Christy!

Merry Christmas, ya rotten mo****f*****s!

and a real Merry Christmas to all here!!

I’d love to see Dick’s Excel files…

Christy, before starting my housecleaning business, I worked in the health, life, and Workers’ Comp arena. Your first line above, “Let’s start with a fundamental truth: Insurance companies are in the business of not paying claims.” is right on the money. It was absurd the reasons the claims adjusters and their masters would come up with to NOT PAY. Even in the life insurance sector it was bad. I can’t remember how many times an elderly person would call to say their $10,000 policy is now worth less than $2000 and I’d have to explain to them that at certain ages the amount would decrease by 30%. They couldn’t even bury their loved one for crying out loud and then the masters would try to find another reason as to not pay the measly amount (cause of death was usually it) they were left with!

The insurance industry at all levels needs to be highly regulated. They’ve never had to answer to anyone and they just do what they want. It’s infuriating.

Also…this is why I started my housecleaning company: I DIDN’T WANT TO GO BACK INTO THE BEE’S NEST. I didn’t fit in because I was TOO VOCAL with my disgust. Truth. Plus…I had to lose 15 pounds I had gained after my son was born. LOL

The insurance industry is the poster boy for moral hazard.

Meanwhile, if Nataline and her parents had lived in the Eeeeevil Socialized Medicine Country of France, she’d be alive right now and her parents wouldn’t be facing huge medical bills.

He was first diagnosed by our pediatrician, a private sector doctor, who sent us to the (public) specialised pediatric hospital in Paris for additional exams. We did a scan and a MRI the same day, and that brought the diagnosis we know. He was hospitalised the same day, with surgery immediately scheduled for two days later. At that point, we only had to provide our social security number.

Surgery - an act that the doctor that performed it (one of the world’s top specialists in his field) told us he would not have done it five years before - actually took place the next week, because emergency cases came up in the meantime. After a few days at the hospital, we went home. At that point, we had spent no money, and done little more than filling up a simple form with name and social security number.

Meetings with the doctor in charge of his long term treatment, and with a specialised re-education hospital, were immediately set up, and chemiotherapy and physical therapy were scheduled for the next full year.

[snip — please don’t post whole articles due to copyright concerns — thanks]

Talk about pure profit…

What we’re you doing in 1913? http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory/December-23

Slipped thru while Congress was out! The beginning of the end:

‘The Money Masters’ http://preview.tinyurl.com/3xx3pe

ot- left you a reply in previous thread.

Wait but Shrubco sez we* have the best medical care
oh wait I guess this young woman should have gone to the emergency room

*I guess it depends on the definition of we

It’s been suggested frequently in the last few days upon hearing about Nataline’s death that those in the House & Senate should give up their socialized medicine NOW and participate in the insurances the average American has to. That right there would fix the whole entire industry! Hey, it could work. Now…we have to figure out a way to rip their fine socialized medicine & healthcare out of their hands! That’s the tough part.

The lack of risky business, Wall Street analysts say, has helped Cigna avoid many problems associated with rising health costs, an issue plaguing competing health plans. And the company’s low profile has made it less of a target for class action suits filed in recent years accusing HMOs of putting profits ahead of patient care. Cigna has been named in only two of six lawsuits, most of which are either pending or that have ended with rulings in the industry’s favor. But Cigna officials say their quiet stance means the company’s accomplishments aren’t well known….

Like many other news stories, this one will, unfortunately, fade quickly from public view…..but, at least for right now, that “quiet stance” ain’t working out too well for them; and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of *rseholes! A pox on all their houses.

Good on the nurses and all others who helped bring the misdeeds of this miserable company to the light of day!

California Nurses’ DeMoro Says SEIU on the Side of the Bosses
The Corporate Crime Reporter

Michael Moore has made a great movie.Sicko.

Everyone should see it.

And take the kids.

The movie’s message in a nutshell – we need single payer.

