Interesting analysis for parents of young children.

And that ain’t the only thing. Everywhere around the progressive blogosphere, I see these whines of “Donate”! Yeah sure. If I was still a working stiff, I might waste a few bucks. Now, I wonder, are there no “Angels” in this opposition camp?

I cannot believe an entire national political party in the U.S. of A. has no support of anyone without money to spare to sponsor a blog, website, or cause. Really!

The First Thing to identify on this topic is the difference between health care, health insurance, and health access.

I can testify firsthand that the insurance industry sucks bigtime. When my aged mother collapsed and ended up in hospital in 2002, and I was back stateside two days later, she had already been transferred to ‘a nursing home’. Uh huh, how and why? NO answer. The hospital would not release any information to me, the only relative, protecting patient privacy, you know.

Anyway, no one at the nursing home could explain how she got there. I never saw a doctor in all the time she was there. But I did see an administrator and a human resources person, who advised me to cancel mojm’s private health insurance forthwith. Eh? Because “she needs physiotherapy and her benefits have already run out”. Cutting a long story short, she’d only been seriously ill (?) a very few days. After years of premiums. Hmmmm.

And aside from the personal factor, I learned of the interesting lurks of the industry in the state of Florida. Come in, lowball the prospective clientele, suck up a lot of customers. After the administrative overheads, woops! we’rew bankrupt.

Never mind, the scheme plays out this way: the parent company sends out letters to the former customers, sign with us and no change, sort of thing … oh wow, we get to keep our health insurance. Yeah. Only, it’s the SAME giant ripoff company, the mailing list has only changed hands. Et bloody cetera.

As an aside of insurance: note how the ripoff has happened in NOLA since Katrina: anywhere from 4X cover for individual home owners to 7X for small business operators, if any can cope with that …

Mom didn’t die in the first nursing home, despite falling out of a wheelchair. Thanks to Political Correctness, “we can’t restrain a patient” yeah, never mind she’s not ‘with it’ at the best of times now. But for me, with no diagnosis of why, but with a $14K bill from the hospital with the one=line itemisation of “tests”. For what? We can’t tell you. Blah.

It’s not only insurance, it’s the whole damn system. Some months back, I found a webpage about ‘inflation’ with a nice graph showing a dozen items that’d increased over the past 30 years. The biggest was health: 200X {not percentage, 200 times ) and a couple of items had actually gone down.

Remember that Rumsfeld’s lean mean high-tech fighting machine was supposed to solve Iraq — and we’re still there. Similarly, every high-tech medical test recommended is probably only there to spin some money into the system. My late wife nearly died because all the fancy tests revealed nothing — and an old-fashioned x-ray at a hospital emergency room showed an external colon tumor that led to an instant operation.

Technology is only as good as the medical practitioners than can cope with it — and insurance is only as good as coverage it purports to provide.

In Canada universal single-payer health care began in one province (Saskatchewan) and spread to the nation. There was a doctor’s strike in Saskatchewan in opposition, but it was beaten back. At this point Moore in Sicko is exactly correct: the is no opposition (of consequence) to the present system — it is supported by left and right and center, as well as health care professionals. Weakening the system would be political suicide not only for a government or a Prime Minister, but for the political party with which they were affiliated.

Canada is not so healthy as you might believe. In Canada we have our own “Sicko’ system. For instance, if you are injured at work we have our own government run workers compensation system. It is based on the same insurance model as the U.S. Injured workers are EXCLUDED from the Canada Health Act, leaving the workers comp government run insurance program completely in charge of a persons care. What is wrong with that? Well, if you are seriously injred and unable to go back to your job, the workers comp will try everything in their powwer to delay and deny medical and wage loss benefits. When they commit fraud, manipulation of medical evidence, and don’t send you for tests and therapy etc., then you are in fact a prisoner of the workers comp system. Why? because your legal right to charge the workers comp for a crime is also removed through legislation. Workers comp then has complete control of your life. The only guarantee is a life of pain and poverty enforced on you because they don’t want to pay the legislated benefits. Oh yes! Canada is a “sicko” country also. Thousands are committing suicide all across Canada because workers comp subjects the victim to an appeal process that drags out for years. In the meantime, you are not getting treated medically and suffer from poverty because workers comp does not pay while you await appeals. That is reserved only for workers comp employees. Discrimination, human rights abuses, crime, is all committed here in Canada. Unfortunately, it is not from a private for profit insurance company, it is at the hands of our own Provincial governments (Same as State government). What we all need acros ALL of North America is to remove ALL these insurance companies from the medical care field, everywhere. They only have one interest. Profit for themselves, to hell with a dying or disabled person. This is what needs to be changed and that cannot be accomplished until these insurance companies are removed PERMANENTLY from health care issues. They have shown they are not to be trusted in any way.

Michael Moore is right about the insurance companies. What he fails to realize is that it is more far reaching than anyone has considered. The blame lies in the insurance industry model of deny! deny! deny! to contain costs. Thus feathering their own nests at the expense of the sick and injured.

Injured workers in Canada support Michael Moores plan for Universal health care. We all need it. Visit the site below to see what we are doing to expose the psychopathic behaviour of these companies, whether they be private or government run, they are all the one and the same.
http://wcbcanada.com/modules/W…..1230#21230

We must come together as one strong voice to state publicly and loudly that our human rights are being abused for the sake of a few people who want the lavish lifestyle that can only be obtained by denying benefits to the sick and injured. NO MORE! The revolution in healthcare has begun! See also “The Canadian Injured Workers” website. I am sure the information you find there will help your cause in the U.S. http://www.ciws.ca

As Mr. moore said. “There are more of us than there are of them.”

The doctors are in the heart of the system, and I think I know why half-assed measures are repulsive to the PNHP – they know that anything but single payer is going to open up the box for insurance companies to get in even deeper – they know the enemy better than we do. As a nurse, I promise I think twice before I join up with a bunch of doctors. I am with them here.

I was born and raised there but now live in Dallas. For a while it was scary to drive just about anywhere in Texas with anything that was even remotely in support of Dems on your bumper. In Dallas it is much safer now. Fort Worth-not so much:-)