirty corporate chiefs where they are also expected to legally erase more of our borders, to expand the “NAFTA highway.”  Technically, the NAFTA highway is a set of legal rules governing transcontinental shipment.  Some fear NAFTA highway expansion will allow a new flood of cheap Mexican products into the US and Canada.  Not so.  Their hunger to expand the NAFTA highway is to bring in even cheaper Chinese goods.

 
Say what?

As trade expert Maud Barlow explained to me, the new “NAFTA highway” will allow Chinese stuff dumped into Mexico to be hauled northward as duty-free “Mexican” products.  That’s one of the quiet agendas of this “Summit for Security and Prosperity,” the official Orwellian name for this meet.  Think of the SSP “harmonization” as the Trojan Taco of trade.

Barlow is Chairwoman of the Council of Canadians.  She is known as the “Ralph Nader of Canada” (not Nader version 2.0, The Spoiler Candidate, but Nader version 1.0, the consumer advocate).  Because Americans are too distracted by the Punch-and-Judy primaries to complain about this lobby-fest on the bayou, Canadian Barlow is leading street protests against this greed-grab.  

I caught up with this courageous Canadian (I’ve seen her face down corporate bullying we can’t imagine in the US) on her way down to New Orleans.  Barlow’s particular concerns are first, the NSS agreement promotes a five-fold increase in the mining of Canadian tar sands for import, as liquid crude oil, into the USA, an idea filthier than a re-make of  Debbie Does Dallas.  “This is an insane model of development,” she says, especially given Bush’s recent claim that he wants to slow global warming.  

Bush himself is pushing his Canadian and Mexican counterparts to adopt US-style “Homeland Security” measures so that, says Barlow, “we’ll all be zip-locked together in one security bag.”
There will be other anti-SSP protesters in New Orleans as well, from America’s populist Right.  They are concerned that the Security and Prosperity Summit is worse than the “NAFTA on steroids” that Barlow fears.  The populists see in the SPP a nascent “North American Union,” and the elimination of the good old US of A.
 
They’re wrong, of course.  The U.S. of A. has been long eliminated, at least economically.  The Competitiveness Council is a multinational crew, with one shared set of country clubs, beach homes, art collections, union busters and lobbyists knowing no borders.  

The populist radio hosts railing against the coming North American Union don’t realize that these CEOs won’t take away their flags or Fourth of July or Star-Spangled Banner.  The rags and flags will always be kept around to con the schmucks along the Yahoo Belt into donating their children to the Iraq Occupation or other misadventures.  A billionaire like Carlos Slim, the richest man on the planet (sorry, Mr. Gates), didn’t buy the Mexican government to “protect” his nation from Gringos but to protect his media monopoly. 

So there is no United States of America nor Canada nor Mexico – at least as we like to imagine ourselves in our national fairy tales:  self-governing democracies run by we the people or nosotros el pueblo.  There’s just the diktats of the North American Prosperity Council.  Get used to it.

Barlow said that the US Ambassador to Canada told her the legal changes wrought in New Orleans will not be put before the three national Congresses for a vote.  “We don’t want to open up another NAFTA.”  So, they’ll skip the voting stuff.  Democracy is so, like, 20th Century.

Is Bush just a reluctant participant in this “harmonizing” of our economic fate?  The meetings are secret, so I can’t say for sure.  But I note that, at the opening ceremony, if you read his lips, you can see our president singing the national anthem as, “José, can you see?”

***********
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse:  Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.   Sign up for Palast’s investigative reports for BBC on RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/gregpalast-articles

Make a donation to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund and receive a DVD of  the untold story of the drowning of New Orleans, Big Easy to Big Empty, made for Democracy Now! at http://www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org. 
 
Note:  On May 1, in New York, Palast will speak at the international conference of the victims of Barrick Gold mining operations, the Canadian-American company whose board members included the former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney and the former President of the United States, George Bush Sr.  Information soon at www.GregPalast.com

Missile Defense: The Attack Dogs Are Warming Up

Here it comes. The first of what will prove to be an onslaught of propaganda to turn the American public into even more Sheep-like followers.

We are sending away all of our manufacturing, EXCEPT for defense (and some of that is being outsourced over money). This will be America’s final downfall, for a country cannot survive on military money only. We have too many examples of “fail” in that arena over history.

The Missile Defense Agency has a primer out for what we can expect:

Leading the Greatest Technological Achievement of Our Time

The time for missile defense has arrived. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has pioneered the development of airborne lasers, space-based sensor systems, kinetic interceptors and advanced radars. The agency’s global command and control systems are integrating these components into a complex 3-D shield extending hundreds of miles into space and around the globe.

