Where In The World Is Universal Healthcare? France

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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Related articles

• Proposed reimbursement rate cut for TennCare providers may mean even fewer services available (knoxnews.com)
• Why healthcare costs so much in the U.S. (dailykos.com)
• Healthcare in America (jsexton0.blogspot.com)
• ObamaCare: How Stupid Are The Sheople, Really? (buelahman.wordpress.com)
• Also Read These for more from B’Man on Universal Healthcare
• More “Where In The World Is Universal Healthcare” at B’Man’s Revolt

Pro-single-payer doctors: Health bill leaves 23 million uninsured

A false promise of reform

For Immediate Release
March 22, 2010

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.

If Liz Were Queen, We Would Undermine The Entire Process

I read at a place called “If Liz Were Queen“. Nice blog, especially when it comes to the health care/health insurance issues/debate/giveaway. She explains why the Tea Partiers Are Clueless To What Is Really Wrong With The Health Care Legislation:

WHAT IS REALLY WRONG WITH THIS BILL?

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.

Her Highness also points out that the Republicans May Have The Tables Turned On Them Over Health Care In November:

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.

Stopping The Health Insurance Give-away Bill

Dennis the Chamberlain, don't forget to grab the train of the King's robe

Should we trust Dennis ever again?

Nope. He sold his soul to the devil, himself.

As Kurt Nimmo writes at Infowars:

Meanwhile, Obama managed to arm-twist one-time totalitarian care opponent Dennis Kucinich into backing the plan Democrats say they will enact without votes in Congress. Obama had summoned Kucinich to Air Force One and Dennis kissed the ring. “Even though I don’t like the bill, I’ve made a decision to support it in the hope that we can move to a more comprehensive approach once this legislation is done,” he told reporters.

Apparently Kucinich no longer consider Obama’s totalitarian care plan a sham. In October, he said the entire legislative package was “a bailout for insurance companies.” The American people are “being mandated to buy private insurance. If you read the bill, the people are going to end up paying — the insurance companies can raise rates 25 percent right off the bat, if you read the bill,” said Kucinich.

Dennis Kucinich, one of a very small number of Democrats who originally opposed Obamacare, now apparently believes it is fine and dandy for the government to force the commoners to buy health care insurance at gunpoint. He also believes large insurance corporations deserve a monopoly in partnership with the government.

Should we ever trust Dennis Kucinich again? I think not.

Dennis tried to defend his indefensible traitor action (piece of shit, lying scumbag), presented at AfterDowningStreet

Single Payer advocates explain reality to the Corporate whores, Howard Dean and John Conyers. h/t SinglePayerAction

And we also get the benefit (read as “sham”) of having the senate protect the health insurance premium double digit increases.

There may be but one way to stop this horrendous bill: Wait until the individual states sue.

Raw Story explains that Virginia will sue

(not that you would think it is a good idea from the Dem party sycophants commenting there)

Or maybe Idaho (thanks to AfterDowningStreet) for the link:

Idaho on Wednesday became the first state to pass a law saying no thanks to part of President Obama’s health care proposal.

The Idaho Health Care Freedom Act says in part, “every person within the state of Idaho is and shall be free to choose or decline to choose any mode of securing health care services without penalty or threat of penalty.”

Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, a Republican, said Wednesday he signed it because he believes any health care laws should ensure people are “treated as an individual, rather than as an amorphous mass whose only purpose in this world is to obey federal mandates.”

Several other states may follow suit.

And of course, the obvious next step in the plan is to abolish Medicare and Medicaid. Walgreens in Washington State will stop accepting medicare payments for meds (which will be the last day my family will ever shop in their stores in TN or anywhere else, for that matter)

Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement.

The company, which operates 121 stores in the state, will continue filling Medicaid prescriptions for current patients.

In a news release, Walgreens said its decision to not take new Medicaid patients stemmed from a “continued reduction in reimbursement” under the state’s Medicaid program, which reimburses it at less than the break-even point for 95 percent of brand-name medications dispensed to Medicaid patents. (h/t PrisonPlanet)

If you want to see a non-corporately owned person explain the truth in opposition to the flip-flopping Kucinich at Democracy Now. Watch as Nader says the truth about the bill and how Dennis cannot explain himself without admitting he had to kowtow to corporate pressures.

Dennis, you know that Obama is not going to help real America. Ralph knows this and is unapologetic in explaining it.

The video at the Democracy Now link is one of the most important you can see that not only tears Dennis a new asshole, but explains exactly what is happening in this bill. Dennis, however, is owned and indebted to the Corporately owned Democratic party. And as far as I am concerned, he can have them and suck on them and do whatever it is he needs to do to kiss their ass. At least Ralph didn’t.

At the end, Dennis shows his true colors and that his dedication and motivation is to protect Obama and the Dem Party.

This, in and of itself, is enough to write him off as I have.

