In short, if we need more economic stimulus, why aren’t we talking about health care as economic stimulus?

Because that makes sense and might actually help someone other than the so-called MOTU

I’ve been pounding this idea forever…a great health system that serves all citizens is ‘infrastructure’. Just like roads, bridges and fire and police protection universal health care could protect our people and country and preserve democracy.

Great idea, Jane. Let’s get the horror stories from ordinary families out there. Let’s not only piss off the insurance companies, let’s make them focus on health instead of profits. Diverting the money the insurance companies now pocket as profit into providing care for those who need it (along with focusing on preventive care) will cover everyone with little to no extra cost compared to the current system. We just need to siphon off those huge profits.

PS–Love the new graphics!!

Our healthcare system in this country is currently paying X dollars for the care given. By eliminating the voltureous insurance system the same care would cost X times 0.7 saving 0.3 or 30%. By reallocating this 30% the amount health care which could be paid for with the same expenditure that we now have. The health insurance industry has no reason to exist.

As long as HR 676 has not been scored, CBO comparisons are a joke.

This is appropriations season. Every appropriations bill can become a stimulus bill just by adding some funds to certain line items. Up the transportation budget and the energy budget, and so on.

And put enough money in the HHS budget to carry out transition to a public option or single-payer (one can only hope against reality) bill.

The news that Congress is afraid of pissing off the insurance companies says loads about how corrupt they (all of them) have become.

Jane I’d love to see you in Congress, speaking on the House Floor calling out Representatives as you do here. I’ve heard enough polite, “gentleman from Texas” bullshit. Framing a stimulus in this way makes perfect sense but the gentlemen and gentlewomen have to, too.

The rub is that those savings in “private” healthcare costs must be partially underwritten by increases in “government spending”. CBO doesn’t look as the beneficial effects on the private sector in scoring; it’s even more subjective than the scoring they do on government spending.

I was up on the Hill yesterday, and discovered that Congress never had ordinary people come and testify about their insurance company horror stories, because nobody wanted to piss the insurance companies off. It was incomprehensible and outrageous.

Yep, and I wasn’t invited to attend a salon at WaPo either. Those of us who are already buried under a mountain of medical debt and are either too old or have too many pre-existing conditions to qualify even for shitty health insurance are the new lepers.

They are no longer prisoners of a job, or a state, just to keep an insurance policy…

You are correct, of course, but I’d like to focus on the above statement from your post because I believe it is a very under-discussed problem with health care in the US.

How much innovation, creativity, and therefore new jobs are lost in our economy because people who would otherwise become entrepreneurs are tethered to jobs to keep health care coverage?

I know that’s hard to quantify but there’s no doubt it’s a huge drag in the economy.

Jane, I’d vote for you also, in a New York minute! But I fear your post just confirms my long-held belief that congress and the administration (any, pick one) are only concerned about corporations, banksters, and bazillionaires. They have no concern for the middle class and the poor. I read the Declaration of Independence again on July the 4th and was amazed at how many of the grievances held by our forebears apply today. We are doomed to a downward spiral unless and until American citizens stand up and demand our government represent US and not the fictitious personhood of corporate thieves.

I’ve been pounding the insurance “reform” meme since I returned 25 years ago from living in Canada. I am proud of the way the FDL community has responded at what is finally the right moment to, uh, get ‘er done.

Jane, I hope you’re working on a post describing your visit to the Hill. I’d love some informed insight into exactly what the hell our elected representatives are thinking here. Getting sick in America (or anywhere) is no picnic, but the insurance industry (because of its “murder by spreadsheet” business model) adds so much additional misery, stress, concern, panic, anger, desperation, uncertainty, and so forth to a sick person’s burden of getting well, that it amounts to a staggering social cost, multiplied out over the entire population. If you’re stressing about how to pay for medicine, you’re not living your life. If you’re girding your loins and rehearsing your arguments for a confrontation with the insurance company, you’re not living your life. If you’re being hounded by health-care creditors, you’re certainly not as focused on getting well as you need to be.

If I were a legislator, I’d be deeply ashamed that this is the best I was willing to do for my constituents. What did you find when you talked to these people on the Hill? Are they human at all??

If a plan is passed that only affects the poor, it’s going to anger the middle class when they are the ones that get shafted once again.

That’s a great point. All those Is who voted for Obama specifically to address health care will feel betrayed.

Jane, we’re focused on the wrong money.