[snip — Rest of article can be found here…]

I’d rather freeze in Canada than continue to live in this kind of Corporate Hellhole. Bad healthcare killed my father. Denial of Full VA benefits made him struggle financially to pay for his own crackhead caregivers. Reagan’s policies screwed my father and thousands of other veterans. They’ve been getting screwed hard ever since.

Its a sad story about that child. This is what Compassionate Conservatism has done to us. Its all about corporate profits.

Is that an article? If so, can you post a link. Due to copyright concerns, you should not reprint entire articles verbatim — but post a link and a snippet instead. Do you have a link for this? If so, I’ll fix it.

those in the House & Senate should give up their socialized medicine NOW and participate in the insurances the average American has to. That right there would fix the whole entire industry!

i’ve mentioned jared diamond before (and his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed)… the take home lesson for me is that if we want wise choices made by our society, it is critically important that elites are affected by those choices.

ot- left you a reply in previous thread.

Got it! Agreed. The only thing I would add is, my measure of insulting is when something is said that makes me squirm or feel uncomfortable for the guest. That’s why I still remember the incident. Also, the incident with Lotus bothers me on principle. But I don’t pay the bills, so I don’t get to be the boss, and if I don’t like it, nobody’s twisting my arm to be here instead of one of the many other good sites on the internet, so…basically it’s incumbent on me to STFU.

Yes, I have the article on another tab. I do not know how to post links.

Copy the whole link and paste it into the comment box. I can grab it from there and fix the comment.

http://www.commondreams.org/ar.....6/26/2113/

Or give me an author name and a title and I’ll see if I can find it myself if the cut and paste is not going to work for you.

“Did you ENJOY bombing the Serbs?”

That to me is a pretty rude and insulting question…akin to “Do you enjoy beating your wife?” At least it could have be rephrased in a question about Clark’s rationale in bombing the Serbs…which might have actually have gotten a response.

But I doubt that was the reason for asking the original question…and the repeated demands that Clark answer it.

maybe we could take this conversation to the previous thread? i’ll reply there. thanks!

Exactly, Selise. I would love to read the future article of how John Boner got infuriated with his insurance company because they capped the amount of care for his cancer and how they tripled the cost of it to dump him because he’s so sick!

Hey, making them live like us would work like a charm. ;-)

The link to the article is @ 20. I copied most of the article. The point is that California Nurses strongly disagree with SEIU’s desire to keep insurance companies involved in health care.

OMG — please tell me this discussion is not going to go on and on today on every freaking thread. Not to belabor the point, but there were reasons that I asked folks to go to the prior thread to discuss it while the chat was ongoing, one of which was that I was hoping we could resolve all of this while it was fresh instead of beating it to death. I need more coffee…

O/t -

“CIA Chief to Drag WH into Torture Cover-up Storm”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....087293.ece

Oh, my goodness! *g*

PS - Spit! Linky isn’t working in preview; (maybe it will/maybe it won’t) on submit. If not, found at the top of articles list over at DU a few minutes ago under that same title. :-(

EPU’ed

“OCD this subject to death”

OCD–not in wikidictionary of internet slang.

Yeah, that would have made me squirm. I’m fairly big on confrontation, but not just insults for insults sake (although I’d have some serious trouble showing any deference to GWB, even just for his position. I think he’s way past deserving it, since he’s utterly failed to live up to his oath of office.)

UCLA needs to be getting some heat also. Not putting this child on the transplant list because of insurance questions is inexcusable. In my 49th poorest state, no child, legal, undocumented or whatever was denied health care, including organ transplant because of money.

OCD — Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Steve-AR — I thought UCLA designated her as 1-A on the list?

The root of the problem is the notion that a human beings health is an insurable commodity. That is a corrupt notion.
Until that idea stops informing our public debate there will be no moral solution to this problem.

Capitalism is a failed system. All of the economic horror stories we have heard lately are not accidents, they are inevitable outcomes of the system unless it is severely regulated. It has all happened before from 1890-1930, which is why we have (or more appropriately, had) the regulatory structure we have now. Despite the whining of Wall Street and corporate types, the early twentieth century and New Deal regulatory reforms put capitalism on life support after it nearly strangled on its own greed. Any system founded on greed is inherently evil and cannot be redeemed.

