Goodmorning

I always thought it would be a good thing if welfare checks were distributed as the WIC (Women, Infants, & Children) checks are, meaning, each family would be alloted an amount of milk, bread, eggs, meat, and vegetables per week. I think it would cut down on frivolous use of the welfare checks and would make the poor healthier too.

Mandating the cost of healthcare seems like a good idea. Of course, the uber wealthy will say, “Why should I pay for this for other people to use?!”. They act like these ‘taxes’ are breaking the bank for them or something. It’s disgusting.

Does everyone in fact contribute to SS? My recollection is that some state and government workers don’t and thus have substantially reduced benefits with the idea that the government pension will substitute. I have not researched this and am going by distant memory.

Single payer is the only plan with a real shot at working (and no chance of getting passed) because the insurance companies impose a huge overhead for the privilege of denying your claim when you need them the most. Unless the insurance companies are out, no system will really provide good care.

Good Morning Scarecrow, you’re right

It’s time for both of them to start describing their proposals in these terms and get beyond the silly debate they’ve been having.

Yes, there are some exemptions for those who had other state-sponsored plans. I don’t thing that detracts from the underlying principle that achieves universal retirement benefits.

Sadly, it is the banking and credit industries that are crumbling because of their own avarice. If it were the health “insurance” part of that industry that was imploding it would give us an opportunity to rebuild the system into a single payer system.

Oh well.

I have such dread of what is to come economically in this country. I have trouble even picturing what it will look like.

Good morning Elliot — thanks much for the heads up last night on the New York Philharmonic in Korea on PBS. Terrific concert.

buenos good morning firedogs!

In Tuesday’s Democratic debate and yesterday at a rally in Ohio, Senator Clinton made the argument that we should begin to think about universal health care the way we think about Social Security. Does she really mean it? From MSNBC:

I LOVE the idea, health care should be more like social security then social security is!

I want to get into the discussion the fact that the health of the labor force is an expense of the employers, just like keeping their equipment maintained, they benefit from the health of their labor force and when they don’t pay for health care they are “externalizing” their expenses

I also like a co pay system because while it is the employer’s obligation to keep his labor force healthy, we can’t expect them to pay the entire cost of a family

we also couldn’t expect employers to pay the cost of people who employ themselves

therefore, some kind of co-pay is equitable

BUT

the discussion MUST point out it is an employers expense keeping his labor force healthy, once we get THAT in the discussion and say it like it’s a FACT, the rest will fall into place nicely

it’s taking a method from the republican play book, say it, say it loud, say it as often as possible and it becomes part of the entire debate

Good morning Scarecrow. A bone to pick if I may.

Everyone already agrees with this principle when it’s applied to Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Congressional/Executive Office health plans and so on.

The overuse of “Everyone” drives me nuts. Many people, a number of people, the majority of people, a significant number of people….. all perfectly acceptable to indicate a lot of people.

Sorry to be picky but it is just not correct to state “everybody” ‘cuase it ain’t true.

G’morning, Scarecrow and crowlets.

Those who don’t pay into Social Security receive no benefits. What happens in a mandatory-pay healthcare system to those who have no income? Who, for one reason or another, may never have income?

Make no mistake — I am strongly in favor of healthcare reform, especially if it takes healthcare decisions out of the hands of insurance companies and puts it back in the hands of physicians.

I just can’t get my head around how either the Obama or Clinton plans work on day one, i.e., that early point at which there isn’t a pot o’money that we’ve been paying into. In a country buried in debt. Jeebus, I sound like a Republican. (((smacks self upside the head)))

I have such dread of what is to come economically in this country. I have trouble even picturing what it will look like.

Appalachia

which might work as long as there is full employment in the country. What about those who are unemployed?

I do totally agree that it is in the employer’s best interest though. And the big corpos ought to get behind it because the current system is a huge financial drag on them.

The California Nurses have been running radio ads in Ohio promoting single payer and criticizing mandates to purchase insurance. You can hear the ads via MP3 here.

From their press release:

The role of government, the nurses’ ad says, should be to “protect us from insurance companies, not force us to buy insurance products.”

Nurses know the problem with insurance-based care, the ad notes. They regularly “witness lives lost, care denied, families ruined by big insurance corporations. Nurses know there is only one real cure for our broken health care system. We ask the candidates to commit to the highest standard of quality care through Medicare for all Americans. That’s the real reform that puts decision-making power where it belongs – with you, your nurses, and your doctors.”

A challenge to the candidates to support real reform

“Nurses see America’s healthcare crisis up close everyday,” said Michelle Mahon, a Cleveland area RN. “Our ability to provide safe, effective, therapeutic care is undermined and our professional responsibility as patient advocates is compromised by insurance companies. Ohio nurses believe that the answer to our healthcare crisis is a Medicare for all, single payer plan, that will guarantee quality care to everyone.”

“We hope to remind Ohio voters of the suffering that nurses witness. We see patients who have been abandoned or abused by the very insurance companies that some think are the solution to our national healthcare crisis. And we hope that voters will ask the candidates of both parties, why are you proposing more insurance, rather than more care?” said Deborah Burger, RN, member of the NNOC/CNA Council of Presidents.

Good morning Scarecrow. This is a very important topic. It is a short step from this to what I believe our candidates should really be focusing on with regard to the healthcare question. I said it in the threads the other night during the debate.

Why don’t they just say it. It’s really simple. It’s only two little words:

Single Payer. Universal Medicare for all, paid for through a progressive tax structure.

It’s so easy a caveman can do it.

I do totally agree that it is in the employer’s best interest though. And the big corpos ought to get behind it because the current system is a huge financial drag on them.

Even more extraordinary as a number of insurance companies are invested in the failing and debt ridden automobile industry

just about any Native American reservation.

Start with Pine Ridge.

Point taken. Everyone agrees with you.

you are most welcome, it was a wonderful concert to be sure. I was even excited to hear the Star Spangled Banner for a change. I smiled a lot but confess the last thing I remember was Gershwin. I thought the choice of music was exactly right for the occasion.

And it was wonderful to crack open the door like that. All of North Korea listened. :)

now back to healthcare…

Well done

good one — LOL

which might work as long as there is full employment in the country. What about those who are unemployed?

part of our social system, we would have to provide for everyone and the bulk of that expense would have to fall on business

and when people bring up “why should we pay for undocumented people” we answer;

“they are working somewhere, this is why employers need to pay the bulk of the cost, they are hiring undocumented laborers to save money and we shouldh’t be forced into paying their bills”

I changed it to most people, although I considered “all liberal fascists,” etc.

If we just mandated free health care for kids from birth, many problems would be adverted. Even if that was all we did for now. Healthy eating would make a huge difference too.

agreed.

I’m glad that schools are starting to apply this knowledge to the menu.

If we just mandated free health care for kids from birth, many problems would be adverted.

And if we mandated free health care for EVERYONE from birth, even more would be.

I understood Hillary’s concept to be that taxes would pay for health coverage for those who could actually not afford to purchase. The “mandate” issue involved requiring that people who could afford it would have to pay for it. This would require the participation of those who can afford it but believe they are never going to need it and would end up getting treatment in emergency clinics as now. It seems similar to the required proof of auto insurance in many states.