B’man’s Piece of Shit Watch: Dennis Kucinich Has Decided Principle Is Meaningless

Until today, I have thought of Dennis Kucinich as a real leader. One that was beyond reproach. One, that I even put over Nader (for a few reasons). I wrote about him this morning, in defense against Ms Hamsher’s post (she was damned right and I was damned wrong). But her warning should now go out. Give back every dime, you coward.

I have focused Dennis on my B’Man’s Patriot Watch more than once and even considered him a hero. I have given money to this man and I don’t live in his district. I have supported him and would continue to support him, IF he hadn’t emasculated himself in front of the entire country. He allowed Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi to screw us and he didn’t even put up a whimper of a fight. He was the only one who “acted” as if he truly wanted change. But, he doesn’t want change, what he has is “a real desire to see our president succeed“.

But you, not so much.

Dennis, you cowardly piece of shit.

Let me apologize to anyone who considers me a critical thinker and/or one who can pin people fairly accurately (I couldn’t have been MORE wrong about this man) and provide you with something that a past president said of honesty in politics (and I have argued SHOULD be the case, but is no more):

We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity.”: Theodore Roosevelt – (1858-1919) 26th US President

It is not at all possible to believe a single one of these fuckers. Thank you, Dennis Kucinich, you piece of shit, for showing me that my only real glimmer of hope is nothing more than another kowtowing, pissy little fucker who was bought and paid for by bullshit.

There are those of us who know better.

You just fucked up, Dennis. Big time. I wonder which Demublican asslicker is going to replace you?

Scott puts it as well or better than old B’Man can at AmericanEveryman:

Dennis took a plane ride with Obama and sold us out. Threw us right the fuck under the bus. He sold us out after talking to Obama and Pelosi. He sold us out because he was told that without his support other progressives would also hold out and Pelosi would have to use the “deem and pass” trick to force Obamacare on the American people. That action would harm her rep and Obama’s rep. So he flipped his vote without getting a goddamn thing in exchange.

The one thing he said at the end was that he “didn’t like the process” that has taken place on this bill, when he was asked about the threat of the “deem and pass” possibility. He hung his head and said, “look, if your looking for someone to say they approve of the way this bill was handled, I’m not the guy. I don’t like anything about how this bill was passed. I’m voting “yes” and that is it.”

Possibly a little insight into what happened on that plane flight to Cleveland. BUT I DON”T GIVE A SHIT. Real leaders continue to stand NO MATTER WHAT THE FUCKING CONSEQUENCES.

Here that Dennis? you piece of shit.

Did Martin Luther King cave, you cowardly motherfucker? Did JFK in the end?

They were heros, you’re a punk. End of story.

The Great Demdini: Bad Magicians and Even Worse “Sleight of Hand”

Here we are all in the audience, watching the “Great Demdini” of political movements ooo and ahhh you with their bag of tricks and I am the guy sitting behind you saying, “Can’t you see the strings? He has doves under his cape. That hat has a rabbit already in it. Can’t you see?”

You see, these magicians are so used to being able to fool you because they have for so long that they don’t really care if many of us see the illusion. Apparently there are enough patsies to yell down the observant ones.

The let down for me is akin to having tickets to see David Copperfield, but he gets sick (or arrested) and I am forced to see Lance Burton (if you have seen these two, you know what I mean by the difference in the shows’ quality and the magicians, themselves). It is night and day difference.

I’m sitting here and all you folks think Lance Burton is “The Greatest Magician” to ever live, while I see every string, wire and false prop. I see every move he makes when he highlights his left hand, but I concentrate on his right.

The Great Demdini is pulling a snake from his sleeve, but it is one of those fake snakes that comes in a can. But you still wooo, ahhh, as if you are amazed.

I’m sitting here, yelling, “WTF is wrong with you people? Don’t you want your money back? This is a rip. I want Copperfield.”

But you are amazed and entertained and happy with the fact that you have just been had.

Enter The Public Option:

It is the trick that the Great Demdini is pulling. But it is so obvious that it is a canned, paper snake. It isn’t even a good rubber snake. Hell, it doesn’t even look like a snake, but a slinky with paper on it.

Kip Sullivan at PHNP calls it the “bait and switch” (which is sorta the same thing). Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is warning his constituents what I have been warning to everyone, especially the Ass Kissing Sycophants at C&L and every other Faux Liberal “Big Blog” that it is all sleight of hand… smoke and mirrors. They have you oooing and ahhing over something that is so watered down, bogus and set to make the Health Insurance even MORE money and still not offer a real, competitive value to the citizenry, that MILLIONS of people will fall thru the cracks.

Wyden is saying, in so many words, that “option” advocates, with help from the media and the blogosphere, have fooled the public into thinking everyone will be eligible to buy insurance from the “option,” and when the public finds out this isn’t true, they’re not going to be happy.

You ass kissers are enamoured by the lies that you look just like the Bushies who proceeded you in allowing this country to fall to the depths we have fallen. You ass kissers are precisely the same unthinking, gullible and complicit type of group. You want to know why I get mad at so-called “Liberals”. It’s because you are Bushie lites. You are intertwined and loving the fake two party BS. You have allowed the bad magicians to do shit that any blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other, normal person would have seen long ago.