We should be screaming about the hundreds of millions of $ being spent by the insurance companies to insure instant access to attentive legislators who couldn’t be bothered to listen to the people they’re supposedly representing.

IMHO, we must attack the notion of corporate personhood, and by that, the money=freedom of speach catch-22 that freezes the American people out of their governments deliberations.

These corporations are not persons/citizens, and do not deserve the control they exercise through virtually unlimited ability to drown out the voice of the people by stuffing millions of dollars into our legislators ears.

Living in the middle of a horribly red county in a horribly red state, even my small town newspaper had an editorial that called for some form of public option! I have no doubt, however, that my R rep and senators will vote against any form of health care reform just because that is what they do. Then they will take credit for it when it comes to its delivery to the people. My rep did that with the stimulus.

Jane,

You are exactly right.

As a 2008 candidate for the U.S. Congress and now considering 2010, I have said it over and over and over that Health Care Reform is the only real economic stimulus we have. And, the only real Health Care Reform is Single Payer, HR 676!

I have publicly asked my Congressman, one of my Senators and our President (at his Green Bay Town Hall meeting) to support Single Payer. I now ask everyone else to do the same.

Thank you.

I wrote this diary a couple of weeks ago just because it was obvious that the folks in the Obama Administration and Congress were not actually paying attention to the horror stories they solicited, since the most common problems detailed were problems with the Insurance companies.

Right on, Jane.

The best of the options in the healthcare arena at the moment is the one relegated to the role of spectator – single payer. Single payer advocacy groups have been collecting testimonials and videos of health care horror stories for years now, and have large archives available. Not to mention people who would be only too happy to go to Washington and personally tell a Congressional committee about their health care trials.

That idea came up at a discussion group held by Baron Hill (blue dog Dem, dist. 9 Southern IN) the week of the first crash and bailout at the end of 2008. As assistance to the auto companies, and others hit by the crisis, someone suggested that all employees, present and retired-under-65s, be enrolled in Medicare, along with their families. It was met with enthusiasm by the crowd, and Baron Hill was non-committal (he is a politician, after all).

This would have been a fine way to begin the health care “reform” process with less “disruption” (which Obama wants to avoid for some reason) than
establishing a health care system as a separate entity. Real change, of the sort that’s so desperately needed, will be disruptive – I hope, very disruptive.

There will be a single-payer rally in Washington D.C. on July 30th, to celebrate the birthday of Medicare, and to honor John Conyers, for H.R. 676. There will be a lobbying effort, followed by a rally. Everyone who cares about this issue is invited to participate; details are available on the HealthcareNow web site. We need a big crowd. All who can, please do attend. And let’s disrupt the charade with a bit of the truth.

35%

That’s how much a small manufacturing company with under 100 employees paid out for its health care this past year – 35% of its total costs are due to health care.

They’re competing against foreign firms on projects for manufacturing equipment, projects which take as long as two years to complete; they can’t guarantee that the costs they saw when they bid the project will be the same at the end of the project, and the biggest single variable is health care since it could increase by double-digit amounts over the previous year, every year.

It’s a difficult proposition, on top of the ongoing frustration with credit markets right now. Banks are actually worse than they were before, monitoring covenants more tightly and cutting off businesses from loans needed for operating expenses between payments by clients. Any number of businesses are now forced to be cash-neutral, operating without any loans — which means that any health care increases are going to cut into operations and their ability to keep people on staff, to bid on work, to stay in business.

This isn’t just stimulus we are talking about with regard to health care reform; it’s a lifeline.

Let’s not forget, too, that the trillions for banks/corporations was given over the course of a year or two. When the naysayers on health care talk about cost they have to add spending for *10 years* to get to perhaps half the cost of the welfare for the wealthy.

Make no mistake we are dealing with deeply dishonest, nay, evil people here or since it is about denying life sustaining care to those in need: fucking monsters.

Just a quick question: Why isn’t Betty McCollum (D-MN 4th), included in the whip list? I know that she has been a consistent advocate of progressive causes. Is it because she isn’t considered a member of the “progressive caucus”? I really don’t know. Please note, this is not a criticism at all, I totally support Jane’s efforts, I’m just curious if this may be an inadvertent omission.

