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Watching my site stats over the past day, I wondered why all the sudden I was getting a huge amount of hits on this old post, “Flilf – Not Flilf“. Then I read that ass-kisser lost his recent election attempt to Kaptur, after the party he loves so much instigated a redistricting.
Back in 2008, I wanted him as POTUS because he was one of the few anti-war candidates who also was a proponent for Single Payer, Medicare For All Health Care (the only sane system we could have implemented, were it not for the fact that Health Insurance owns Congress and Obama). He was one of the few that seemed to stand up to the Liar-in-Chief. He even wanted to impeach Bush/Cheney (I now see this as political maneuvering to gain anti-war votes, knowing it would be impossible, but at least he tried). He wanted an end to the Federal Reserve. In so many ways, he was the demoRAT Ron Paul, except he seemed to have a heart.
I wrote about him here many times and campaigned for him, as well. I went so far as to suggest he and Ron Paul (another wolf in sheep’s clothing who has fooled many like-minded individuals to myself with his stump rhetoric) run together as POTUS VicePOTUS.
This blog’s search stats tell me that people are searching for Elizabeth, not Dennis (I know they don’t care about Huckabee), so that in itself is telling.
Poor Dennis. You deserve what you get, you wimp. Now join me and the rest of the poor folks without a job.
Did I rub you the wrong way or stroke you just right? Let me know below in the comments section or Email me at buelahman {AT} g m a i l {DOT} com
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All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com
Did I rub you the wrong way or stroke you just right? Let me know below in the comments section or Email me at buelahman {AT} g m a i l {DOT} com
If for some reason you actually liked this post, click the “Like” button below. If you feel like someone else needs to see this (or you just want to ruin someone’s day), click the Share Button at the bottom of the post and heap this upon some undeserving soul. And as sad as this thought may be, it may be remotely possible that us rednecks here at The Revolt please you enough (or more than likely, you are just a glutton for punishment??), that you feel an overwhelming desire to subscribe via the Email subscription and/or RSS Feed buttons found on the upper right hand corner of this page (may the Lord have mercy on your soul).
All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com
Conduct an immediate, independent investigation of 911 (all facets leading up to and after the event). Any and all conspirators and their operatives should be summarily executed upon any finding of guilt (for this would be obvious treason). Any person or organization found to have lied, misrepresented, or hid facts revolving what happened on that fateful day should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (members of the 911 Commission, Zelikow, Bush Admin officials, etc)
“Think Tanks” and other Elitist organizations with obvious blood lust as their mantra should be dismantled and those people held to scrutiny of truth by the American public. No think tank (nor its Zionist operatives,) should be allowed to organize and write battle plans for any military endeavor. No organization or persons should be allowed to blatantly lie about rationale to invade innocent lands and those who did should be prosecuted and held responsible for those lies.
End the “War on Drugs” immediately
End The Empire immediately
End all of wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya… and all proxy wars, coup attempts, and assassinations
Eliminate all off shore military (Empire) bases and bring each and every military personnel home
Eliminate all over-seas money (especially to Israel)
Allow all “Too-Big-To-Fail” banks/corporations to fail like the rest of us when we over-extend or bet away our security.
Abolish Corporate person-hood.
Never vote for a Republican or Democrat (nor any defectors from these parties when we clean house)
Re-balance the power structure of the US Government (Executive power has been increased to dictatorial levels, but to the demise of the congressional power. There should be no presidential “signing statements”. )
Enact campaign finance laws taking corporate money out of elections (heavily scrutinize and hold accountable donations sent to congress people who cater to the whims of that industry: ie; Marsha Blackburn’s heavy telecom money influences her votes regarding legislature that affects them).
Have Term Limits and use a proportional voting system (shorten Senator terms to 4 years and increase Congressional seats to 4)
Minimize congressional pay, retirement and medical benefits (none of these millionaires have done anything to deserve these huge benefits and payouts for the rest of their lives). This should be an honor to serve and no enriching, lifelong career move.