One of the ways money can be raised for the universal/Medicare plan for all in keeping wth snowbird42 above, would be to enact something like a VAT tax, but call is a Value Subtracted Tax - VCT - on processed foods. Every step in the production and marketing should be taxed. These kinds of so-called food need to be made more expensive than unprocessed fruits, vegetables, etc.

This is perhaps the problem here. We have a deeply flawed and entrenched system. There are hundreds of thousands who work in the health care industry which include HMOs and insurance companies.

Even telling the investors the party’s over is a huge burden on the workers and managers who would be out of work.

Therefore the change has to evolve from what we have to what want. Not cold turkey.

I would think that the first step would be a set of guideline which establishes universal rates that are charged for coverage, set by the gov not the “insurers”. The same needs to be applied to the services provided. No million dollar fees for kidney transplants. People are getting too rich on that. The the shareholder need to bought out and the insurers and HMOs turned into accountants who process claims - same workers and managers, just remove the corporate owners, shareholder profits and so forth. Revert these profit engines to data processing operations. Who pays? Our tax dollars do. There are no insurance premiums per se. The government simply controls the costs of the total health care and pays for it from the people’s taxes. Simple. And take away the pork from the military in the process.

Don’t forget–Social Security is more than just a retirement program. You don’t have to retire to receive benefits. You can become disabled, or be the survivor or a dependant of someone who dies, or be a dependant of someone who becomes disabled.

DaVeep

pete you are absolutely correct - that is the case for massachusetts state employees, which includes employees in the state university system.

and imo, it’s a very bad thing.

I note that the sky did not fall after clinton2 made her remarks about social security which makes me wonder why the 2 candidates do not promote, and say “single payer”. Surely the majority of voters that prefer universal health care is greater than the number of voters supporting the insurance industry so who the heck are the candidate afraid of?

Edwards said that single payer was inevitable he just did not want to go after the insurance industry. WTF, why not.

good for clinton2 for saying what she did, at least it is a start.

Sorry Pete, I had originally intended to respond to your question at 4 and forgotten to remove it. So, federal civil service workers under the Civil Service Retirement System paid into medicare, but not social security. That system was superseded by the Federal Employees Retirement System in, I believe, the early 1980’s and social security is a part of that system.

We need to get past the notion of health insurance premiums.

Health costs are aggregated and then paid by the government. You don’t pay a thing directly, no wasteful bureaucracy to process premiums and so forth.

But the costs need to be controlled and the services need to monitored.

But, but, that’s, that’s……shhhh….

exactly. and that is one of the reasons i object so strongly to massachusetts removing state employees from these safety nets.

And if we mandated free health care for EVERYONE from birth, even more would be.

I don’t like the word “free”

it’s not free, it’s going to be paid by someone

that someone needs to be the employers of our society

also, this is not as expensive to them as it looks

when a company provides health care or health care is provided in general, the laborer is willing to get paid less since his expenses are less

it’s really not an expensive proposition for employers to pay for health care and in the long run costs them less not more’

but they can’t see that

socialism.

The problem is we need to “exit” the insurance companies from the health care industry without too much pain for them. BUT they have made out very well, so their party is coming to an end. Some sort of buy out is in the offing.

We need to nationalize other industries as well such as rail and air transport and energy and reign in corporate monopolism in the media

Let the market be free in terms of products. Lots of room on that playing field for capitalists.

So what? Not every aspect of socialism is evil, not even communism, nor even capitalism.

We need to have a sensible, equitable and just economic system. Perhaps it’s a hybrid. Let’s not get trapped in ideology or names.

No, of course it’s not free, and your point is correct, it should not be characterized that way.

But is is free in the sense that the individual doesn’t have to pay anything out of pocket for medical care.

a little elaboration on my position;

just a few years ago, ceo’s made between 20 and 40 times the mean salary of their workers

now that figure is in the hundreds, I believe around 400

you see, when expenses go down for a business they do NOT lower prices, prices for the most part are based on what you will pay not what they cost to produce

so the extra profit is given to the select few in the business

this is what they’ve done, they’ve externalized their expenses and use what’s left to pad their bank account

so forcing them to “pay their own bills” doesn’t raise the price of most items, it lowers the platinum parachute they’ve been able to aquire through their externalization of their bills

The problem is we need to “exit” the insurance companies from the health care industry without too much pain for them. BUT they have made out very well, so their party is coming to an end. Some sort of buy out is in the offing.

I agree but only for the worker bees and they can be employed by the new gummint single payer system. As for the money grabbing, greedy, evil ceo and investors… well ef them, they have scammed enough money from the sick and infirm already.

But is is free in the sense that the individual doesn’t have to pay anything out of pocket for medical care.

but we fall into their play book when we use the word, I want to use;

“force business to pay their own bills”

works much better then “free”

socialism.

it’s not really socialism, it would only be socialism if a person weren’t permitted to use services outside of teh government system

I agree completely.

My point was not that socialism was bad, or that even the socialist aspects of what you are proposing is bad. I am an old red diaper doper baby after all. My point was that socialism is a hard concept to sell in the Goodle USA.

You are correct. But that won’t stop the cons from calling it socialism.

But is is free in the sense that the individual doesn’t have to pay anything out of pocket for medical care.

In england, when I lived there we had a tax taken out every week for health and if we needed to go to a hosp or doc we just went. no worries, no thoughts of not having food on the table no stress to make us sicker. We were obligated to pay a minimal fee depending on the income for extensive medical work if we could not afford the “extra” (minimal) fee we did not get charged.

Maybe we should begin an effort to inoculate the term, “Socialize Medicine”.

The workers are nationalized as account managers for managing disbursements.

Socialized. (where’s the editor!?)

a word about “socialism”

to live in a society, there has to be socialism

you can’t have one without the other

the very concept of money is a socialism defined, along with it’s impimentation, it is project administered by the government, we are all forced into the systemm of “money”, we have to use the service whether we want to or not, it’s taxed even before you get any of it, this is tax is called the “prinm” and for every dolar that’s printed the government charges a principle on top of it, this is not called a tax but it’s a tax never the less

there is no program that demonstrates socialism more then money, it is not the antithesis of socialism, it is socialism defined

so is the police force, the fire department and clean air

so are the laws that allow business to keep property, the courts are socialism and the laws they follow are socialism, you pay for the service whether you like it or not, you are forced into the service by the government, you cannot opt out of the service

and I don’t mean “socialism” in some obscure sense, money, police, fire dept…all are absolutely socialism

there is no competition without socialism, big business buys small business or puts forces them to close so they can corner the market.

rather then charging competitive fees, they charge as much as possible…without socialism you can say good by to competition or “the fair market”, there is no such thing as “a free market”, there has to be regulation for the market to exist and that regulation is socialism

however people that bandi the word about as if it’s a perjurative only look at the programs they don’t want to pay into as socialism

the programs that they like, well, they must not be socialism to these people because socialism is such a bad word

if the only two people on this planet were you and your wife, the only way the two of you could exist together would be with socialism, you would both gain from each other’s productivity, and from each other’s strength you would obviate each other’s weakness

without socialism all there is is anarchy, there is no law, there are no courts, there is no money

the only property you would have is the property you can take at the point of a gun or the edge of your sword

anarchy

It’s a bad word, that’s for sure! Challenge the doubter though & often they cannot tell you what their main objection to it is, they just know that Faux News roundly damns it…

Well golly gee an actual conversaton about a real issue and not about how “Hopeful” we all should be about doing something about health care in this country. We the company I work for, are coming up on our renewal for choosing our plans for the coming year and it is mind boggeling, I am resonably intelligent and I want to tell you it is a clusterfuck when it come to choosing a plan and you really dont ever totally understand what you are agreeing to. The fine print is just beyond belief. Well it is probably to late unless people wake up from their dream phase of the Obama phenomenon. Voters need to get over their “AMerican Idol” mpment with the OBama thing and start paying attention to what is really being said. Enough with the swooning it ain’t gonna pay the bills.