Technology and science can now match the vision of the great pioneering rocket scientists and military to create a truly safe and secure system to protect the free world. To keep that vision moving forward at an ever expanding pace, MDA is constantly seeking to recruit and hire outstanding candidates to serve in an elite corps of engineers, scientists and management professionals.

The U.S.A’s first General of the Air Force, Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, had seen the need for such a system at the end of World War II. An apocryphal story has it that space pioneer Dr. Wernher von Braun himself was dismayed at the prospects of “hitting a bullet with another bullet.” The precision sensor and communication technology necessary for the pinpoint accuracy were still years away. Advances in the past decade, however, on many fronts, from sensors and radars to propulsion and ballistics to sophisticated communications networks, have been turning missile defense into an achievement. In fact, some contend that the achievement even outweighs such engineering landmarks as the Manhattan and Apollo Projects.

Under the direction of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), missile defense is becoming far more than an advanced weapons system. With a purely defensive mandate, MDA is marshaling diverse talents to implement fully a global design that stretches from earth to the reaches of space. These efforts are proceeding quickly. Changing threats continue to multiply, and a prudent path requires a spiral development model, coordinating design, prototypes and testing with actual deployments.

This development model has clear advantages for our engineers and other technical professionals. One can see one’s designs take shape, and learn from experience. Even more important, one can be assured that each day is spent helping to protect the American people and their allies. Such an assurance is a far cry from a dangerous situation that had prevailed for decades.

More at link.

I am not against defending America. For God’s sake, this is on TOP of all the other ‘offensive’ munitions we have. Of course, we should defend America, but after what they have been doing for decades now, telling us lies and spending our tax dollars so idiotically, shouldn’t we question each and every thing they tell us. Treat everything with scrutiny?

Are we still in the mode of undying trust for Bush and his cronies, in lieu of all the horse-shit they have shoveled upon us?

B’Man’s Redneck Poetry Reading

Yes, even this redneck from Tennessee has a high-falutin’ side. Poetry, even classical music (believe it or not, I am a concert trumpeter)… I even crack a book now and again (something more than Playboys, comic books and the Farmer’s Almanac).

But lately I have made friends with Jack Large (The Familographer) who turned me on to some poetry reading (he has several videos up at his Youtube Channel… jakvid).

So, while traveling this week, I was listening to PBR and ‘The Writer’s Almanac’  with Garrison Keeler came on and besides the cool biographical info he presents (birthdays, etc for poets and writers) he read a poem by Alicia Suskin Ostriker (from her book, ‘No Heaven’) and damn if it didn’t fit me to a T.

So much so that I knew that it would be my first poetry reading on YouTube and for here.

So, while I was out doing yard work yesterday, I realized that it just had to be recorded outside (maybe it was the birds chirping).

Fix

The puzzled ones, the Americans, go through their lives
Buying what they are told to buy,
Pursuing their love affairs with the automobile,

Baseball and football, romance and beauty,
Enthusiastic as trained seals, going into debt, struggling —
True believers in liberty, and also security,

And of course sex — cheating on each other
For the most part only a little, mostly avoiding violence
Except at a vast blue distance, as between bombsight and earth,

Or on the violent screen, which they adore.
Those who are not Americans think Americans are happy
Because they are so filthy rich, but not so.

They are mostly puzzled and at a loss
As if someone pulled the floor out from under them,
They’d like to believe in God, or something, and they do try.

You can see it in their white faces at the supermarket and the gas station
— Not the immigrant faces, they know what they want,
Not the blacks, whose faces are hurt and proud —

The white faces, lipsticked, shaven, we do try
To keep smiling, for when we’re smiling, the whole world
Smiles with us, but we feel we’ve lost

That loving feeling. Clouds ride by above us,
Rivers flow, toilets work, traffic lights work, barring floods, fires
And earthquakes, houses and streets appear stable

So what is it, this moon-shaped blankness?
What the hell is it? America is perplexed.
We would fix it if we knew what was broken.

Measuring Elitism

Maybe Obama is an “elitist”. I don’t know. But, I have no doubt that McInsane is an Elitist and this sad little commentary proves it to me. WhatI want to know is how many reTHUGlican Bushie Fools will look at this and shrug it off while telling America how elitist Obama is.

Notice how McInsane uses his war experience as some crown to show the underlings.

The more he says bullshit like this, the more he “should” alienate himself from regular rednecks. But, somehow, I think that many will just push it away… he’s just old, whatever.

Take it from me… this insane asshole is the worst thing that could ever happen to America at this point in time (that is, until Bush calls for Marshall Law and we are stuck with him next year).