Disallow wives and family members from active participation in congressional matters (example: Max Baucus’ wife). Obvious conflict of interest.
Disallow insider trading of Congressmen (the Congress has 50 times more millionaires than regular citizens, per capita). These people can get inside information and buy/sell stocks. For you or I, this is illegal. For them, its enriching.
Stop the revolving doors of industry/government. Want to know why regulators don’t regulate? Their next employer (the one they are supposed to watch) won’t like it. Look no further than this devil to see why there needs to be no revolving doors (he is responsible for the Patriot Act, much of the Homeland Security apparatus, and untold other secret initiatives AND is an Israeli dual citizen… see next point).
Do not allow dual citizenship personnel to be in our government (there is but one allegiance to as an elected official in America and that is to AMERICA, not Israel, nor any OTHER country). Frankly, as opposed to the Senators who don’t even question such things, I don’t trust anyone who shows allegiance to two different masters. For such devotees can only hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other (Matt 6:24). They certainly cannot be trusted. Period.
Stop all foreign campaign finance and strongarming by lobbying groups whose allegiance is to another country (AIPAC, as an example). What a Zionist wants for America is NOT what is BEST for America, but is BEST for Israel and their world take-over agenda.
Mandatory disclosure of ALL personal information when running for elected office with exclusion and/or prosecution for those who refuse (never allow a dead beat draft dodger or Kenyan with a Connecticut birth certificate… having never actually lived in Connecticut… become leaders of this country).
Audit the FED… hold the thieves accountable… Close the Fed… enact a viable financial system where the government issues currency backed by precious metals (never allow a fiat currency in this country again)
Eliminate the IRS.
Eliminate personal and corporate income tax.
Eliminate the estate (death) tax.
Abolish Obama Care… implement Single Payer, Not-For-Profit healthcare. (Get the middle man insurance companies out of it.)
Immediately reduce Federal spending by 25%, minimum
Eliminate hundreds of unnecessary Federal agencies, including the FDA, Education, Dept of Agriculture, etc (not to mention all the pork and hidden payouts found deep inside bills)
Abolish the Department of Homeland Security and its entire apparatus (especially the TSA)
Repeal the Patriot Act
Prosecute, imprison or execute the ones (including George W Bush) who are responsible for torture to be conducted in our names. Prosecute and imprison any and all presidents who do not hold these murderers accountable, including Barack Obama. Obama, himself, should be held accountable for the murder of American citizens without a trial.
Balance the Budget
Secure our borders, pursue a sane immigration policy
Please add points of interest or correct anything I may have off base in comments…
Did I rub you the wrong way or stroke you just right? Let me know below in the comments section or Email me at buelahman {AT} g m a i l {DOT} com
If for some reason you actually liked this post, click the “Like” button below. If you feel like someone else needs to see this (or you just want to ruin someone’s day), click the Share Button at the bottom of the post and heap this upon some undeserving soul. And as sad as this thought may be, it may be remotely possible that us rednecks here at The Revolt please you enough (or more than likely, you are just a glutton for punishment??), that you feel an overwhelming desire to subscribe via the Email subscription and/or RSS Feed buttons found on the upper right hand corner of this page (may the Lord have mercy on your soul).
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Credit rating agency S&P downgrades US debt from AAA, first debt downgrade in US history ! The United States of America is now rated AA+ with negative outlook by Standard & Poor’s.
The Hurt is only beginning. What we have witnessed in the past 4 years means absolutely nothing. You can expect everything form bread to gas to sky rocket. I hope you have been paying attention and have your shit together, for now the shit is about to hit the proverbial fan.
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We were supposed to take BuelahGirl to the doctor for a check-up related to a busted ear drum which was the result of ear tubes being placed in her ear canals as a means of minimizing ear infections and related sickness. Of course, at the time she had that surgery, I had a good job and good insurance (but was still out several thousands of dollars). Such is the idea of “good insurance” in America.