Are you just stupid or intentionally a part of the screwing? Either way, you are not part of the solution.

But you will applaud when the words “Public Option” are thrown around, as if this is going to help all of us who see the reality of such a foolish ploy. You get angry because I am pointing out that Lance isn’t worth the price of admission and that we were duped.

I was not surprised by Wyden’s observation. I have written several papers warning the public that they have been the object of a “bait and switch” campaign by the leadership of the “option” movement. The “bait” in this campaign was the original version of the “option” promoted by Jacob Hacker. This version would have created an enormous public program that would have insured half the non-elderly population. Among several provisions of this first version of the “option” that would have ensured large size was one that said the “option” had to be available to all non-elderly Americans. The “switch” occurred when Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and three chairmen of House committees drafted legislation that would create a very small and weak “option.” One of the provisions in the Democrats’ legislation that ensured their version of the “option” would be weak was a provision limiting subsidies and eligibility for the “option” to a small fraction of the population, namely, the uninsured and employees of small firms.

I want Copperfield. Lance Burton pales in comparison.

Copperfield is the real magician who can provide Single Payer health care for all. Lance Burton is no more than a bad illusionist with a bad plan to rip even more

(Side note: I have seen both of these magicians on multiple occasions and it is clear that Copperfield’s set, and his performance is head and shoulders above Lance’s. Simply no comparison.)

Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential – By jacksmith – Working Class (Guest Post)

A majority of voters would rather have a Democrats only bill with a Public Option. Rather than a bipartisan bill without a Public Option.

ATTENTION!! Congress Has The Votes Needed To Pass A Public Option – TODAY

Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential – By jacksmith – Working Class

Robert Reich explains the pubic option:  (His Blog)

Hollywood Supports The Public Option

It’s not just because more than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% republicans). Basically everyone.

It’s not just because according to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. With 79% of seniors supporting creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!!

It’s not just because it will lower cost. Because a strong public option will dramatically lower cost for everyone. And dramatically improved the quality of care everyone receives in America and around the World. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.

It’s not just because it will save trillions of dollars and prevent the needless deaths of millions more of YOU, caused by a rush to profit by the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!

It’s not just because every expert in every field, including economist, and Nobel laureates all agree that free market based healthcare systems don’t work. Never have and never will. The US has the only truly free market based healthcare system in the World. And as you all know now, IT IS A DISASTER!

It’s not just because providing or denying medically necessary care for profit motivations is wrong. Because it is WRONG! It’s professionally, ethically, and morally REPUGNANT!, Animalistic, VILE and EVIL.

THE REASON THE PUBLIC OPTION IS ESSENTIAL:

The public option is ESSENTIAL because over 200 million of you are trapped in the forest of the wolves. Which is the forest of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! With no way out except through needless inhumane suffering, and DEATH. While the wolves tear at your flesh, and rip you limb from lib. Then feast on your lifeless bodies like a dead carcase for transplant parts.

At the most vulnerable times of your lives (when you were sick and hurting), millions of you have had to fight and loose cruel, but heroic battles. Fighting against the big guns of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! in the forest of the wolves. All because you have no place else to go. You have no other CHOICE!

But the PUBLIC OPTION will give you someplace safe to go. And it will give us someplace safe to take you. The public option will be your refugium (your refuge). Where the wolves cannot get at you when your down, hurting, and vulnerable. Where everyone who needs it can find rest, security, comfort and the care they need. Protected by the BIG GUNS of We The People Of The United States. THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE AND COUNTRY ON EARTH.

This is why it is so critical that we do not lead another 50 million vulnerable, uninsured Americans into the forest of the wolves, without the protections of a Strong Government-run MEDICARE like public option. We The People Of The United States MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN to any more of our fellow Americans. If healthcare reform does not contain a strong MEDICARE like public option on day one. YOU MUST! KILL IT. Or you will do far more harm than good. And millions more will die needlessly. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.

To those who would continue to obstruct good and true healthcare reform for the American people, and who seek to trap millions more vulnerable Americans in the forest of the wolves. We will continue to fight you. We are prepared to wage all out war against you, and will eagerly DESTROY! you. Time…is…UP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! No Co-op’s! No Triggers! NO INDIVIDUAL MANDATES! without a Strong MEDICARE like public option on day one.

Healthcare reform can be the GREATEST! Accomplishment of our time and century. A time when future generations may say of us, that we were all, AMERICAS GREATEST GENERATIONS.

BUT WE MUST ACT!

I therefore call on all my fellow Americans and the peoples of the World. To join us in this fight so that we may finish becoming the better America that we aspire to be for everyone.

SPREAD THE WORD!

I have been privileged to be witness as many of you fought, and struggled to take your first breath, and your last breath on this earth. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Life is precious.

Whatever the cost. WE! MUST SUCCEED.