Bush said this week that Americans are poor consumers of health care. That we are not shopping around for more affordable healthcare. I wrote a kos diary last year about this - Why Health Savings Account ARE NOT THE ANSWER to the healthcare crisis

The issue of this concept is that you call around asking for pricing. This is just a joke. A person is lucky to find a facility or provider in their plan’s network. And during an emergency you are to stop and go though the yellow pages to price your care.

High deductibles and out of pocket expenses for lower premiums have now show that people are NOT receiving care, children are NOT receiving their routine vaccinations and recommended well care exams ARE not being done. Eventually this will hit the fan AND we do not have a public health system anymore.

the notion that a human beings health is an insurable commodity

i guess i was thinking that health care is an insurable commodity.

could you elaborate a bit please? not sure i understand. thanks.

This was years ago (in the 1980’s) but I had Student Insurance (Blue Cross) and got in a bicycle accident that resulted in fractures of both my arms. I eventually flagged down a car after about 20 minutes on a fairly isolated road, and they drove me to the General Hospital. The emergency room REFUSED ME because I didn’t have private insurance and they sent me to the Student Hospital on campus…20 minutes away. So about 45 minutes after my accident I arrive there, and they can’t get the surgeon on call. He’s been called to an emergency at the other hospital.

Turns out that Emergency was ME! The idiots at the General Hospital called the same surgeon and he immediately was driving out there. This, of course, was in the days before cell phones, so they couldn’t contact him to tell him to turn back. When he arrived there he was notified simply “The patient has been released”. So he drove back home, only to have his dispatcher call him to the CAMPUS HOSPITAL.

Believe me, I seriously considered suing since General Hospitals are supposed to take anyone in an Emergency situation. But fortunately the Doctor stitched me up properly and all went reasonably well subsequently. But that was just one consequence of the stupid system of multiple insurance plans (and hospitals) rejecting services and coverage.

I worked for an independent medical evaluation facility that would give an “independent assessment” of a person’s work injury, meaning, it was the final place the patient would go to. For the first couple of years I believed the doctors were being independent in their assessment, but that image was shattered by the time the 4th year rolled around! Spit. The insurance companies will DO ANYTHING to not have to pay a claim…even if it means schmoosing the Board Certified doctors who specialize in work-type injuries to get the docs to see it the insurance company/employer’s way!

Thank you for this post. Many don’t understand how the system works. Unfortunately people who have healthcare have a false sense of security and don’t realize how vulnerable they are. The movie Sicko does a good job of describing what happens to people who do have health insurance when they get sick. The first example is a couple that loses their house and has to move into their daughter’s storage room because the Mom has cancer and the Dad has had four heart attacks. That example hit extremely close to home as my Mom is has been fighting cancer for about two years now and probably will for the rest of her life. She has been fortunate so far to have not lost her healthcare but who knows how long she can keep paying $5000 per year deductible plus the $450 per month premium.

In short the false sense of security “having healthcare” gives most people is preventing single payer. They think they are protected, but the fundamental truth is those companies just like the home insurance companies after Katrina are in the business of not paying claims. Period. If they paid every claim their profits would be in the 3% instead of the 40% range. Think about that.

I got a health/life insurance license when I was unemployed and desperate. The figure that the “teacher” gave that was “typical” for an insurance company’s profits was 3%. I am not sure where he got that figure, but it seems to me when I read about 40% profits by these companies that something is fundamentally wrong. There is bad faith. They do not intend to fulfil thier obligations to their policy holders.

I spoke to AHIP the other day when the girl died, and expressed my outrage.
the guy told me “well, you have your opinion, but there are other ways of looking at things too, and you have to respect other people’s opinions.”

I told the douchebag “those other opinions are called “immoral”".

Good gawd! What a story. Unfortunately, your predicament happens a lot in this country. *head is spinning* Make it stop!

Here’s a little bit more about the California Nurses Association and its negative assessment of the SEIU:

Chism says that the SEIU members who gathered for the rally were being actively misled by SEIU.