Since, however, I was laid off (along with the other sales people) from the company, even tho it was my efforts that was keeping them afloat and subsequently, they have made money off of my endeavors, without me being compensated, nor paid the money that I had on the books (in others words, they used me and kept the money I made them). Such is a “good job” in America.
After being ripped off, we used all of our savings and cashed out what little retirement I had accumulated and have been barely getting by on the meager unemployment compensation. But, we were able to qualify my daughter for TennCare, which is supposed to be a life saver for people put into my predicament. The problem is that almost all the doctors we were using refuse to accept Tenncare and now we find ourselves searching for a doctor that will, even though it was the previous doctor’s operation that CAUSED this problem in the first place. Again, such is “good healthcare” in America.
But let me show you what good healthcare actually is by pointing to the world’s Number 1 country… those stinky under-armed French.
Click to enlarge
The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the French health care system as the best in the world. The U.S. system ranks 37th. The complex details of the procedures used to determine these rankings are available on the WHO website. The WHO has hundreds of rankings on health related topics as specific as beer consumption by country. The U.S. fails to distinguish itself favorably in any of them.
Read all of that Rag Blog article to get a taste for how poorly we add up to France and then come here and tell me how we are Number 1. But let me share a quick synopsis:
France spends $3,300 per capita, while we pay $6,400.
Infant mortality in France is 3.9 per 1,000 live births, we are 7.0 per 1,000.
Deaths from respiratory disease in France is 31.2 per 100,000, we are 61.5 per 100,000.
Deaths preventable with good healthcare (amenable mortality) in France is number 1 of 19 industrialized countries, we are last.
65% of the French are satisfied with their healthcare, but only 40% in America are happy (and I would bet it is far lower than that).
The French have Universal coverage, yet we have 15.4% that are not covered at all (and twice that many are UNDERinsured).
French insurance companies MUST offer “guaranteed renewability”, so you can’t be dropped due to illness. Here, let me laugh.
Doctors are paid far less in France, but have no student loans to pay back as we have.
French doctors are mandated to provide preventative care, here, as my doctor recently told me, she only practices AFTER one is sick.
French people can go to any doctor they like, even specialists (without referral) and experience no long waits. But here, I have the exact opposite experience.
France, like us, has new mandatory “Co-Pays”, but a doctor’s visit is roughly $1.42 out of the individual’s pocket… $.71 for a prescription… and a whopping $24/day for a hospital stay. what did you pay in co-pays lately?
Because the French take care of their citizens so well, especially early on, they live longer and have far better lives.
Yes, those filthy French are horrible, aren’t they? They pay far less than us, but have far superior health and lives. Unlike us and our crazy-assed Ayn Rand wannabes who make policy decisions based simply upon self and as much money as can possibly be made, they actually care for each other over there and are willing to help those (the poor) who can’t afford it by taxes and guaranteeing universal healthcare for everyone. Here, in the Greatest Nation In The World (trademark), however, we are so stupid to realize that our system is nothing more than a corrupt money gobbling system intent on as much profit from every avenue they can find a penny to squeeze it from.
And we continue to fall from our self-perceived perch of grandiosity.
We are truly the stupidest people on the face of the planet for allowing it.
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All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com
You Obama Maniacs fought hard to get ObamaCare implemented and the entire time I kept telling you that it was a sham. I fought hard for Single Payer, Universal HealthCare for All and many of you called me a Socialist (not even knowing what the word meant), even tho I showed you time and time again how that type of system is far superior and much cheaper to implement.
The only real justifiable complaint would be that many people would lose their jobs in the middle-man ripoff known as health insurance, but even that fear is not totally encompassing, because those very administrators and employees of Health Insurance would still be needed to carry out similar jobs from the Single Payer entity created.
The biggest issue is removing the profit driven, Corporate control of these leeches and implement a sane and socially responsible system that covers each and every American.