The workers are nationalized as account managers for managing disbursements.

I can certainly suggest what could happen to the bosses that have turned down insurance claims but am not allowed to on FDL

It’s a bad word, that’s for sure! Challenge the doubter though & often they cannot tell you what their main objection to it is, they just know that Faux News roundly damns it…

see perris@54

The use the word single payer and universal coverage… same as “socialized” medicine.

The insurance industry and profit whores in the medical industry get it. THEY might scream SOCIALISM the sky is falling. But that’s a load of crap.

Absolutely but maybe just getting kids free checkups would be more palatable to those who think only rich kids should have care.

What Perris said.

We all used socialized “roads” every day, rich, poor, and the shrinking middle.

No one refuses to ride the roads because they are socialized.

off to work, see all later

Very good, perris, very, very good.

I am baffled at the fact that people have a hard time getting this.

Not really OT: If this hasn’t been mentioned yet, cinemax is showing the doc “The One Percent”. 27 yr old heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune talks to people across the country about the gap between 1% wealthy control & the rest of us.

without socialism all there is is anarchy, there is no law, there are no courts, there is no money the only property you would have is the property you can take at the point of a gun or the edge of your sword

So I take it we did not bring socialism to Iraq.

I think we’re all preaching to the choir about socialsm. There probably isn’t a single frequenter of FDL who doesn’t understand that we have had forms of socialism since Jamestown. We might differ in terms of the degree, from a mixed economy to an entirely state-owned one, but we all know that it is best way to deal with a lot of societal necessities.

Still, a large part of the electorate reacts to the word socialism the way they to to Obama’s middle name. Intelligence and thoughtfulness are not prerequisite to voting.

I realize this post is about Clinton, however I noticed Barack Hussein Obama is running health care commercials in Michigan stating that he wants to give Americans the exact same health care members of Congress have.

Does anyone have any idea the type of health care plan available to members of Congress? Somehow I am getting the feeling it is not cheap.

I have been reading and re-reading an excellent book that goes to the heart of this and related issues. It’s ‘The Invisible Heart’ by Nancy Folbre. The title is a take on ‘The Invisible Hand.’ I am not going to bore you with the details, but the underlying point is that there are certain kinds of services — care of children, sick people, old people, education — where the personal and emotional element is so strong (and necessary) that they cannot be commoditized the way you can commoditize boxes of breakfast cereal. She’s an excellent economist, for those that can read the deep theory between the lines. She provides a new and in my opinion better vocabulary for thinking about these issues. We have to get away from ’socialism’ versus ‘capitalism’ as the defining categories. They aren’t fruitful. This is just words, buit as we have seen in the current presidential campaign, words matter.

There is immense power in language and framing issues (e.g., socialized medicine). George Lakoff is the reigning champ on the progressive side around this issue.

And one of his consistent points is that if you use the old frame/term in your new argument, it just won’t fly. By and large, everyone (*g*) in this country has a knee-jerk reaction to “socialism.”

Edward Bernays (newphew of Sigmund Freud) recast “propaganda” in this country as “public relations.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Someone needs to dream up a well-thought-out new frame for this.

OMG!!11!! His middle name is Hussein??? He must be one of them terrist like fellers! I’ll never vote fer him now.

What he said.

OMG!!11!! His middle name is Hussein??? He must be one of them terrist like fellers! I’ll never vote fer him now.

I heard that mccain is a muslim

no, I really heard it

I used Clinton’s comments as a pretext for the larger topic and how the way we think about universal health care can benefit from a different frame. As barbara notes, we need a new frame that does not get hung up on forcing everyone to purchase insurance, when what we really want is everyone to get health care.

John Sydney McCain III

perris, thanks for your thoughts above - i emailed them to my son the stubborn.

I want to say why I support Clinton. I am disabled. I have medicare and social security disability. I wish to return to work. I cannot. Why? Because if I returned to work, I would lose the healthcare I receive through medicare that is keeping me alive. Social Security Disability is a trap. If you try to return to work, you lose all benefits. Thats why I desperately need us to get Universal Healthcare. I am freaked by Mr Obama’s plan. I will never forget when Reagan threw alot of people off of disability without concern for their healthcare and many died. That was only to cut money from the program without regard to the damage it did to people’s lives. When Obama talks about cutting funding because of lack of revenue as he did yesterday, who is gonna get thrown under the bus?

perris, thanks for your thoughts above - i emailed them to my son the stubborn.

I hope you corrected some typos

Alternatively, we could start referring to everything where our taxes are pooled to pay for a service/necessity as the “social defense force,” instead of I-35, the Interstate Highways would be Social Route-35, air traffic control could be social air travel safety system, etc.. (mostly kidding)

Makes me wonder why anyone would ever vote for someone like Bush, or any Republic. Of course, when elections become about keeping you safe from gay marriage, it’s less of a suprise. It’s tragic that the Democrats lack a voice to point out that the Republics really are not on the side of 99% of the people.

I agree that there are aspects of socialism in our society, but it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. The only way that socialism works is if everyone is doing it, that’s why Clinton has set up her health care program the way she has. I order to do that, you have to penalize people for not participating, that’s loss of freedom.

Socialism is a small step away from Communism. Both of those words should scare the hell out of everyone. If we go this route, you will not truly understand what you had, until it is gone, and then you can’t get it back (unless there is a revolt of some type).

The great thing about freedom is you can do anything that you want as long as it doesn’t impede the freedoms of others. Anyone in this country has the freedom to go out and get health care, whatever health care they want. You can choose between Free State sponsored health care, or get the best health care plan available to man. You may need to take steps in order to afford that type of health care, but again that is another freedom.

I think the big change was when Reagan was able to convince a lot of people that the only thing keeping them from wealth and fame was the fact that the government was taking their money and distributing it to the lazy undeserving. Unfortunately, it seems a part of human nature that they readily except a rationale which allows them to blame their failures on some culprit group.

When Obama talks about cutting funding because of lack of revenue as he did yesterday, who is gonna get thrown under the bus?

I have not heard this. Was he referring to Massachusetts? Do you have a link?

Obama needs to hear your concerns, glennmcgahee. Please, please tell him. I am guardian for my brother, who also lives on Medicare and SSI. To maintain benefits, he can only work half-time, earning less than $3/hour doing piece work. I truly believe that Obama has his ear to the ground, that he is listening, that he cares about you and my brother, if not specifically, then in the abstract. I know, I know. Abstract sucks. Send him your photo and tell him. Make it real for him.

Only if the have the “liberty” granted by a sufficient bank balance. I challenge you to go obtain some of that “Free State sponsored health care” in a southern State. You have the “freedom” to die untreated, that’s the freedom one has.