Our politicians are really quite ignorant. Some are finally realizing that they will be thrown out of office in their next election cycle, but equally appear fine with that. There really is only one reason. They are being well paid by the lobbyists to kill us. The poor sheep that make up most of this country will one day rise and awake and we will be rid of so called progressives, centrists and conservatives to be replaced with representatives that respond and act for the people. What the politicians have done to their constituents will be their own undoing. My prediction is that few will return to live in their home district for fear of being taken out by an angry person, upset with losing a home, or having a family member die due to lack of care, or that this qualified person can not find a job because our economy is still based completely on fraud and the invasion of other countries to steal resources.
We can’t pay our politicians enough with solar power implementation. They will never back it. We all know we can replace the oil and coal with it in a matter of a couple years if we chose to do it. There is no money in renewables to line the pockets of the politician. There is no insurance benefit to allowing a public option. Each government rep is getting a payment from our payments. I expect the insurance company has a flow chart of the bribes needed to mollify the senator, the rep, and all the little staff members down the line.

We do not have representation any longer. That has been taken away without sheep waking up. It is about time we concentrate on the removal of any representative that has not acted for the majority of the people. We just don’t have any choice but to remove this type of cancer from our lives. Blue America is going to be a serious venture next time. We will not back people like Donna Edwards who have proven their criminal leaning, and anti representation. We need a vetting process for humanity’s sake.

Jane. How did the meeting go?? I mentioned your meeting in my healthcare post to my buddies yesterday and we are waiting word on that from you, if you are up to it.

Yeah. I thought the money saved by HR 676 Single Payer would be a shoe-in for the big healthcare reform we all need. Don’t despair. It is just going to take longer than we thought.

Note: telephone staff in the representative’s offices are very polite now. You’ve got charm!

Welcome !

would have been entertaining to see you ask Ryan about Single Payer :D

fyi – if you go back to your FDL Profile page, you can put in the url for your blog and folks can go there by clicking on your name

I was up on the Hill yesterday, and discovered that Congress never had ordinary people come and testify about their insurance company horror stories, because nobody wanted to piss the insurance companies off. It was incomprehensible and outrageous.

By all means, we need more such testimony, but it’s not correct to say such people have “never” testified. Witness last month’s incredibly moving and infuriating testimony on policy recissions before the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations.

Donna Smith’s Senate testimony in 2007 was recently revisited on the May 22 episode of Bill Moyer’s Journal.

Such testimony, like that of single payer advocates, is dwarfed by that of the standard “stakeholders” invited to hearings, lunch, and fly-fishing weekends by the Axis of Baucus. And when they do testify, media coverage is scant to nonexistent. So we need more testimony and coverage of same.

Were we willing to call our healthcare expenses “TAXES” rather than “PREMIUMS,” they decrease by 50% and cover everyone, just as in Europe.

WashingtonDC finds the money for American militarism exploits in and across much of Western Asia,Persian Gulf,Central and South Asia which runs in high multiples of $$billions upon billions.

WashingonDC finds the money for big Wall Street firms and American Banks.

Washington finds the money for federal pork to pander to state and local political favor seeking and vote buying.

American healthcare “reform”? The current American healthcare regimes of private,for profit and protected turfs,markets and venues is buying off WashingtonDC to preserve and protect a rotted,immoral and fiscally run amok setup.

Very good point raised here by Jane regarding a better way to move forward.

WashingtonDC has forgotten who it works for. Time to remind WashingtonDC rotted,corrupted money politics do and will have real consequences.

The ignorance WashingtonDC so readily is displaying regarding American healthcare looming implosion is astoundiing. How can so many of 535 Americans in Congress or this so called “for change” Obama WH be so wrong minded and corrupted by money politics of current American healthcare regimes? This American Democracy has become a mockery of democracy.

Giving all Americans Universal Single Payer should be the next stimulus step. Absolutely. Positively. Give all Americans some true reform and a better outlook on daily living and life.

This is so right and yet WashingtonDC seems so set on being so wrong.

Americans do not need to hold up Iran as having a bad government–what is going on in WashingtonDC over healthcare reform is pure rot and corruption.

At the recent town hall meeting in Annandale, Mr. Obama pitched a plan that would not cost much and would have offsetting savings. You got the impression that the only way reform in health care could be achieved, if at all, was by penny pinching, nickel and diming. A budget for reform was basically not on the table. Ultimately, the money would come from other uses and from savings via public health and preventive health policies; by elimination of wasteful practices, overuse, and overcompensation of tort wary docs, clinics, and hospitals; and so forth.

Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, if the president applied that approach to fiscal responsibility at the Pentagon and Homeland Security, we would have enough savings to provide universal health care to the whole of Europe and Asia.