God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings

jacksmith – Working Class

Things You Can Do To Help NOW!

No Triggers!

Triggers

Krugman on heathcare

Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare

John Garamendi on the Public Option and the Grassroots

Howard Dean on the Public Option

We’re Number 37! in quality of health care

Twitter search (#welovethenhs #NHS #hc09 #hcr #healthcar #obama #p2 #topprog #) Check it out.

Tea Baggers Need A Hero

I present Bill Rice.

Yes, even you can be a right-wing retarded hero. All you have to do is punch a person in the face (TWICE) and get your finger bit off.

I grew up with some Rices and the ones I know would be exactly the same way as this aggressive assaulter.

And fair warning to any of you who believe that throwing a punch at me would go unattended… I will bite off whatever I can get my mouth on if you choose to punch me in that way.

Hero or not.

Tea Baggers, please find another hero to worship.

Isn’t Joe The Plumber still around?

A Week Of Celebrations and My First Single Payer Rally

Celebrate? For what, you ask?

Arguably, there is little to celebrate when it comes to the Real State of The Union (or the World, for that matter). So, I take ‘em where I can get ‘em.

Monday was BuelahGirl’s fifth birthday. We had a small get together with family and are going to plan an excursion to the bowling alley with her little friends next weekend.

 

Then Tuesday was Buelahlady’s and my 19th anniversary. We celebrated with BuelahGirl since all the babysitters are sick and I must say that I spent $75 on a meal that I could have made at least 10 times better (for a fraction of the price). I knew I should have cooked for my baby (BuelahLady) instead of going out. At least the Rum and Coke was good.

BTW: I am the chief chef and bottle Washer around here, as well. I would challenge virtually anyone to a “steak off” (or ribs, chops, anything on the grill). I have never eaten a better steak than I can cook myself. Period.

On another note, my birthday is the 31st. We are supposed to go to my hometown to visit with my mom who has recently been diagnosed with Giant cell arteritis and polymyalgia rheumatica. These conditions are debilitating, especially if not treated.

So, how well has her healthcare been? Her Primary doctor never did figure it out and said it was a reaction to Fosamax. However, after 2 MONTHS, they finally got her a visit with a specialist in Huntsville, AL (a 2hour drive one way) who diagnosed her issue and gave her Prednisone (which has already begun to ease her pain).

The point is that healthcare sucks in the SE USA and I suspect that either the rest of the country has good care or you are all a bunch of fools defending a fucked up system.

On top of all of this, my new job has me very busy trying to sell, so I have limited time to post my normal atrocious bleh. So put up with this until I get back from my first Single Payer rally I am attending today in Jackson, TN (I have been asked to speak, but not so sure I will actually get to a mike… but by God, if I do…)

I’ll update later.

PS: to Dawg, Kelso and LoveBabz

Sorry I missed the show the other night. We didn’t get back until much later than I expected. I did listen to it yesterday and wished I could have made it during airing.

Canadians Setting The Record Straight On Their Universal Healthcare

What do you do when people tell lies about you? Do you sit around and ignore it?

What do you do when people seem to intentionally misrepresent something about America or our particular issues? Do you explain the issue and squash the rhetoric?

Thank goodness these Canadians have heard enough of the bullshit and want to set the record straight:

Universal Health Care Message to Americans From Canadian Doctors & Health Care Experts

Canadian Doctors for Medicare hosted a celebration of Medicare in Canada. The speakers included Roy Romanow, former Saskatchewan Premiere and Commissioner on Health Care in Canada. They tell Americans that Canadian universal health care works and encourage Americans to implement a single payer universal health care systems.

Then, to contrast, we have our government officials telling us that government can’t help them:

Sen Coburn Tells Women Crying Over Health Care “Govt Is Not The Answer”

h/t AfterDowningstreet

Methinks that our government officials are owned; lock, stock and barrel.

B’Man’s Scar Watch: What Good Is The Middle Man?

A tremendous h/t to Tengrain for this clip of Rep Anthony Weiner making Joe Scarborough go totally silent about health insurance value. I have been saying this for a long time and I wish people, especially the “conservatives” (you know, the ones who claim to conserve money), would wake up to the reality that the Health Insurance Companies are middlemen that offer nothing value-added to the quotient of health care. Period.

They are detrimental because they exponentially add to the costs and make what should be a social issue, a profit driven issue. They are the “death panels”, they are the ones killing people, not any government run system. Can the government funded system (Medicare) be improved? Of course. One sure way is to get BCBS out of its pocket. In 2003 the Bush Admin made changes to the law that are instrumental in many of the issues that conservatives bitch about now. Allow private insurers to get involved with the public system and it goes to shit.

Morning Joe: Democrats fight for the public option

more about “Morning Joe:Democrats fight for the p…“, posted with vodpod

How The HealthCare Kabuki Is Danced

Kabuki Dance is a Japanese dance style, but is used to describe “an activity or drama carried out in real life in a predictable or stylized fashion“. Many people use this description to say that something is staged and acted out when the outcome is already known. This is exactly what has happened in the healthcare “debate”, which has only been a show for the Gullible Sheople to entertain themselves by and for the Elitists to confuse those Sheople by.