But, B’Man, “ObamaCare will take us where you want us to go!”
You fools!
What has anything associated with Obama done that is beneficial to the American public?
Case in point, the very health insurance rip-offs that fought so hard to get this atrocity passed, lining the pockets of many Congresspeople, including my own from Tennessee, are now fighting to take advantage of the loopholes they made possible.
Read it to find out what I’m saying (I don’t necessarily agree with every point this website projects, but when it comes to following the money, it shows how easy it was for the insurance companies to thwart the very idea of the Sheople’s law).
Actually, there are 733 wavers issued already. Ad there will be many more.
All you sycophantic idiots who “hoped” that “change” would come are instrumental in this thievery (altho I doubt you got the nads to man up and admit it). I still find ObamaManiacs defending the Corptocracy with every breath, so this will be no different.
But I have a track record of calling this stuff right. And any sane person simply needs to go back and look at the one issue that both “sides” fought against tooth and nail for you to get the real picture. Both fought against Single Payer. Both protected health insurance and Big Meds.
That should be enough for anyone to understand, but sadly it won’t be.
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All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com
I am lost and forgotten in this hell where countless Americans exist!! My Unemployment runs out very soon… and also while you read this, know that they only cleared me for $16.00 per month for Food Stamps! Now let me bitch about the new healthcare for Pre-Existing folks. What I feared the most about this bill came true! I knew they all talked about healthcare for everyone– no one turned away or denied. BUT what they never ever said was ’ affordable to the poor”. I contacted the state about the pre-existing Ins. Oh, I can get it– but the premium is 600 per month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Suck, things suck badly! WTF! People need jobs!!!!!!
WASHINGTON — Keeping unemployment benefits flowing for millions of workers whose jobs were eaten by the recession should have been a slam dunk in an election year.
But until this month, Senate Democrats have been unable to bring themselves to pass a simple bill that just does it. Instead they’ve demanded a series of unrelated and often controversial tax and spending add-ons that have enabled Republicans to mount successful filibusters.
Now that the legislation has been shorn of all the extras, the bill could win final passage soon. It can’t come soon enough for more than 2 million people whose checks have been cut off in a five-month impasse in which there’s plenty of blame to go around:
_ Democrats and their leaders made several decisions that in retrospect look like miscalculations, like pulling the rug out from under a bipartisan measure launched back in February and loading a subsequent bill with $24 billion for governors — guaranteeing that most Republicans would vote against it.
_ Republican moderates voted one way in March to help the bill pass but changed their minds just weeks later, having gotten religion from GOP leaders and tea partiers on the budget deficit.
Little remembered amid the ongoing partisanship and recrimination is that jobless benefits also got sideswiped by President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
To reduce the health care bill’s impact on the deficit, Democrats decided to close almost $30 billion in tax loopholes. Until the final health care push, those revenues had been designated to cover the cost of extending other popular family and business tax breaks as part of a broad bipartisan jobless benefits package.
Besides the jobless aid, the measure contained a payroll tax holiday for businesses, tax breaks for business, health insurance subsidies and help for doctors facing a cut in their Medicaid payments. It had support from across the political spectrum, from Obama to conservative Senate Republicans.
Some liberals, however, balked at the deal, which was cut principally by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the committee’s senior Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa. The liberals didn’t like that their “jobs agenda” seemed hijacked by business lobbyists, who won items like research and development tax credits and some arcane measures such as tax breaks for NASCAR tracks. With unemployment hovering just under 10 percent, they also thought it was too light on subsidies for preserving and creating jobs.
So Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blew up the agreement, instead advancing a pared-back jobs bill excusing businesses from having to pay the employer share of Social Security taxes this year on any new workers they hire. Economists were dubious it would produce many jobs. Meanwhile, unemployment aid would wait for later legislation.
“We could have had this bill passed in three days and … Reid decided to scuttle it,” Grassley complained. “Baucus read about it in the paper.”