Kurt, I know how you feel. Living in a society is a loss of freedom. Your right to swing your fist now ends where my nose begin. Perfect freedom is found where the only limit is your ability to stay alive when somehting is trying to eat you.

So, agreement to form a nation, a social contract, is the first step toward communism, I guess. I guess the first refusal to use common means for common services is the first step toward anarchy.

The Canadian health care system gets a certain amount of attention when this topic comes up in the US. But we ought not to miss how the Canadian Conservative party seems to follow the US GOP when it comes to . . . well, you read it:

OTTAWA — Federal Liberals are asking the RCMP to launch a criminal probe into allegations that the Conservatives tried to buy the support of an Independent MP in the days leading up to a crucial vote in 2005.

In a letter to RCMP Commissioner William Elliott today, Liberals say a police probe is needed to examine “very serious allegations regarding potential criminal activity by representatives of the Conservative Party of Canada.”

According to a new book by Vancouver journalist Tom Zytaruk, two Conservative officials met with Chuck Cadman, then dying of cancer, and tried to lure him back to the Tory caucus with the promise of a $1 million life insurance policy just two days before the crucial May 19, 2005 vote.

“The Tories actually walked in with a list of offers written down on a piece of paper. Included in their proposal was a $1 million life insurance policy - no small carrot for a man with advanced cancer,” says the new book, titled Like A Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story.

Sounds like your basic K Street solution to me.

Insurance as bribery. Good grief.

We should absolutely think of health care in the same vein as social security. Replace “insurance” in health insurance with “security” and you get health security. Social security is a social insurance program. It protects society.

The primary benefit of social security is that everyone is a stakeholder in the program which helps prevent its destruction. The problem with Medicaid, or means tested programs, is that those not eligible are inclined to want to do away with as they do not benefit from it.

I’m inclined to think we need mandates in the form of a payroll deduction on everyone (like FICA). Obama’s notion that if we make it affordable enough then people will buy it doesn’t pan out. There are always groups (e.g. the young and esp. younger males who think they’re invincible) that will never bother to pay for something they don’t think they’ll ever need. However, for purposes of this election it is irrelevant. The first goal is to get the country to embrace universal coverage so that there is a “mandate”, so to speak, for politicians to proceed. The details will get hashed out in legislative session.

In my country, the UK, we have this system. It’s called the National Health Service. It is essentially “free at the point of use”. Practice that phrase, it is clear and avoids confusion. Of course the NHS isn’t free, we pay for it through a variety of taxes. We managed to set it up at a time when our country was on its knees as the result of a war (WWII).It isn’t perfect, and it can be bureaucratic.But overall it does work and, most of all, if you get ill you can concentrate on getting treated and getting better, not on whether you =can pay the hospital bill.

We do have to ration some of the more costly treatments but they can be got outside the systemm a course which we don’t forbid. We have priivate hospitals and many people have private care plans.Of course that option is only open to the wealthy but, hey, you’re used to that.Indeed most of the money from health care plans goes towards getting treated a bit sooner or having a higher standard of ancillary care, such as choice of food and a room rather than a bay with six people in.

And, sorry, Kurt @79 but yes, it does mean Socialism or rather Social Democracy, can be agood thing. Much of Europe takes that for granted and succeeds quite well thanks. You may have noticed, or more probably have not, that even right wing parties in much of Europe mess with the state healthcare at their peril. Even the Blessed Margaret Thatcher, representative of all that is right wing in Britain, had to back off an attempt to reduce state healthcare and say “The NHS is safe in our hands”.Her current successor, David Cameron, has his health spokesman promise to keep spending on the NHS at the same level as Labour if they get in next time.

Go on, be brave, try a bit of social democracy!

Good Morning Scarecrow and firedogs,

fyi - this is the same California Nurses Association behind California’s Prop 89 - Public Financing of Elections which was narrowly defeated in 06. It’s most vocal opponent ?? The Insurance Industry, yeah I know, I was shocked as well.

and I’m not so sure the oooh scary Socialism ! thingy is going to work much anymore, but then again there is that Gay, Illegal Muslim Immigrant Socialism danger

health security

Let the reframing begin!

/agrees

Go on, be brave, try a bit of social democracy!

How come our dems don’t reframe the “socialism” charge with “social democracy”? Time for pushback?

Okay, here’s today’s annoying computer question: if you are happily typing away on an article draft, and you bump the side of your laptop with your pinky as you are typing…it shocks the crap out of you…and then your screen goes altogether dark and won’t show anything, even with a reboot? Am I screwed entirely and going to have to get yet another laptop?

And if so, arrrrrrrgh… (On Mr. ReddHedd’s laptop at the moment…)

Can someone (everyone!) lead me to a good primer on universal and single payer health care? As so often happens to me here at FDL, I discover I need to dig deeper and make myself smarter. I’d make a lousy Republican.

My high tech advice: it’s group hug for Christy time.

As barbara notes, we need a new frame that does not get hung up on forcing everyone to purchase insurance, when what we really want is everyone to get health care.

Like wanting medical care, not health scam?

(((((Christy)))))

Is it still under warranty?

Physicians for a National Health Plan is a great place to start.

As if The Peanut having a barfing ick all week weren’t bad enough, I think I just fried my laptop. Second one in three years. (Blogging, not cheap.) Jeebus, this week has sucked…

Thanks for the hug.

Do any of the LEDs light up? Does it beep?

barbara,

I’d probably start with John Conyers’ health care page:
lots of wonky goodness in the sidebars

http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_hr676.htm

“Of all the forms of inequality,
injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Indeed. Low probability things to try are the “fn” key with whatever “F” keys have icons of the display (toggles to TV and/or LCD outputs). That’s probably not the answer but something worth trying. I just replaced my laptop a couple of weeks ago, so I sympathize entirely. They NEVER die at a convenient time.

Sorry, thought I left the link. It is phnp.org

You don’t need to challenge me, I used to work as a nurse in a clinic of Sonoma County’s (CA) public health system, that why I don’t ever want to see the government take over the country health care in any way. The “Free” health care is absolute garbage, but there were good people there trying there best. There was just always a severe shortage of everything, so treatment was difficult. That in turn lowered moral which made the place seem like a mortuary.

You have freedom’s to make decisions about every aspect of your life…good or bad. Some people get dealt a bad hand in life, that is the nature of life. I was lucky enough to realize fairly early that good education was the key to many nice benefits in life. The tragidy of America in present day, is that people are forgetting what they have, and how they got it. We have such a “woe is me” attitude when anything you want is out there, all you need to do is reach for it and take it. It may require some work, but you can do it.

Glad you’re not hurt and hope this isn’t some new NSA capability.

Is it still under warranty?

that’s kind of a nice way to put it.

(((Christy!))) and (((peanut, too)))

The health insurance industry has a massive investment, tens or hundreds of thousands of employees,a multitude of stockholders and very rich people running it, all of whom don’t want to see their golden ox gored and who will fight for their right to continue making money and protect their assets. This is what we are fighting. What has to happen is that we start a parallel system that competes with the private firms, or use something like Medicare (or just open up Medicare) to everyone. Done properly this quickly will draw the population to it like a magnet, as employers drop private coverage in favor of the cheaper public system. Trying to go head on against companies that make hundreds of billions of profit every year hasn’t worked for 50 years (Harry and Louise?). When the government puts a private company out of business it is a political disaster for the politicians and they are reluctant to do it. But when the market does it that’s life. Opening up Medicare will give the politicians cover, since they aren’t putting anybody directly out of business, it’s the free market, get it? This seems to me like the best and fastest way to accomplish national health care.