“SEIU members are being led to believe that universal health care means free health care for all – single payer,” Chism told Corporate Crime Reporter. “But it doesn’t mean that. It means keeping the insurance companies in the game. I had to leave because I couldn’t take it anymore. The insurance companies and SEIU are misleading people.”

CNA executive director Rose Ann DeMoro is a touch less subtle.

“Rather than being on the side of the workers, SEIU continues to be on the side of the bosses,” DeMoro told Corporate Crime Reporter. “And it’s a disgrace.”

“And the problem is that SEIU is giving cover to these Senators – it makes them look like they are accomplishing something when in fact they are accomplishing nothing. These legislators are gutless, and the SEIU is giving them cover.”

http://www.commondreams.org/ar.....6/26/2113/

See there, you actually did know how to post a link, but you just didn’t know you knew! But in case Christy fixed it before I read it, it’s easier than you might think. Just highlight the words you want to use for your link, copy the website address, then click on the “link” symbol on the bar above the comment area (It’s between the quotes and the check mark with ABC above it.) When the box comes up with HTTP, just replace that with your copied website address. When you submit the comment, all the extraneous stuff goes away, and it comes out like most links come out. Just try it. The worst that could happen is it doesn’t work. No big deal.

i just do not get the complicity of unions in undermining efforts for single payer health care.

I want single payer too.

Steve-AR — I thought UCLA designated her as 1-A on the list?
replyReply
oldgold

I don’t know when she was put on the list..But my point is that she should have been listed and transplanted without consideration to the insurance situation. Here is part of the mission statement for the Hospital where is used to work:

ACH is committed to working with others to achieve high quality, cost-effective, fully accessible services for Arkansas’ most precious resource — our children, without regard to race, religion or inability to pay.

Without regard..to inability to pay..is the operative statement..and in my state there are a lot of kids that fit into that category. I just think UCLA should be getting some heat if that child died because the hospital denied treatment because of her insurance status.

Sorry Christy. I’ll say nothing more about it on this thread.

Part of the problem is that since I’m abroad I really miss many of the posts as they happen. I’d like to participate, but I’m often hours late before I see the post. All I can do is what is called EPU…and no one looks back at dead posts.

This is likely a problem for many folks that are in the wrong time zone. Don’t know how to resolve it. It’s even a bigger problem when the new posts come fast and furious. That leads to a tendency of people to move on to other topic, killing a thread that I feel able to contribute something to…or in which I have a relevant link that I can offer.

I see a lot of Off Topic comments…are those only okay in Late Night or Late Late Night. Or are they okay in a topic on something like Health Insurance? Just wondering?

Huckabee has proposed a national single prayer health care system.

There are differences in For Profit health care companies and Union Health Plans. These are covered under the Taft-Hartly legislation and are NOT for profit organizations. They have a very different focus, the union allows XX amount of dollars for their members healthcare and they work to make sure they have the most for the dollars. This is a complete antithesis to the for profit plans.

“she should have been listed and transplanted without consideration to the insurance situation.”

Thank you for making that excellent point!

Health Care is *the* defining issue for this country: macro and micro.
And single payer is the only model that makes sense any more.
It needs to be simple and central.

707!!! I almost read that as “payer,” and was about to “fix” it for you!

Amen! Single Prayer…does that mean the Lord’s Prayer?

Another thing that people don’t realize is that they are just one illness, disability or condition away from losing that insurance.

If you are fired, quit, or become disabled and leave your job the only way you can keep your healthcare is to go on Cobra. Cobra means you pay the full cost which is high and you get to keep it for 18 months. So if your illness/unemployment lasts more than 18 months you lost the healthcare even if you can afford it which most unemployed and disabled people cannot.

Now lets assume you are permanently disabled. You can get medicare/medicaid right? Not before Cobra runs out. It takes 3 years on average to get declared disabled through the govt system. So meanwhile you lose your coverage. But you can just go buy private insurance right? Just get an individual policy and pay the premium right?