The delays meant that Congress had to pass a short-term extension of jobless benefits at the end of February. Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked out a deal for a quick vote to avoid an interruption in benefits.
But another Kentucky Republican, Sen. Jim Bunning, single-handedly held up the bill for days, demanding that government spending elsewhere be cut to pay for the jobless benefits rather than add to the federal debt. Bunning folded on March 2. But his fight resonated with tea partiers and millions of other voters worried about year after year of trillion-dollar deficits.
In the meantime, Reid resurrected the longer-term jobless aid package. He mixed in familiar elements like extending expired tax breaks and added a $24 billion package of aid to cash-starved state governments so they could avoid layoffs of tens of thousands of public employees — a key part of last year’s economic stimulus bill.
The result was a bill adding almost $100 billion to the deficit. That meant that GOP support would be limited. But it still passed in March with support from several Republicans, including key moderate Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio.
That was the bill’s high point. The political sands soon began to shift.
Another short-term unemployment insurance extension — needed to buy time for negotiations on the bigger bill — came at the end of March. It would be the last. Beginning in June, hundreds of thousands of workers unemployed for more than six months started losing the weekly checks.
More Republicans picked up on Bunning’s position and demanded cuts in other programs, including Obama’s $862 billion stimulus bill passed a year earlier, to pay for the extension.
It was a message the party felt increasingly comfortable with after losing the health care fight, especially as the European debt crisis roiled the markets and the U.S. government’s debt topped $13 trillion. Republicans stressed that with the unemployment rate still near double digits, jobless benefits averaging $300 a week should be extended — but that they should be paid for.
“You never know in politics when that magic moment comes when things really begin to change, but I believe that it has occurred now,” GOP Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona told reporters March 26. “I think you’ll see a much greater commitment now to fiscal responsibility.”
The short-term jobless aid extension passed, but it took until late May for their House and Senate negotiators to agree on a longer-term jobless aid package featuring new business tax increases but still racking up $115 billion in new government debt over the next decade.
This time, conservative House Democrats recoiled. House leaders were forced to sharply pare the measure back, eliminating new aid for state governments as well as a longer-term fix for doctors threatened with a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments.
The House passed the bill on May 28, returning the measure to the Senate, where debate consumed the Senate’s entire June schedule. Democrats still wanted to help governors with their payrolls but ultimately acceded to cutting it by one-third and paying for it partly with cuts from last year’s stimulus bill. Even that measure failed just before Congress recessed for the July 4 holiday.
Reid is now resigned to a stand-alone six-month extension of unemployment benefits at a cost of $33 billion. Aides say he will try to pass it when West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin names a successor to fill the seat of Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who died two weeks ago. Those who lost benefits will get them retroactively.
Democrats also maintain hopes of passing a $16 billion aid package for governors aimed at preserving the jobs of tens of thousands of state workers through the election. They intend to pay for it in part by cutting food stamp benefits.
All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Redstate Revolt or WordPress.com
These are the figures for U.S. Trade per Country….
Call me crazy– but first : I don’t believe ‘all’ the figures
and secondly I just keep thinking ‘ what exactly did we trade for that couldn’t of been produced here?”
And why the hell do we trade with our enemies???? To win their hearts and minds…? How about winning your own citizens hearts and minds so they can get back to work, make a liveable wage, stay healthy… and pay into their own systems .