Yes — we got an extended warranty on it. But it will have to be shipped back to be repared because I live in BFE and nothing is ever easy here. Arrrrrrrrrgh…

air traffic control could be social air travel safety system

The cons will not give up trying to privatize ATC. All I’ve heard for the past eight years has been that the airplanes will all crash into each other unless we impose “user fees” to “save” the National Airspace System.

Of course all of this is being driven by the large corporate airlines who are trying to drive all other users of the system out of the game. And I’m not just talking about private pilots. They’d love to see private and corporate jets driven out as well.

They do - the only thing that seems to be not working is the monitor/screen — it’s showing nothing. I tried rebooting, I fiddled with all the usual troubleshooting first attempt stuff…still nothing. Having it work doesn’t do me any good if I can’t see what in the hell I’m typing or clicking. Crap.

Okay, here’s today’s annoying computer question: if you are happily typing away on an article draft, and you bump the side of your laptop with your pinky as you are typing…it shocks the crap out of you…and then your screen goes altogether dark and won’t show anything, even with a reboot? Am I screwed entirely and going to have to get yet another laptop?

Is this what happens when you do your extreme blogging in a feather boa, and the static electricity builds up?

Once again — neither plan works because the insurance companies are still involved. I get so sick of hearing “Hillary’s plan is better!” “No! Barak’s plan is!”

I know what I’m talking about. I worked in and around health insurance for 20 years. I saw it all.

There are 2 parts to health care: Patient and Doctor

NO HEALTH INSURANCE

(I know I have said this before, but damn it, I get so sick of Americans being duped.)

Apparently, yes. And the worst part about it is that I loathe Mr. ReddHedd’s laptop. He’s got all these annoying pop-up things that show up and I don’t know how to turn them off because, frankly, I’m an utter techno-idiot. (You guys are truly lucky I’ve figured out WordPress enough to do posts. I’m that bad.)

Opening up Medicare will give the politicians cover, since they aren’t putting anybody directly out of business, it’s the free market, get it? This seems to me like the best and fastest way to accomplish national health care.

I completely agree. It’s already an established system with a FICA payroll deduction in place. And a few insurers would still be involved to handle claims administration , something I don’t have a huge problem with.

I’m one of those who believes the Clinton plan (and more or less the Obama plan) actually contain a mechanism for this transition. There are subsidized policies for those who can’t afford full premiums; there is a “pool” for providing care outside the private system. The question becomes, how are the incentives structured? And when people start to move towards the pool, as they are likely to do, what will government do? Will it respond in ways to protect the market for private insurance by penalizing those who shift? Or will it protect the right of people to shift from the private to the public system, and provide funding for that. The reason I wrote on Clinton’s comments wrt to Social Security is not because I think she literally meant that but because that framing helps move the debate in a useful direction.

If Obama is smart, instead of criticizing this Clinton statement, he’ll use it to change the discussion and get both of them out of the mandated insurance box they’re both in. Anything that helps us think about this difficult problem differently is helpful. JMO.

Time for you to break down (no pun intended) and get a Mac. Just do it.

MacBook Air… mmmmmmmmm…

If it is a Mac take it your local store. The reset is inside and it sometimes means taking the itty bitty battery out and putting it back in again. (It is very small about 6mils).

I was gonna make a pie today, do you think I should use mac apples?

Right, because nothing ever breaks on a Mac and they have a superior distribution and suppport organization in WV.

Kurt-it appears that for your premise to work everyone must have the same opportunity to work and the ability to make a sufficient income and the desire to purchase, freely , private insurance. So could you explain to me how all the people who make under 30K can afford insurance for their families? (about 1/2 the people in the country make 30k or less). Also please explain where the jobs that pay enough are located and available because I know in my gut that the people who make 30K would love to make more. (There would have to be around 60 million 60K jobs unfilled to make room for all those folks, to give you a hint)

Suburban, please read what you are writing. A mandate for health care? Ok so we do what you propose, what is next? Global Warming is hot topic these days. Are we going to mandate that I can drive my car every other day or not at all, or use a certain amount of power because we have to shutdown power plants?

The problem with mandates (besides the loss of freedom, see above :]), is that these idiots in Washington will start using that with every piece of legislation they pass. We will mandate the US right out of existence. You do not want to give politicians that kind of power; it will set precedence like one you have never seen before.

I agree there are problems with health care, but a mandate is not the fix.

Are you suggesting the society has no social needs that everyone in the society is responsible to participate in?

I used to tell my parents when they told me to do something that I didn’t want to do that “You can’t make me, it’s a free country”.

It didn’t take long for them to teach me that with freedom comes responsibility. And that includes responsibility for the least among us in society.

It is probably he inverter for the display. I would send it back if it shocked you as that is a safety hazard (as you undoubtedly noticed). When I was in the industry we immediately issued a RMA in any cases involving systems administering electrical shock to their owners.

I know. I retired last years after 36 years working for the FAA. Level I and II towers had been privatized and the FSS system had been privatized. Many staff positions in regional offices and HQ’s are filled by private contractors. All the private worker bees are retired FAA. The FAA paid for all of their training. I don’t know what the cost will be when the contractors have to actually train personnel.

As a practical answer - unless as someone suggested, the shock was due to static electricity, it sounds like your laptop is indeed in need of repair.

Yeah — this was the quickie buy laptop from last year that I had to run out and get two days before I went to DC to cover the Libby trial. My laptop completely and totally fried, and I was headed to DC for the opening week of trial coverage and had to have something. It’s certainly not an expensive or customized model, having picked it up off the rack at Sam’s Club (yes, I do live in the hinterlands and my buying options are quite limited, thanks). But I did think I’d get more than a year out of the damned thing, even with the insane usage mine gets…SIGH

You could connect an external monitor - but that would kinda run contrary to the idea of a laptop, and likely not be especially safe if there are electrical problems.

It is probably he inverter for the display. I would send it back if it shocked you as that is a safety hazard (as you undoubtedly noticed). When I was in the industry we immediately issued a RMA in any cases involving systems administering electrical shock to their owners.

how often does that happen?

Thanks, Mack — it looks like I’ll be taking it back for someone to peek at it. Because it did shock the bejeebers out of my hand when my pinkie grazed the side of the laptop.

I think we need a Christy finally buys a MAC fund raiser.

Thank you Scarecrow

Start here

Can you take it back to Sams?
I know Cosco is very good about such matters.

In a microdaft machine from walmart probably every two or three months if not sooner /s

Try the function (fn) button plus the F7 or like key. My IBM laptop has the capability to force the screen to be displayed externally for a projector. If that does not work, then Tech Support might be the answer.

lol!!

Have you tried to connect an external monitor?

Sounds like the screen was fried. Those are expensive to replace.

Amen.

What Perris, Sangemon, SanderO & so many of you say!

Medicare, medicade, free education (at least through HS…………Socialism!
The best insurance our taxes buy!

.062 out of every earned dollar to $102,000 =’S less than $7000. That’s it. The millionare, billionaire and zillionare pay no more than $ 6,324 annually!