NOPE. Not if you have a pre-existing condition. If you have a heart condition, diabetes, seizures, or a myriad of other ailments you are “uninsurable”. The only way you can get insurance is through a group read “employer sponsored plan”.

So basically in my opinion the system is rigged in such a way that insurance companies, even if they do pay the claims of “sick” people only have to do so for 18 months and then they are no longer obligated to cover that person. So think about that. Even if they do everything they are supposed to do they only have to continue doing so for 18 months. Or less if you work in a company that employs less than 50 employees. In Louisiana the state version of COBRA only allows you to keep coverage for 12 months.

So how many conditions can be conveniently treated and cured in 12 to 18 months? I am not a physician but diseases do not cooperate with you to make sure things work out the way you want.

I was having this discussion a couple of nights ago with a friend and he said, well if you have insurance then chances are your next job will have insurance too and so there won’t be a problem. I think this is just bunk I don’t know if there have been any studies on this, but I know that fewer and fewer companies are offering health insurance at all.

I also think that this whole system is rigged to favor large companies. The system helps them keep employees even if the employees don’t like the job or company because they need the healthcare. Smaller companies can’t compete as well because they don’t get the breaks on the insurance premium that large groups get. I think the system favors large companies over small businesses.

Ok enough for today. This is a topic that I could write about forever.

I hope all of you good people have insurance and if you have it you keep it and don’t get sick, but I wouldn’t count on it. Peace and Happy New Year to all.

As someone who teaches medical students–but who is not a physician–I have been thinking about this issue a lot from the perspective of medical training.

Students are taught about the mechanics of practicing medicine, but there is a huge elephant in the room that is completely ignored. This is the fact that medical treatment must be rationed. The only question up for discussion is how that rationing will occur.

In this country, to a much greater extent than others, it is personal wealth that determines rationing of medical care. This is why “conservatives” are not in favor of changing the system: they have a relative advantage over filthy poor people who don’t “take personal responsibility”.

I believe that it is a structural problem with medical education today that physicians are not trained in the economics of rationing and allocation of medical treatment so that they, rather than accountants can drive the discussion about fair and medically appropriate mechanisms for rationing.

There is no capacity to provide infinite quantities and qualities of medical care to everyone, and we as a nation need to decide how we are going to ration that care. Doing it almost solely on the basis of personal wealth is morally repugnant.

I don’t think insurance companies rely on premiums for their biz model. I believe insurance companies are HEAVILY invested and earn their incomes from investments… a hedge against a loss from paying too many claims.

The way it SHOULD work is that the insurance company pays all the claims in yr X and then computes the premiums for yr X+1 to cover their previous pay outs and perhaps a fixed amount for profit and add in their overheads.

What they seem to do is do some smoke and mirrors, dodge claims to add to their bottom line and push premiums up as well and claim that they can’t operate without X% profit for their shareholders. It’s a bidness not a hedge against YOUR downside financial loss.

I spent some time talking with various liver transplant programs this past year. My brother needed a transplant (he has since died). The bottom line is that no transplant center will have a discussion with you about a transplant if you don’t have insurance. I quote, “there is no self-pay in the transplant program”. What that means is that if you do not have insurance, you cannot be put on the list…period. I spoke with four different transplant centers and that is exactly what I was told at each. The cost of the actual transplant is very high, but the drugs you must take afterward are even higher (thousands per month, in some cases). And you must take the drugs for years. It may not seem right, but it’s the policy across the board. Since the young woman in question did in fact have health insurance, she would have been evaluated and then would have been able to be placed on the list. But if she did not have coverage for the procedure, given my experience, then they would not be able to proceed under any circumstances.

Ugh, bad early-morning sentence structure. My penultimate paragraph is meant to make the point that medical students are not taught about the economics of allocating medical care, but they should be, so that they could then participate effectively in the discussion.

Saying “single-payer” eliminates to a large extent personal wealth as the rationing mechanism, but it does not automatically or necessarily provide another, more ethically sound, one. It is a discussion that needs to be had.