WhoWhatWhy lays it all out for you, but the synopsis is that Big Money had the last POTUS election gamed. Really, people, this is so very easy to understand by simply following the money:
Last August, the presidential press corps followed Barack Obama and his family to Martha’s Vineyard for their brief vacation. The coverage focused on summery fare-a visit to an ice cream parlor, the books the president had brought along. Nearly everyone mentioned his few rounds of golf, including his swing, and the enthusiasm of onlookers. What caught my eye, though, was the makeup of his foursome. The president was joined by an old friend from Chicago; a young aide; and Robert Wolf, Chairman and CEO, UBS Group Americas. In a decidedly incurious piece, a New York Times reporter made light of Wolf’s presence:
“The president has told friends that to truly relax he prefers golfing with young aides…But he departed from that pattern Monday when he invited a top campaign contributor, Robert Wolf, president of UBS Investment Bank, to join him for 18 holes. Call it donor maintenance.”Wolf, however, is hardly—as the Times suggested— just another donor. For one thing, he is a leading figure in an industry that almost brought down the entire financial system—and then was the recipient of astonishing government largesse. UBS, along with other banks, benefited directly from the backdoor bailout of the insurance giant AIG.
But UBS stands alone in one rather formidable respect—it was the defendant in the largest offshore tax evasion case in U.S. history, accused of helping wealthy Americans hide their income in secret offshore accounts. To settle a massive investigation, UBS forked over $780 million to the US treasury. This settlement came shortly before Wolf rounded out Obama’s golfing party. Given this rather problematical situation, why then would the President choose UBS’s Wolf of all people for this honor?
Wolf declined a request for an interview about his relationship with the President, so it was not possible to pose that question to him. This hardly matters, though, for the story goes far beyond Wolf and UBS. It involves Republicans as well as Democrats, the Bush Administration as well as Obama’s. More importantly, behind the trivialized golf outing on Martha’s Vineyard, lie the interests that increasingly set the course for every administration.
BOTH SIDES NOW
When most people criticize those aspects of government that seem most impervious to the democratic process, they cite the permanency and perceived self-interest of the mandarins of the Washington bureaucracy. But when it comes to real power, an ability to come out ahead no matter which party is in power, it’s hard to top certain financial institutions.
UBS is very much a part of that permanent government. Though not a household name in the United States, UBS is a major player in the Beltway game. During the 2008 campaign, while Robert Wolf was courting Democratic hopeful Obama, his UBS cohort, former Senator Phil Gramm, was working the other side of the street. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee in the 1990s, Gramm, a corporate-friendly Texas Republican, played a key role in the deregulation of the banking industry, an act so central to the nation’s financial collapse. Since 2002, Gramm has been UBS Americas’ vice chairman. In 2008, he was the leading economics adviser for Obama’s opponent, John McCain— and even touted as a possible treasury secretary in a McCain administration.
The bottom line: UBS hedged its bets, and so had an inside track no matter which party took the White House. Thus, when Obama won, it was Wolf who ascended. The new president named the banker-donor to his White House Economic Advisory Board…
You see, my redneck friends, all you got to do is play both sides of the single headed monster and you win. What, no money to buy them off?
Contact:
Oliver Fein, M.D.
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.
David Himmelstein, M.D.
Margaret Flowers, M.D.
Mark Almberg, PNHP, (312) 782-6006, mark@pnhp.org
The following statement was released today by leaders of Physicians for a National Health Program, www.pnhp.org. Their signatures appear below.
As much as we would like to join the celebration of the House’s passage of the health bill last night, in good conscience we cannot. We take no comfort in seeing aspirin dispensed for the treatment of cancer.
Instead of eliminating the root of the problem – the profit-driven, private health insurance industry – this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers’ defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money.
The hype surrounding the new health bill is belied by the facts:
About 23 million people will remain uninsured nine years out. That figure translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering.
Millions of middle-income people will be pressured to buy commercial health insurance policies costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, potentially leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill. Many will find such policies too expensive to afford or, if they do buy them, too expensive to use because of the high co-pays and deductibles.
Insurance firms will be handed at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the purchase of their shoddy products. This money will enhance their financial and political power, and with it their ability to block future reform.
The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals, threatening the care of the tens of millions who will remain uninsured.
People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan’s limited network of providers, face ever-rising costs and erosion of their health benefits. Many, even most, will eventually face steep taxes on their benefits as the cost of insurance grows.
Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as the experience with the Massachusetts plan (after which this bill is patterned) amply demonstrates.