They have been trying to sway the most gullible American Sheople (the Progressives) with the “Public Option” and at the same time, flirting with the Big Insurance and Big Meds folks to keep their campaign money flowing and profits skyrocketing. The right has demonized the entire process and have lost all sensible argument with “Death Panels” and “Socialized Medicine”, etc. This has caused even more confusion among the masses of both sides and has tainted the overall view of any reform.

THAT is the dance.

But reality tells us a different thing all together. reality would mean that the right-wing idiots clamoring over themselves to shout someone down would have to shut up long enough to learn the truth. Progressives will have to stop sucking off Mr Obama and believing that he gives a fuck about them or anyone else except his coffers.

It is time that Americans turn their back on the dance and start their own play… their own controlled dance of helath and human prosperity… not the health and corporate prosperity. TarHeel88 breaks it down like this in the article called, “The WORST of Both Worlds. “Corporate Obama” & The Reactionary Right.”:

THIS IS really what the health care debate is about. By using racism and scapegoating to reframe the discussion, the right hopes to avoid a genuine discussion about real health care reform in the U.S. Central to this effort are the so-called Blue Dog–or more aptly, Blue Cross–Democrats, a caucus of conservatives in the party. This group is incredibly hostile even to Obama’s watered-down health care reform, because they are bitterly opposed to the notion that health care should be a right and not a privilege.

The irony is that Obama has already bowed to business interests on health care, just as he has on other issues. While the Obama administration was willing to give the banks that created the economic catastrophe tens of billions of dollars and demand little or nothing in return, Obama forced auto manufacturers into bankruptcy while demanding that their unions give up long-held and hard-fought gains in health care, retirement and wages as well as agree to massive job loss.

Moreover, where Obama the presidential candidate vowed to fight for Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make joining a union easier, President Obama abandoned the legislation early on and has rarely even mentioned the bill’s name.

Today, states across the country are facing bankruptcy, and budget cuts threaten thousands of state-funded social programs. Yet Obama stands by watching, effectively saying–as President Gerald Ford did more than 30 years ago when New York City was on the cusp of financial collapse–”Drop dead.”

The pattern could not be clearer. Corporations and bank profits come first; ordinary people, last. This was not the “change” people were looking for when they voted for Obama. As the economy crashed last autumn, Obama rallied millions of Americans with the hope and expectation that his administration would represent a break with the status quo and would fight for real change in Washington. Today, though, the Obama health care initiative stands as only the latest example of how far Obama’s policies have moved from his promises.

Back when he was an Illinois state senator, Obama favored a single-payer, Medicare-type health care plan like that of Canada and Western European countries. Presidential candidate Obama backed off his support for single-payer, but still supported some kind of publicly funded health insurance option that would guarantee that everyone–including the poor, the unemployed and the under-insured–received coverage. Ending the war in Iraq and taxing the rich–whose taxes had been precipitously cut by the George W. Bush administration–would pay for the plan.

Instead, when the corporations and insurance companies put up a fight–as one could only expect they would–the Obama administration continues to cave into their demands. Thus, the public option has been all but taken off the table. Yet if there’s no public health care option in the midst of a recession, which will likely followed by a jobless recovery that will cause millions more to lose their health care–what exactly is the extent of the reform?

The Real Dance should be Single Payer, Not-For-Profit Insurance for everyone. Medicare for all. Dennis Kucinich explains in 90.3 WCPN ideastream®: Click to listen: Kucinich Predicts Retreat On Health Care Reform (h/t AfterDowningStreet) that the goal in legislation has been to prop up the Health Insurance Companies profits and disallow a public system that would “compete” (read as keep honest) with the for profit systems.

The fact is that the leadership doesn’t want everyone covered. They don’t want competition to show us how greedy and thieving the Health Insurance Companies are.

Kucinich said:

“One out of every three dollar goes to the activities of the for-profit system. They cream it right off the top for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, the cost of paperwork. If you took that 800 billion dollars a year, which is what that represents, and put it into care for people you’d have enough to cover everyone, doctor of choice, vision care, dental health, mental health care, long term care, prescription drugs – we’d all be covered.”

And just in case you wonder about how Brits feel when the fool hardy right-wing nutcases demagogue their healthcare in the UK. They might respond like this (from Organizing Notes):

more about “Organizing Notes: BRITS RESPOND TO U….“, posted with vodpod

Distractions For A Gullible America – Then The Truth

I call it the “sleight-of-hand” trickery that the government and complicit media are involved with when it comes to real dialogue about helath care reform. As usual, the loudest, most obnoxious voices are being given more time and illumination. The right-wing tea baggers and the like are apt to scream unintelligibles at folks and the debate ends up being about whether or not we are Russia, instead of the merits of the various plans. When it comes to single payer, which is what is desired by the majority of people, doctors and nurses, there isn’t a peep to be heard, except to minimize or monsterize it with fiction.