Medicare is .0145 cents out of every earned dollar up to the last earned ! dollar

If those dollars stayed in the accounts they were paid into and if every dollar was taxed the same (No CAP of $102,000) we could afford healthcare and OH so many things like free college………… ect. ect.!

The shocks, not very often. We (Dell) didn’t have a lot of inverter problems, but it was a common failure. Them most common issue with portable displays was the ribbon cable which connected it to the main body of the computer.

Even though it doesn’t happen often, it is still shocking that it does happen.

FSS is gone and has been replaced by Lockheed Martin, which is doing an absolutely horrendous job.

They are not even bothering to train their personnel, it seems.

One of the down sides to Capitalism is that there are always going to be those who are either unemployed, or who can’t afford something. That is economics 101. You kind of have to look at it as a Bell Curve; there will be some on the bottom left that have relatively nothing, some on the right that have everything, and most in the middle. If you don’t have this in this system and everyone is employed with the same income, then inflation becomes a huge problem…and that is a long boring discussion :].

I am trying to be gentle with my comments. I now there are a lot of people out there who make low salaries. Using myself as an example, I was not making much as a nurse in a public health care setting. So I ended up going back to college, getting my masters degree (during this time I had basic health coverage), and went to work in the Silicon Valley in technology. That is where my big salary boost came. Those were all decisions I had to make at that time and they paid off.

So in answer to your question I had to make 2 large decisions: 1) To get more education, and 2) move to a major city where my skills would pay off. Keep in mind this didn’t come without its downside…I had to give up a lot of family life and most of my 20’s to get there. Most people have similar decisions in life to make. Some decide to stay home and rear their kids; others decide to go another route. Either one is fine but there as costs associate with each route you go. So an electrician making 30k a year in Ohio can make the decision to move to CA where his talents are much more in demand. In turn he will also have his salary doubled, or even tripled. It comes at a cost however.

Hope this wasn’t too long winded.

While running for office in 2006 I was knocking the door of a nurse who was on her way to work. She didn’t have a lot of time but her plan for Universal Health Care would be what she called “Everybody Gets a Yugo”. I liked it and adapted it for my state legislative campaign. Every citizen should receive a bare bones basic health care coverage.
If you a Union member you could negotiate for a “Cadillac” upgrade that you, your union and employer would pay for. Any individual could upgrade their personal coverage, but everybody would receive basic coverage. Rationing - Oh! Why not!
The other way we could reduce Medicare cost is to require everyone to sign a “Living Will” specifying what types of end of life coverage they wish to receive. You would have to pay a premium for any coverage above the basics. Has former Oregon Governor
Dr. John Kitzhaber states “dying is part of life”. The majority of Medicare costs go for procedures during the last 6 months of life.

Got sidetracked and when I came back, I was all alone. (((sniff!)))

Thanks for links to healthcare 101 info. Appreciate it muchly!

Another thought-Suppose a 1% sales tax increase for universal health care, the rest made up through income taxes. This would hit everyone a little bit (including those who are poor I admit, but also all the illegals, people outside the systemm slackers etc. who are now avoiding income taxes.) This would make the financing more universal and I submit more palatable to the conservatives who vomit at the thought of anyone getting any of their money who didn’t earn it. (Like kids, elderly, disabled, non-white,mentally challenged, dishwashers, waitresses, ditch diggers, and every other American worker whose labor makes profits and life easier for the Rich.)

I probably should have said shocks are exceedingly rare, which is true. Our big hing was calling hem “portables” since the bottom of the machine could get hot and they were very concerned after the hot coffee law suit. Thye felt that calling it a portable didn’t imply that it was meant to be used on your lap.

Of course not.

In order for any society to work there has to be responsibility to that society by its people. One of the great things about America is our willingness as a whole to help those less fortunate than ourselves; it doesn’t even matter if you are an American or not. When I make my points, I am not stating that there are not people among us that don’t need help. I am stating that government is not the way to do it. Its a well known point that any dollar the government throws at any program, about 70% of that dollar is gone before it even gets to what it is supposed to help. Governments are highly inefficient and are not meant to meet the social needs of its people. Our government is only meant for infrastructure and protection…that’s all the founding fathers had in mind.

Medicare is said to be the most efficient and least expensive insurance one can buy.

My problem with what is now being said is that it sounds mysteriously like a single payer system, but they are not calling it a single payer system. My fear is that it is still reliant on “for profit” healthcare organizations. OTOH, I have medicare, but I also have an medicare advantage plan through a private insurance company (Healthnet, which I believe was in the news recently) which means I pay whatever they dictate in copays for specialist visits (I have a pulmonary care dr and a cardiologist,) and certain tests ($125 for a CT scan, $150 for an MRI, $25 for an xray) and $39 for second tier drugs (everything not on Walmart’s $4 list.) That means bean counters are still making the medical decisions. That’s the way this works in this country; I’m not sure that’s going to change with either Hillary’s or Obama’s plans. I can only hope that they will cause the government to oversee the system better.

Come on Kurt. You know that “that’s all the founding fathers had in mind,” is your interpretation. Without going into a long discussion, “provide for the common defense” takes care of the protection part, but the interpretation of “promote the general welfare,” is surely open to an interpretation which differs from “infrastructure.”

I realize that you are being polite and appreciate the civil discourse, but it’s not like the rest of us turned 13 yesterday, read the Communist Manifesto, and are new to anything else. You have to know that your bell curve explanation of capitalism (in which I happen to be a believer) is relative, not absolute. When the earnings of those you describe to the right increase, over a couple of decades, from 10 times what the people in the middle of the curve earn, to 40 times, the curve has become warped. If it becomes too warped, the largest part of the bell have more to gain than to lose by civil unrest and the nation begins to fall apart.

Who would Jesus cover?

Hillary, at first, was going to get something done about Healthcare in about eight years (at first in this campaign) so a big Thank you to John Edwards in getting the ball rolling. He couldn’t jump right in and go for single payer because he would never have gotten as far as he did! So Thank You , Senator John Edwards for more than I thought possible, in our propagandist CON society.

We The People are waking up!

Members of Congress have the same coverage as Federal Employees. It’s called the Federal Employees Health Benefits plan (FEHB). It is made up of several insurance companies, HMOs, etc. You can look up the details at the Office of Personnel Management (www.opm.gov).

The only thing Congress gets that the regular Federal employee doesn’t, is that there are doctors and dentists available at the Capitol.

Kurt, what you are basically saying is that our government tends to be more corrupt than that of many other countries in the world. That’s the real reason why 70% is gone before anything gets done. If this were a charity, it would be considered a miserable failure and not worthy of a donation. We have studies, then studies to study the studies, etc., etc., etc. We elect people who don’t believe in government, and when it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, we feign surprise. Enough already. Build the bridges, invest in educating the children, give the masses medical care, clean up the atmosphere and disallow pollution of it by industries, inventing new jobs along the way to do all this, and stiffen the penalties for corruption, and we will be okay.

Your reference is to a single document the founding fathers wrote. They wrote other papers/letters that give greater insight to how they thought.