The much-vaunted insurance regulations – e.g. ending denials on the basis of pre-existing conditions – are riddled with loopholes, thanks to the central role that insurers played in crafting the legislation. Older people can be charged up to three times more than their younger counterparts, and large companies with a predominantly female workforce can be charged higher gender-based rates at least until 2017.
Women’s reproductive rights will be further eroded, thanks to the burdensome segregation of insurance funds for abortion and for all other medical services.
It didn’t have to be like this. Whatever salutary measures are contained in this bill, e.g. additional funding for community health centers, could have been enacted on a stand-alone basis.
Similarly, the expansion of Medicaid – a woefully underfunded program that provides substandard care for the poor – could have been done separately, along with an increase in federal appropriations to upgrade its quality.
But instead the Congress and the Obama administration have saddled Americans with an expensive package of onerous individual mandates, new taxes on workers’ health plans, countless sweetheart deals with the insurers and Big Pharma, and a perpetuation of the fragmented, dysfunctional, and unsustainable system that is taking such a heavy toll on our health and economy today.
This bill’s passage reflects political considerations, not sound health policy. As physicians, we cannot accept this inversion of priorities. We seek evidence-based remedies that will truly help our patients, not placebos.
A genuine remedy is in plain sight. Sooner rather than later, our nation will have to adopt a single-payer national health insurance program, an improved Medicare for all. Only a single-payer plan can assure truly universal, comprehensive and affordable care to all.
By replacing the private insurers with a streamlined system of public financing, our nation could save $400 billion annually in unnecessary, wasteful administrative costs. That’s enough to cover all the uninsured and to upgrade everyone else’s coverage without having to increase overall U.S. health spending by one penny.
Moreover, only a single-payer system offers effective tools for cost control like bulk purchasing, negotiated fees, global hospital budgeting and capital planning.
Polls show nearly two-thirds of the public supports such an approach, and a recent survey shows 59 percent of U.S. physicians support government action to establish national health insurance. All that is required to achieve it is the political will.
The major provisions of the present bill do not go into effect until 2014. Although we will be counseled to “wait and see” how this reform plays out, we cannot wait, nor can our patients. The stakes are too high.
We pledge to continue our work for the only equitable, financially responsible and humane remedy for our health care mess: single-payer national health insurance, an expanded and improved Medicare for All.
Oliver Fein, M.D.
President
Garrett Adams, M.D.
President-elect
Claudia Fegan, M.D.
Past President
Margaret Flowers, M.D.
Congressional Fellow
David Himmelstein, M.D.
Co-founder
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D.
Co-founder
Quentin Young, M.D.
National Coordinator
Don McCanne, M.D.
Senior Health Policy Fellow
******
Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is an organization of 17,000 doctors who support single-payer national health insurance. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.
IT FORCES 50 MILLION AMERICANS TO BUY AN INSURANCE PRODUCT FROM KNOWN CROOKS!
IT IS NOT “SOCIALIZED” MEDICINE. These people are just repeating what the Republican leadership have told them to say–people like Chuck Grassley who have done nothing but lie about the content of the bill.
IT IS WALL STREET CORPORATE PREDATOR MEDICINE.
IT HAS NO SAFEGUARD OF ANOTHER CHOICE, ANOTHER PLACE OTHER THAN WALL STREET FOR AMERICANS TO GO TO PURCHASE THEIR INSURANCE. IT HAS NO PUBLIC OPTION.
IT IS NOT A “GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER” YOU FOOLS! IT IS JUST ANOTHER WALL STREET TAKEOVER.
Her Highness provided a youtube clip of a young student as he interviews various partiers and gets their incoherent and erroneous responses.
Doesn’t that just say it all? Is it just me, but wouldn’t it make just a bit more sense if these people actually knew what they hell they were protesting? And let me just say right here and now, if you have the audacity to wear a GW Bush hat after those 8 years, you are totally beyond any hope. Its like a Bush bumper sticker on your car: surely you are so embarrassed by your two votes that put that imbecile (and his evil handler, Dick) in office, that you long ago scraped that off (even if the paint or the bumper, itself, had to go).