Bill Moyers had Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Drew Altman in for an interview that gets in to the details about the propaganda being slathered all over America’s airways, keeping us ignorant and fighting among ourselves, just as planned.

more about “Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen …“, posted with vodpod

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Jamieson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society. She is the author, co author or editor of 15 books including: UNSPUN: FINDING FACTS IN A WORLD OF DISINFORMATION, THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF PARTY POLITICS, THE PRESS EFFECT and EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT POLITICS…AND WHY YOU’RE WRONG.

Drew E. Altman, Ph.D., is president and CEO of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit, private operating foundation in Menlo Park, California, with major facilities in Washington, D.C. It develops and runs its own research and communications programs, often in partnership with outside organizations. Altman was a former commissioner of the Department of Human Services for the state of New Jersey and served in a senior position in the Health Care Financing Administration in the Carter administration. He served in senior positions at the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and earned his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Altman is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

So, you are being fed a line of shit. It always has been that way and always will. Don’t let Rush and the right-wing cronies fool you, a Medicare-for-all system is what the majority of Americans want. We see what health insurance greed has done and it is time for Americans to wake up and DEMAND what it is we want. Stop allowing the fuctards to take over TownHall meetings with their regurgitated bullshit. Speak up and fight, damn it.

Because the truth is always there for the seeking (from UnderNews):

MEDICARE REVEALS THE WINNER IN PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE PLANS

Medicare Advocacy Center - Forty four years ago Medicare was enacted into law. All of today’s dire warnings about a public health option – socialism and government barring the doctor’s door – were made in opposition to Medicare. Despite such opposition from “conservative,” leaders, Medicare passed because of some courageous, principled law-makers.

Before Medicare, 50% of everyone 65 or older had no health insurance. Now, as a result of Medicare, almost all older people are insured. Medicare, which is national, government-run health insurance, succeeded in insuring older people where private insurance failed. Further, until the Bush Administration privatized Medicare with huge subsidies to private “Medicare Advantage” and Part D plans, Medicare was also remarkably cost-effective. It’s private Medicare, not the traditional, public program, that’s bleeding taxpayers of billions of dollars.

Medicare has been a success, fiscally and morally. It took on the job of insuring health coverage and care to people that private insurance had abandoned. Since 2003, on the other hand, private Medicare plans have cost us all tens of billions of dollars that went to support the private insurance industry, not to providing health care. In addition, private Medicare plans have too often engaged in marketing abuses and restrictive coverage practices. As numerous studies have shown, people with Medicare love it. They do not want government to fool around with the traditional program

The FIX Is In

That’s what I told Kelso this morning.

I am having a few conversations with some folks that are pushing for the “Public Option”, because they have given up on Single Payer. They are interested in our story, but in a review of the story, it was listed that BuelahLady and I agree that Single Payer is not feasible and that we agree to help get whatever “public option” is available passed.

I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I cannot live with myself if I knew I had kowtowed to the meme they set forth… that I would agree with Obama ’09, no matter what Obama ’03 said.

Forgive me, but that is simply falling for the “Fix” (just like the Ass-Kissing Sycophants I highlight around here do with abandon). The Fix is that Mr Obama lied in ’03 and the real Obama is in charge now. Mr Obama, the reTHUGlican party and the majority of the DemoRat party (known in these parts collectively as the Demublican Party) have sold you, the gullible United Sheople of America (TM), on an “option” that only profits Big Insurance. It makes sure that their campaign funding continues, because they simply will not stand up to the Corporations that own them.

Rednecks, this is NOT rocket science to figure this out (I have linked to Max Baucus’s coffers before, so give it another read to figure out why this man and others like him would keep Single payer off the table). It is easy to type in your favorite owned congresscritter’s name to see where they get their money…, or, more aptly,  how they vote.

Without your awakening, we are setting ourselves up for more of the same, but worse. Undernews covers it well (and it may be too late, proving, again, how gullible Americans are):

OBAMA & REPUBLICANS HAVE SABOTAGED SUPPORT FOR SINGLE PAYER

Progressive Review – Only 32% of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan.

Fifty-two percent believe such a system would lead to a lower quality of care while 13% believe care would improve. Twenty-seven percent think that the quality of care would remain about the same.

Forty-five percent also say a single-payer system would lead to higher health care costs while 24% think lower costs would result. Nineteen percent think prices would remain about the same.

There’s wide political disagreement over the single-payer issue. Sixty-two percent of Democrats favor a single-payer system, but 87% of Republicans are opposed to one. As for those not affiliated with either major party, 22% favor a single-payer approach while 63% are opposed.

As recently as March a CBS-New York Times poll found that 59% of Americans answer yes to the question: “Should the government in Washington provide national health insurance, or is this something that should be left only to private enterprise?” This paralleled a poll a year earlier that found that 64% said the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans.