I am not clear on your comment to the Communist Manifesto. Are you suggesting that we implement aspects of that into our society? Also your reference to those making 10x/40x the amount of normal citizens is a very small minority of the population, again that small portion of the Bell Curve. Keep in mind I don’t like it, nor do I think it is fair. But on the flip side these CEO’s have heart attacks (at a young age) due to the stress in their jobs, and divorce rates are relatively high. Again, these are choices these individuals made and are getting paid back for literally and figuratively.

Keep in mind, the people making the large CEO salaries do not make this country work, it is the people in the middle who make the average salary. Without those people, the one’s on the left and right have nothing. Another thing to note, what is common nature about rich people? They always want more. So what do they do? They risk that money they make in other companies with the hopes of making more money. You may not like that they make the money they make, but they are also the one’s risking with the intention of making more money. in that risk, a lot of jobs are made. Thus our economy flows.

Question for you: Since most large companies are mostly international now, how do you control the likes of Abu Dhabi who are buying up large chunks of American based companies and running them from outside the US where CEO’s are not under the tax laws of the US? I am asking this as there seems to be a common hatred of the rich, and if the rich start going elsewhere, yet are getting our money, what do you do?

Thanks, I was actually going to research this. Appreciate it.

Back a few weeks ago, ‘60 Minutes’ did a piece on Denmark where health care and university education is free, paid by payroll taxes. An interviewee said that the tax rate on a typical middle income person was about 50%. The interviewer smugly asserted that Americans wouldn’t stand for that. So I did a rough calculation, and owning my own business I know the cost of health insurance, etc. Considering that health and disabilty insurance and other perks are really part of an employee’s salary package, even if those parts are not taxed by the federal government or the state (CT’s rate is 6%), I added those actual costs and state and federal WT and payroll taxes (both employer and employee parts) to a typical very good salary ($100K), and found that the total ‘taxes’ were very close to 50%. For a lower salary, the explicit taxes are lower, but medical insurance, etc. remain the same, so the fraction stays at about 50% or can actually be higher. Now, admittedly I had to get an individual health insurance policy for my wife and me and we are in our early 60’s, so it is higher than with a typical group plan, but not outrageously so. Treating these costs as part of total salary, and paying through payroll taxes makes great sense. Now for single payer, and disbanding (nationalizing?) the insurance companies.

Question for you: Since most large companies are mostly international now, how do you control the likes of Abu Dhabi who are buying up large chunks of American based companies and running them from outside the US where CEO’s are not under the tax laws of the US? I am asking this as there seems to be a common hatred of the rich, and if the rich start going elsewhere, yet are getting our money, what do you do?

hummmmmm, I got an idea…….
maybe our Washinton representatives can once again write the laws instead of Corporate America?

Maybe they can resind the laws they compromised and write laws that protect us instead of sabotaging US?

Well, to a degree. Government is power, power leads to corruption…so on and so forth.

In a perfect world what you wrote above would be it. This world is far from perfect and those we put in government we absolutely can’t trust. We can hope that they make the right decisions for us, and if not they get replaced.

One of the dirty little secrets of liberals is that all conservatives are rich. Funny thing is that is not the case anymore and there are more liberal millionaires/billionaires than conservative. What is even funnier is that they take advantage of all the same tax loophole’s/advantages that they claim the conservatives were exploiting during the 80’s. Case in point: Ted Kennedy, he only pays taxes on what he makes in the senate, yet everyone knows he is a millionaire several times over. No-one can track what he is worth because of laws surrounding Trusts. Which gets us to your point…..who makes these laws? We want to trust them, to penalize themselves when they are being corrupt.

That would be nice, to see a government actually do what it was intended for. Unfortunately since we can’t even figure out how to put tariff’s on Chinese made products, I doubt anything bigger is going to change in terms of laws.

We are the Government and FDL & the all the other grass/netroots are doing a great job getting out that fact!

as for:

Case in point:
“Ted Kennedy, he only pays taxes on what he makes in the senate, yet everyone knows he is a millionaire several times over. No-one can track what he is worth because of laws surrounding Trusts. Which gets us to your point…..who makes these laws”?

Your right Kurt. I was confounded when I heard Ted Kennedy say we must “compromise”. I got goose pimples…….He lost me after that!

Those who go along with poor laws because there is one thing good in them is what caused the mess we’re in. Really, beginning with Reagan & the lawmakers and Senators in Washington since. We need to clean “House” and Senate as these wonderfull bloggers are pointing out!
Thanks Jane & Christy!

Just one of the documents? I aware of the Federalist Papers, and know that some participants in the Constitutional Convention kept diaries and wrote letters. I’ve read some. But the only document which the jointly signed, and which represents their only basis for being called founding fathers, is the founding document of the government we discuss.

My reference to turning 13 and reading the Communist Manifesto was related to, what seemed to me, to be a patronizing tone in your discussion. I’m 64 years old, have a Master’s Degree in American History, have been an officer in the US Air Force, and worked as an air traffic controller, superfisor, facility manager, and staff specialist in the FAA for 36 years. Most of us “didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday,” and are aware capitalist, communist, and socialist theory.

With regard to foreign ownership (which I’m not sure of the relationship to the discussion of the role of government), if it plays too great a role in the disparity a greatly increases the division between the wealthy and the remainder, we may have to return to protectionism, even though it might lower the standard of living. That will be our choice. But surely you understand that my point related to the fact that our society was more stable, and offered more to its meember, prior to the current adminstration’s tax policies.

The great thing about freedom is you can do anything that you want as long as it doesn’t impede the freedoms of others. Anyone in this country has the freedom to go out and get health care, whatever health care they want. You can choose between Free State sponsored health care, or get the best health care plan available to man. You may need to take steps in order to afford that type of health care, but again that is another freedom.

Yes, all those infants born with developmental abnormalities can just raise themselves up by their bootstraps - assuming they have arms and legs - and take take steps to afford “the best health care known to man”.

Sorry, kurt - won’t join you in sacrificing more human lives to the church of libertarian ideology.

I agree that there are aspects of socialism in our society, but it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. The only way that socialism works is if everyone is doing it, that’s why Clinton has set up her health care program the way she has. I order to do that, you have to penalize people for not participating, that’s loss of freedom.

Socialism is a small step away from Communism. Both of those words should scare the hell out of everyone. If we go this route, you will not truly understand what you had, until it is gone, and then you can’t get it back (unless there is a revolt of some type).

Gee. Outside of the feverish delusions of the ideologues, the citizens of Scandanavia nations (all with private enerprise and heavy state intervention/taxation - often termed democratic socialism) have the best quality of life on the planet. The best health system by many measures is the state-funded French sysem.

Of course, for ideologues, empirical data doesn’t matter. Worship of their pet ideology does.

But the ideologues have had thirty years to sacrifice our children and elders and global competitiveness on the altar of their religion.

While continuing to use public roads and public services - and even to collect paychecks from public agencies.

Cause their ideologies are so - well - flexible.

When it comes to looking after themselves.

Its a well known point that any dollar the government throws at any program, about 70% of that dollar is gone before it even gets to what it is supposed to help.

Yes - this is a well-known GOP/libertarian talking point - pushed by Reagan and the Club For Growth. And this talking point is a pernicious lie.

As another commenter observed:

Medicare is said to be the most efficient and least expensive insurance one can buy.

Yep. Overhead approx 1-2% vs 20-40% for commercial insurance.