In our ME society it is always about the haves and let the have nots be damned, it’s their own fault.

Capitalism is a competitive system where there are some winner and there are MANY losers.

You don’t hear about the losers. And that’s why America and free markets and competition is morally bankrupt. You can’t have it when everyone wins.

You can use lottery systems which are not discriminatory for high expense procedures and provide low cost ones to every one.

Students are taught about the mechanics of practicing medicine, but there is a huge elephant in the room that is completely ignored. This is the fact that medical treatment must be rationed. The only question up for discussion is how that rationing will occur.

That is a topic that is going to have to be discussed because there aren’t unlimited funds available.

See above. So you think you have health insurance. So if you can pay your cobra and keep your coverage while waiting, great. If you can’t you lose it immediately. If you successfully get the transplant but can’t work how do you get coverage for the expensive drugs.

The system is designed to keep you out of the healthcare system if you are sick. Period.

i just do not get the complicity of unions in undermining efforts for single payer health care.

The insurance companies have a huge incentive to keep their games going.
Unions are not any more “good” than other organizations. It would be worth our time to find out the relationships between SEIU and health insurance companies.

Just something from the law books containing appellate decisions lining the shelf. If for no other reason, BTW, this is why The Establishment hates Edwards; he spent a good portion of his professional life putting the following principles into effect for the good of ordinary people, and forcing the insurance companies to cough up in accordance with their policies (a laudable profession, IMHO). I include these excerpts for the purpose that others who may never have read them may have access to them, to use them.

From a case interpreting the contrast between the insured’s expectations and the boilerplate of the declaration page:

“These conclusions are in accord with what we understand to be the fundamental precepts of insurance-policy construction, principles which were developed over the years to protect insured from what Judge Baime has aptly characterized as the insurance industry’s “unholy mantra” of “we collect premiums, we do not pay claims.:”…[Owens-Illinois v. United Ins., see infra]… Thus, as Justice Jacobs succinctly explained more than three decades ago in Kievit v. Loyal Protect. Life Ins. Co., 34 N.J. 475, 482, 170 A.2d 22 (1961):

When members of the public purchase policies of insurance they are entitled to the broad measure of protection necessary to fulfill their reasonable expectations. They should not be subjected to technical encumbrances of to hidden pitfalls and their policies should be construed liberally to the end that coverage is afforded “to the full extent that any fair interpretation will allow.”

Lehrhoff v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 271 N.J. Super. 340, 347, 638 A.2d 889 (App. Div. 1994).

Going back to Judge Baime’s work in the earlier case, referred to in Lehrhoff, he had written first a detailed dissection (30 some pages in the reports) of the compelling evidence in favor of the insured (an industrial company “Owens-Illinois” suing its insurer “United” over a denial of coverage) and then concluded as follows:

We will not tarry with a lengthy discussion of United’s highly technical arguments which obfuscate the purpose of our inquiry. Summoning arcane constructional aids, “some as dated and irrelevant as Roman law,” … United seeks to deny what the uncontradicted evidence plainly shows; its policy was intended to cover product liability risks. In plain language, United has adopted the unholy mantra, “we collect premiums; we do not pay claims”. We recognize this is a harsh judgment. It is nonetheless warranted by the record before us.
We seek to give effect to the clear intent of the parties. The small print of the exclusion should not be magnified to deny to the insured the protection bought and paid for with substantial premiums.

Owens-Illinois, Inc. v. United Ins. Co., 264 N.J. Super. 460, 491, 625 A.2d 1 (App. Div. 1993).

Print, clip and keep in your own file labeled “Choice Invective”. Use as appropriate.

Off topic comments are pretty much always appropriate, so long as they are not in a guest thread where we try and hold things to on topic discussion as much as humanly possible. Guests come here for a discrete period of time, and flogging through a process discussion about policy issues on the blog in a guest thread is not how we want to use their time if we can help it.

(And, frankly, as this is the fourth thread in which I’ve participated in which this subject has been raised, I am understandably I think getting to the end of my ability to enjoy it. Chalk it up to being super tired from finishing the Christmas wrapping on top of dealing with internet connection problems off and on yesterday if you like…)

Bingo.