Since March there has been a concentrated effort by the Democratic extremist middle – led by Barack Obama – and the Republican right to undermine support for single payer as they met the demands of private insurers. It seems to have worked.

Getting Real with HealthCare: Decapitate The Health Insurance Companies

Cut their heads off… What? Too gruesome?

I am talking about the 1300 Health Insurance Companies that are “for profit”. I am talking about killing health insurance companies, disbanding their entire reason for being… to suck the life and every dollar possible out of you, Mr and Mrs America. I know that some of you rednecks are going to town halls to fight Socialized medicine, even though your grandparents are living because of “Socialized medicine”.

One thing I wish you would do as you scream from the top of your lungs how you want the government to keep its hands off your Medicare, can you please put the few remaining untainted brain cells together and decide what you really want and not what the TV Fools are telling you what you want. This is no “right vs left” or “Dem vs Rep” or “Liberal vs Conservative” argument, anymore. It is simply a bunch of rednecks who have been brainwashed into believing that what is good enough for your Senator (and the president and other government officials) is not good enough for you. That what is good enough for your sweet little old grandmother is actually Socialism. That the VA benefits that your cousin gets after serving in that shithole we created called Iraq (which was no shithole before our intervention) is not good enough for every American. Or that the fire department or police force is just more Socialism.

Give me a break. How many rednecks are actually this stupid?

Stop listening to their lies and understand that they have “plants” in with the Biggest media outlets that give them little to no reason to explain this rationally to you. Instead they use scare tactics that border on ludicrous and the so-called Progressives fall for it just like the so-called Conservatives do. Like good little Sheople following their own tainted Shepherd.

From AfterDowningStreet quoting a portion of an article in FAIR by Kate Murphy:

While a recent New York Times/CBS poll (6/20/09) has found yet again that the majority of Americans believe the government would both provide better coverage and keep costs lower than private insurance companies, a single-payer plan as an option for healthcare reform continues to be underrepresented in the media (Extra!, 6/09). A single-payer plan would allow the delivery of healthcare to remain private, but the government would pay for it out of a single federal health insurance fund. Like Medicare or Canada’s healthcare program, it would cut out the middleman by bypassing private health insurance companies. But such companies are well-represented on the boards of directors of media conglomerates—a factor that may help explain the blackout of such a popular possibility for reform.

When a director from one company sits on the board of directors of another company, that’s known as an interlocking directorate. For example, directors of the New York Times Co. also sit on the boards of several other large companies, including Chevron, Verizon and Ticketmaster. These directors are expected to act in the best interest of each company they direct; when one of the corporations in question is a media company, this can pose a conflict. Would someone who sits on a media company’s board object to coverage that damages another company that board member directs? Extra! has pointed out this conflict in the past (e.g., 9–10/01), noting that “even if these board members do not attempt to influence coverage of their businesses, their presence likely suffices to make media executives think twice about covering certain stories.”

A recent FAIR study of nine major media corporations and their major outlets, Disney (ABC), General Electric (NBC), CBS, Time Warner (CNN, Time), News Corporation (Fox), New York Times Co., Washington Post Co. (Newsweek), Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times) and Gannett (USA Today) found connections to six different insurance companies. Five out of the nine media corporations studied shared a director with an insurance company; two insurance companies—Chubb and Berkshire Hathaway—were represented by more than one media corporation director.

Let’s break it down as simply as possible. There is one major middle man (Health Insurance Companies) that needs to go and it is the same one that is causing the greatest issues in this debate. But it isn’t JUST the health insurance crooks that benefit immensely from your illness. There are the integrated News/Health Insurance agencies called the interlocking directorates discussed above. And there is Big meds. Just follow the money:

PHARMA CEOS MAKE HUGE SALARIES

Unsilent Generation – One aspect of the health care reform battle which gets little attention is the cushy environment of the drug company executive. Fiercepharma blog, which tracks the industry not long ago ran a listing of all the dough these CEOs make.. . . Figures are for 2008.

1. Bill Weldon – Johnson & Johnson – $29.4M
2. Miles White – Abbott Laboratories – $28.3M
3. Bernard Poussot – Wyeth – $25M
4. Jim Cornelius – Bristol-Myers Squibb – $25M
5. Richard Clark – Merck – $19.9M
6. Robert Parkinson – Baxter International – $16M
7. David Vasella – Novartis – $15.1M
8. Jeffrey Kindler – Pfizer – $14.8M
9. Frank Baldino – Cephalon – $14.5M
10. John Lechleiter – Eli Lilly – $13M

The argument isn’t that we must simply get rid of the Health Insurance Monsters and their 10-25% profits or overhead. We must also begin to rethink the issues of healthcare being “for profit”. And, please, don’t argue that Doctors need to make a lot of money, I am not arguing that. I am talking about the “PROFIT” motive. Think about “profit” as suggested in this wiki article:

Accounting profit is the difference between price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise (whether by harvest, extraction, manufacture, or purchase) in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses.