The two parts of Medicare that don’t match the 1-2% overhead? Medicare Part D - designed to allow your precious private sector (Big Pharma and Big Insurance) to gouge as much as possible. And Medicare “Advantage” HMO’s - designed to allow Big Insurance to gouge as much as possible.

So - outside of Libertarian/GOP fever dreams - the most efficient health care funding system in the US is public. This public system fails to be efficient only where Rethug pols diverted public dollars into for-profit “answers”: Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage.

You don’t need to challenge me, I used to work as a nurse in a clinic of Sonoma County’s (CA) public health system, that why I don’t ever want to see the government take over the country health care in any way. The “Free” health care is absolute garbage, but there were good people there trying there best. There was just always a severe shortage of everything, so treatment was difficult. That in turn lowered moral which made the place seem like a mortuary.

Uhh…Sonoma County Health is a delivery system. So too are Cedars-Sinai in LA (great care), the University of California teaching hospitals (great care), CPMC in SF (great care) and innumerable shitty for-profit HMO’s that take Medicare.

Medicare, in contrast, is a payment mechanism. Single payer is a payment mechanism.

To confuse payment mechanisms with delivery systems is to demonstrate fundamental ignorance of the basic concepts in health care public policy.

So I ended up going back to college, getting my masters degree (during this time I had basic health coverage), and went to work in the Silicon Valley in technology. That is where my big salary boost came.

Before the Libertarian/GOP wet dream known as Prop 13 came along, Californians’ TAXES funded the best system of public higher education in the world. The system was so good that the full destructive effects of Prop 13 (and the greedball initiatives that followed behind it) took decades to degrade that once grand system. Even Californians and Americans who attended “private” colleges/Universities were heavily subsidized by Federal tax dollars.

Silicon Valley and Orange County are both the results of piles of Federal wealth that created and funded the infrastructure and much of the basic innovation which allowed both areas to serve as centers for private sector work that piggibacked on Federal investement. Orange County was the site of massive War/Defense/NASA/NSA spending that began in WWII and continued to this day. The Silicon Valley firms created before the Internet enjoyed Federal puchashing and demand for technology as a prime mover in their growth, as well as enjoying the fruits of basic research conducted in Federally subsidized Universties and paid for by NSA grants. As the basis for the Internet was the (Federal) DARPA’s work, all the ‘net based Silly Valley wealth is the direct beneficiary of Federal tax dollars - and the social investment they paid for.

And despite these realities, Orange County and Silly Valley are the two regions in California most likely to vomit up and fund more Libertarian anti-government lethal delusions CA state ballot initiatives that make California ever more nasty, brutish, and poor.

Odd - I don’t see the apostles of Libertarian theory/ideology refuse to use:

Federally subsidized highways. CA has a few toll roads - the rest of the State’s transport grid is publicly funded.

Federally subsidized airports.

Federally subsidized hospitals.

USDA inspected meat - even before the free-marketeers gutted the USDA inspection system.

Medicare

Social Security.

However, I’m very familiar with the priests of Libertarian/GOP religion seizing on the fact that the deliberate “drown it in a bathtub” strategy of destroying public sector services and infrastructure precisely in order to discredit public services (in service of their real goal of discrediting the State/Federal governments) really has degraded the quality of public services.

And then using the predictable results of their war on the public sector - defunded services and institutions - to support the Big Lie that the failure is the result of the deliberately defunded public institutions.

I used to work as a nurse in a clinic of Sonoma County’s (CA) public health system, that why I don’t ever want to see the government take over the country health care in any way. The “Free” health care is absolute garbage, but there were good people there trying there best. There was just always a severe shortage of everything, so treatment was difficult.

Of course, faltering public institutions are the intentional result of Libertarian/GOP/free-market policies. And from the Libertarian/GOP/free-market perspective, trashing our public services isn’t a failure - it’s a success. For them, destroying the roads and schools and hospitals the rest of us rely upon is just collateral damage in their jihad against public sector controls on megacorps.

For the cultists, the deregulation that brought California blackouts and Enron’s looting is a suceess.

For the cultists, the deregulation that leaves shit and E Coli in our food is a success.

The deep pockets behind the Libertarian/Free Market cults have theirs - the best that mega-fortunes of inherited wealth can buy. For the deep pockets, trashing the public sector is the mechanism to persuade US to remove all regulation on the megacorps.

So we see destruction of our health care and environment protection and food safety as a failure.

Yet for the Free Market/Libertarian/GOP cultists who trashed California and the US over last thirty years, destuction of the public institutions required for our well-being was the deliberate goal.

To remove all public checks on megacorp power, the cult first must discredit the public sector, public services, and government.

And as we’ve seen today and over the past thirty years, they and their supporters (witting or duped) will use any possible lie to attain that goal.

And as they’ll see this year: they trashed our nation, yet failed to consolidate power.

And we’re pissed - and coming for the megacorps.

As we rebuild California and America, we’ll also have energy for the investigations, trials, impeachments, and confiscations required to take back our public services, life, and public instituitions from the cultists.

And I’ll love rubbing their faces in it every step of the way.

Bon appetit, cultists. We’re taking our country back.

Wow Kirk. Great reply. Took a lot of time I’ll bet. I agree with you completely (or with as much as I remember!) Libertarians and Republicans have a philosophy built on many false premises, the refutation of which, the facts and logic against, they will not entertain. It is a mystery to me. What is better a)believing you are right or b) knowing you are right and being able to defend it? Phony statistics, twisted logic, ignorance of the obvious and credible sources of dissent do not sway them. Why? What is it that makes some people cling to theories that are patently and easily provable false propositions? I have a friend who when faced with obvious credible documentation that his particular position is false, responds with “I have a hard time believing that”. Reminds me of the joke-”Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” Good job Kirk.

Thanks, clamberite - it did take a lot of time, but as I’ve spent my life in CA watching the hateful ideologies I describe destroy the public sector and tank our quality of life, I needn’t look far for examples.

I hope and believe repeating this basic refutation of the Libertarian/GOP/”free-market” cult will be time well spent. To take back our nation from the corporatists, we’ll have to be obliged to smack the cultists down whenever they trot out their deadly lies in public.

My eaasy above is only one way of doing so - I’m hoping the ideas and examples can be of use to others who want to reclaim our nation and our common life from the corporatists.

And I’m hoping they’ll be far more succinct than I can.

Loved your succinct comments above - esp your 121!

Hi, Kurt. The problems you saw in Sonoma County are part and parcel of our fragmented health care system. The publicly-funded county hospitals are the dumping ground for the uninsured, poorest, sickest members of society. Better-off, healthier, insured patients can afford to go to private hospitals that don’t accept patients without insurance, except in the emergency rooms where they have a legal obligation to serve people (then send the uninsured a whopping big bill later that’s higher than what they would bill an insurance company, aggressively collect against them and force them into indentured servitude or bankruptcy).

A single payer system would spread the burden of caring for the sickest people evenly. Studies show it will provide better care, for less money. Examples abound: England spends 40% as much per person as we do, but gets better results. What you saw in Sonoma was what needs to be fixed.

Kurt…could it be that the State hospital system was impoverished simply because the Private hospital system carried almost everyone but the poor. Thus the people who had the least power to improve the conditions in the hospitals were the users, and those who should have been called upon to assist that system were outside of it.

Why should they support a system of “freeloaders”?

That’s their attitude - I’ll never use it…let it wither on the vine.

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