But have you ever asked why docs are absolved from considering economic realities, i.e. what is it about the structure of the medical industry that allows this to happen? It is because the knowledge gap between seller and buyer gives the seller pricing power. I call this the Mafia of the Intelligentsia (MOI). The fact that the buyer, or customer, is sick and therefore vulnerable, gives the medical industry even more control of the economics.

If you use economics jargon to discuss the problem (e.g. medical industry rather than health care providers–genetics & lifestyle are much more important determinants of health than medical care), it removes some of the patina that this MOI surrounds itself with.

I agree that health care should not be considered a commodity, but the idea of insurance, on its own, is a reasonable soulution to sharing risk. At least part of the problem we have in the US is the idea that nothing is worth doing unless someone can make a profit.

i just do not get the complicity of unions in undermining efforts for single payer health care.

Their members are at a relative advantage over the uninsured in the current system of allocation.

Boston — For the record on SEIU, they have been trying very hard to bridge a gap between workers and corporate interests on insurance issues — and have managed to bring the national chamber of commerce crowd on board for insurance reforms in the past year or so. Maybe we should have them on to talk about what they’ve been doing. It isn’t as clear cut as the two articles perspectives you’ve highlighted here, from what I know, but I’m far from an expert, which is why having someone on to talk about it might be useful.

I am for “socialized” medicine but how do we get there? We need to be careful what we wish for..we could end up with the “VA system” for everyone.

You can use lottery systems which are not discriminatory for high expense procedures and provide low cost ones to every one.

But, but, but that means that filthy poor people who are not productive members of society might get medical care at the expense of someone like me, who takes personal responsibility!!!11!1!!!1!!

You can see why no one in the mainstream of political thought and news media wants to really have this discussion. If we have it, it is going to really bare for everyone to see the craven ethical void at the center of “conservative” political, social, and economic theory: “Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!! Fuck you!!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SydfD6paev8

And, what’s so bad with that? My Dad is a disabled WWII vet, now age 91 in a nursing home with dementia. The VA picks up his tab, and he’s getting good care.

Ugh. This endless bloody hand-wringing is going to go on and on as long as “respectable” voices and conduits for progressive thought just look down and shuffle their feet with embarrassment at the mention of Michael Moore or Dennis Kucinich or other advocates of single payer.

Jesus, if the horror stories in Sicko — including, as now, death by reimbursement denial — weren’t sufficient to activate Americans to storm the barricades for single payer, why should anyone imagine that the Nataline Sarkisyan outrage won’t fade into the mist after a news cycle or two?

John Edwards’s crocodile indignance at the Sarkisyans’ plight convinces only the willing — his health plan, like that of every other Democrat except Kucinich (and mebbe Gravel), guarantees insurance, not coverage.

One needn’t even invoke “embarrassing” voices like Moore’s and Kucinich’s. John Conyers’s “Medicare for All” bill, HR 646, is dying on the vine from malign and benign neglect. It’s the bill Kucinich, the California nurses, and Physicians for a National Health Plan all support.

If we — the putative progressive vanguard — fail to hammer the Democrat (and Rethug, for that matter) candidates on their intransigence on single payer at every single opportunity, then the blood of the next thousands of Nataline Sarkisyans is as much on our hands as theirs.

Please see this comment regarding the California Nurses Association assessment of SEIU:

But Andy Stern, the head of the SEIU, like DLC Democrats, has revealed himself as nothing more than a corporate flack with a luxurious vacation home on the Carolina Shores who (as others have pointed out) shills for Wal-Mart, Republican candidates on many occasions, and the private health care industry and big pharma - even as they destroy the lives of his often low-paid members.

(Many SEIU contracts, especially among low-paid contract cleaning workers and health care workers, have “won” wages slightly above the minimum wage and poor health insurance that only kicks in after working more hours than the bulk of the workers do. These contracts were often achieved after high-visibility “militant” campaigns that threw away power gained in the streets at the bargaining table to promote labor/management “cooperation.