The problem isn’t controlled salaries for Doctors, etc, (which is part of the “costs”), but is more related to the other egregious profits that are generated by Health Insurance companies and Medicine producers. To solve the problem, we need to work on various fronts, but Health Insurance is the quickest way to immediate savings. Single Payer is taking out that middle man and if you are going to argue from a “conservative” standpoint, you better add this term to your vocabulary. Truly, the most fiscally conservative solution is Single Payer, Not-for-profit healthcare. This is unarguable. AND, it is the most scoailly liberal stance (so all of you that are sufficed by the “Public Option” need to realize that you are simply feeding the beast).

President Obama and every Congressperson understands this, too. Their argument is that we need some hybrid as to not cause too much disruption, but let me explain that none of the “Public Option” plans will fix the problem. Why, because the problem is the “profit” motive. Of course, those people are getting their fair share of Health Insurance campaign donations, so they aren’t about to rock the boat (which is amazing since they get the same type of Tax payer paid coverage for themselves and their families… speaking of hypocritical). Let me add something that Russell at Single-Payer Action wrote that explains some of this quite well:

In Defense of Disruption

What do:

Rush Limbaugh

Barack Obama

Newt Gingrich

Nancy Pelosi

PhRMA

Families USA

America’s Health Insurance Plans

AARP

Harry Reid

Mitch McConnell

and Fox News

have in common?

They are all freaked out by single payer.

They have all bought the corporate line:

The market has a central place in health insurance.

In contrast, the majority of doctors.

The majority of nurses.

And the majority of the American people are not freaked out by single payer.

To the contrary.

They favor single payer.

They all agree — the market has no place in health insurance.

Single payer would eliminate the 1,300 private payers (insurance companies).

And replace them with one public single payer.

As Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine puts it:

Single payer is not only the best option.

It’s the only option that will control costs and cover everyone.

…

There really is only one real answer:

A single-payer system will not ration health care or put the government in charge of your doctor. The real rationing of health care is happening now, where tens of millions do not have any access to health care at all. With a single-payer system you will not have to worry about being out of network or at a preferred provider or any of the other hoops that the insurance industry has fashioned.

President Obama said in a speech six years ago that the only reason single-payer proponents should tolerate delay is “because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.” All that has happened, and nothing is happening. There are bills to bring a single-payer system in both the House and the Senate, but they get short shrift. Even though they would save money and cover everyone, there is no big-money constituency pushing for their passage. Instead, insurance industry lobbyists have thrown all they have at preventing real reform.

How can someone, or a family, be able to pursue life, liberty and happiness without health care? Can you imagine having a child and not having health coverage? Health care in this country should run similarly to how we pay for the fire department and police — there is no public option for these services with wealthy people having a private system that guarantees them better care. There is no reason for health care to be on a two-tier, separate-and-unequal regime.

A single-payer health care system is efficient and effective. Everybody in. Nobody out.

It’s time for real health care reform.

Well, there is always this solution (I have highlighted their work before here and here):

THE PUBLIC HEALTHCARE YOU DON’T HEAR ABOUT

Coburn Dukehart, NPR – some of what I saw at the county fairgrounds in Wise, Va., last month left me wordless.

For two-and-a-half days, about 800 doctors, nurses, dentists and optometrists treated 2,700 uninsured and underinsured people, most from Appalachia. No one was asked for an insurance card. There were no co-pays. And there were no bills.

A Tennessee-based group called Remote Area Medical, or RAM, arranged the volunteer help, brought in donated equipment and supplies and paid for everything else. . .

What: Health care providers saw 2,715 patients and performed 2,671 medical exams, 1,088 eye tests and 1,850 dental exams. They extracted 3,857 teeth and put in 1,628 fillings.

Who: Patients came from 16 states; 30 percent were repeat patients.

Of the patients, 51 percent are uninsured, 40.3 percent are on Medicaid or Medicare, and just 7.3 percent have employer or private insurance. Fewer than 1 percent of patients have dental or vision insurance.

Twenty-six percent of the people are employed, 40.6 are unemployed, 4.7 percent are retired and 4.8 percent are children.

Cost: The organizers paid about $250,000 out of pocket to run the event, and they provided an estimated $1.5 million worth of care. . .

Close to 4,000 teeth ended up in buckets. Some 20-year-olds had every tooth pulled. A 4-year-old had every tooth filled. Out of the hundreds treated, only 11 had dental insurance.

I arrived home from Virginia with a badly infected finger. It was swollen, red and painful. So I drove to the doctor, presented my insurance card and wrote a check for $15 for the co-pay. My doctor took a scalpel to the infection and sent me to the pharmacy for antibiotics. All that took an hour. . .

I have never felt so privileged to have a good job and good insurance and easy access to care without long drives and long nights and a yearlong wait.

The next RAM free clinic begins Tuesday in the Forum, the former basketball arena outside Los Angeles. Doctors, dentists and optometrists will work 12 hours a day for eight days. Organizers expect to treat 10,000 people.