If this is what it means to be in a Tea party, ya’ll can have it.
For certain it will be the Republicans from poor areas who don’t endorse the health care bill who will suffer the most.
Yep that’s how it’s shaping up. Many of the Republicans who long touted that the Democrats will lose the House and the Senate if they vote for health care reform look like they could lose out in November if they vote against the health care bill.
Virginia Foxx, a Republican Congresswoman from the 5th Congressional District of North Carolina might be ammong the Republican casualties in November…
Wouldn’t that be great, except that it could get much, MUCH better than putting Corporately owned and controlled Democrats such as Dennis Kucinich back in the office where they, like the Senate’s Bernie Sanders, can simply back off from principle and promises because standing for what is right might “Undermine The Entire Process“. Well, duh, you damned old fool. That is exactly what needs to be done. Disrupt the giveaway and make the system right. So, with this kowtowing remark, we lost the only seemingly sensible Senator we had.
They ALL suck.
Let us acknowledge that and get rid of every damned one of them next election cycle.
Simply do NOT vote another incumbent and ignore the two parties. For even the “Independent” Bernie Sanders has no spine after being in for so long.
They ALL must go.
If Democrats really get serious about real health care reform as Harry Reid has promised and pass the public option in the next couple of months, it’s all over for the Republicans in November.
The Democratic health care reform would have the full support of 82% of the American people.
The Republican liars like Ghuck Grassley with his lies about “death panels” and other Republican poliiticians with their lies about the bill supporting abortion could very well be toast.
But if the Democrats are not careful and do not support a strong public option they can lose as well–not to Republicans, but to independents. More and more Americans are beginning to get the ties of Congress–both Republicans and Democrats–to Wall Street. We are not so dumb that we don’t get the connection between 50 million forced Wall Street Health Insurance customers and the stock portfolios of the 263 multimillionaires in Congress.
The power of one!
Granny not only walked across America for Campaign Reform– she stayed actively involved staying on-top of things in Washington. She passed this week– I hope her spirit stays alive within us all to keep being watch-dogs!Her legendary 3200 mile, 2 year walk across the country at 90 years of age raised awareness about campaign finance reform and resulted in the passage of the Mccain-Feingold Bill
Progressives may be denied their overriding health care priority this time around, but according to President Barack Obama, it won’t be over with this bill.
Obama urged leading progressive Democrats in a closed-door meeting Thursday evening to back the health care bill, placating their concerns about the public option and warning them that the liberal agenda was at stake.
Obama told the group of House members he thought the public plan didn’t have the votes this time, but reportedly assured them he’ll revisit it after the bill’s passage, warning that failure would imperil the issue for a generation.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said after the meeting that Obama’s message was, “If this opportunity passes, much of our agenda, on the progressive side…it would be difficult, if not impossible for a generation to get back to this issue,” according to Talking Points Memo.
“To maintain a strong presidency we need to pass this bill,” Grijalva summarized Obama’s remarks.
Are you f#cking kidding me? Do you seriously believe that the majority of Americans believe you, Mr Obama (I am not talking about the complicit thieves and callous assholes who you are “acting” to convince)? I am talking about the real Americans that have heard each and every lie you told in the campaign. We remember who you are and what you said before, then how you obviously and purposefully deceived at least half of America that you care about us.
I remember how you were outraged with rendition, torture, Gitmo, the Iraq War, etc, etc, etc, (ad nauseum) but haven’t done a thing with that feigned outrage to enact any changes.
Well, since it is YOU saying so, don’t expect many to believe you. But we will expect the complicit lapdogs and health insurance money takers to fall right in line and screw us again.
BuelahMan
Lynda
drduhgylie
ConspiracyDude
TINMA