And so De Moro is spot on with her critique: the SEIU - like the majority of US labor unions - continues to be on the side of the bosses while rendering themselves irrelevant, and representative of workers’ interests in name only.

As the movement for single-payer Medicare For All grows, the SEIU and the rest of business labor will eventually jump on, as will the DLC. In the end, it’s a winning movement. And they will claim to have led the struggle. That’s how these things work.

Until that time, the movement for single-payer (much to the enduring shame of those of us who have given our lives and careers to the US union movement) will be driven outside the realm of what is incorrectly called “organized labor.”

http://www.commondreams.org/ar.....6/26/2113/

The above is a snippet of a comment made on June 26, 2007 at 5:48 pm.

i understand there is a ‘rationing’ of health care, but really! Never for children!

Just remember, Bu’ush “believes strongly in private health care.”

Except where it concerns his own lifetime, platinum-plated, comprehensive, taxpayer-financed care.

Use the phrase “allocation of resources” instead of the word “rationing.” It’ll help advance a more reasonable discussion of the issue. Rationing is an emotionally loaded word.

I guess having worked in them, I have seen the good and the bad. The only time that I had to “ration” care was at a VA Hospital. I was told that the budget was running low and to only do emergency surgery..this was was fifty patients on a waiting list. So I ask..”What about the people on the waiting list?” The response was “I have to worry about the budget and my job”.

But, but, but that means that filthy poor people who are not productive members of society might get medical care at the expense of someone like me, who takes personal responsibility!!!11!1!!!1!!

You can see why no one in the mainstream of political thought and news media wants to really have this discussion. If we have it, it is going to really bare for everyone to see the craven ethical void at the center of “conservative” political, social, and economic theory: “Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!! Fuck you!!”

Heh, heh! Very funny! Like we don’t know that the reason that hospitals help the poor is because it’s illegal for them to refuse lifesaving care due to poorness. Like we don’t know that the reason government picks up the tab for those that can’t pay and apply for assistance and pass their guidelines is because they don’t want the hospitals and other medical care providers to go broke doing what the law demands. It’s as much to help big health care providers as individuals.

i understand there is a ‘rationing’ of health care, but really! Never for children!

It is painful to accept, but the reality is that there will always be rationing of health care for everyone–children included. This is because there will always be decisions made as to how much of a limited resource to devote to one individual versus another. The only question is how that rationing is performed.

By refusing to engage the topic–”No rationing! Ever! Especially for children!!”–you reinforce the status quo, which is that rationing is performed on the basis of personal wealth.

How about the idea that we spend too much in keeping people alive who should be allowed to or assisted to die.

This notion of clinging to life is completeley selfish and absurd not to mention costly.

Can someone tell me why some treatments cost in the millions of dollars? I don’t get it. Really I don’t.

True. Of course, you know exactly what the “conservative” response will be if any progressive tries to initiate a public discussion of “allocation of health care resources”.

“ZOMFG!!!! They are trying to ration Your health care!!1!!11!! They are going to KILL YOUR CHILDREN!!!!!111111!!!!”

As someone who loudly defends corporate union-busting hospitals, I can see why you’d want to exploit intra-union warfare to bolster your attacks, but it’s awfully hard to work both sides of that argument convincingly at once.

No, socialized medicine is run by the government, with doctors employed by government.
We want private hospitals and doctors, and we want them to make a reasonable profit.
What we do not need is insurance companies anywhere in the mix. Single payer is the only sane solution. Besides helping us, the consumers of health care, it will be the only saving grace for our manufacturing base. Or, what’s left of it.
The VA system has plenty of room for improvement, to be sure. What I would like to see, eventually, is VA hospitals upgraded to such an extent that they wcould be used as teaching hospitals.

The wealthy can take their sick to some lovely off shore tax haven like the Caymens and pay for their health care there on a capitalist approach. hahaha

Well, according to some in our country, it’s a “privilege” to live in America, but if you want to survive, well, depending on the money you have and are spending on insurance, your privilege will end. See?