Clearly the only economic stimulus our congress critters care about are the dollar$ pouring into their reelection campaign coffers.

This is a good idea if it makes it possible to pass a strong health care proposal, but I suspect it would not. A second stimulus package is probably harder to pass than health care- at least the public is behind health care..

The problems that the dems have in the senate, even with potentially sixty votes, are well laid out by Nate Silver at 538 where he does a very careful analysis of the potential votes for cap and trade- bottom line is–probably won’t happen… it’s very good works- showing which dem senators come from gooper states and which come from polluting states that will be hurt by cap and trade.

missed your diary when it was originally posted.

a girlfriend was contacted by WH about her story (nightmarish chronic illness) initially by email and then some follow up calls – but that was almost 3 months ago and she hasn’t heard from them since. now maybe they’ve moved on with “more compelling” stories but from here it looks like one hell of a piss poor utilization of resources

– this was a working poor texas family that crossed over and voted for their first Dem because of his stand on healthcare - good effing luck in 2010

It’s not like the sitting President used his own Mother’s story about being ill and fighting insurance companies to win election. Oh wait he did, and now crickets from the new media savvy president.

Hopefully the time will soon come when a substantial number realize we play with a stacked deck. We need to change the game. i.e. class warfare is the rich against the poor, not the other way round.

Take the bailouts, please. Had we used bailout funds to pay down mortgages to market value, we would not need cramdown legislation, the banks would have been recapitalized, at the same cost. Homeowners, with greatly reduced monthly payments, can begin spending again. Everything that reduces the expenses of the middle and lower classes provides economic stimulus, but it comes at the expense of the insurance companies, banks, multi-nationals and politicians who now accumulate money because owning a large pile makes them feel good. They are not going to stop because we ask nicely.

I am not suggesting revolution. I’m suggesting talking about ways to change the game. It’s a prophecy to be sure and my crystal ball is no better than any, but I don’t think more of the same will change things.

Hi. You beat me to it. I’m planning to post a diary on Oxdown, sorry, the Sperm Bank, sorry, the Vesicle…whatever…highlighting the July 30 single-payer rally and lobbying day, as well as information on Amnesty International’s new efforts on declaring health care a human right. I’ll post once they get the diary function back on line.

DAMNIT GIRL, YOU ARE SO EFFING SMART

ps
lets call,fax and email John Deere

Profile Get Profile for:
Deere & Co.
One John Deere Place
Moline, IL 61265-8098
United States – Map
Phone: 309-765-8000
Fax: 309-765-5889
Web Site: http://www.deere.com

TELL EM SENATOR GRASSLEY referred you

The only way we are going to effect real progressive change in this country is to radically change our campaign finance laws. And it will probably take an armed revolt (I am kidding) to do it. What we have now is simply bribery. No one running for public office should be able to accept one sodding DIME from anyone other than from taxpayer funded campaign coffers. No exceptions. Everyone gets the same amount of free airtime on the teevee (after all, the public airwaves exist to serve the public good, right?) Yeah. Right. In what world? Required number of public debates. Fact checkers on site to stop the lies and bullshit. This system sucks.

p.s. love the new format!

It would have to be done with great care. When we throw money at a particular industry, it initially inflates prices within that industry, until the supply can be expanded. Right now, there is not a lot of slack in the medical industry, and it takes a long time to increase supply, e.g., train doctors and nurses. And higher prices are the last thing we need in healthcare — See “It’s the Prices Stupid’: Why Americans Pay More for Health Care”, by Gerard Anderson: http://www.jhsph.edu/publichea…..rices.html and full version: http://content.healthaffairs.o…..2/3/89.pdf

On the other hand, throwing money at ramping up med schools, nursing education, and building hospitals would be very beneficial.

word

This is brilliant! I don’t have time to read the above comments, but does anyone see a reason this should not be pushed furiously? Stimulate the economy by lifting a burden off workers so that money can be spent in their local economy, jobs would be created to manage the public plan.

What’s the downside?

oops, sorry

plainspoken common sense, and most Americans clearly see the need for major Change, even if it hurts the insurance oligopoly.

the major impediment to serious change is, as usual, the Democratic Party, in control of both houses of congress and the White House.

its like trying to push a donkey backwards up a ladder and then through a tiny window, trying to get the (D)’s to do the right thing, no matter how compelling the need.

and, it was ever thus, one cannot say ‘no one could have predicted the Democrats would botch the opportunity again’ because they do it every time.

one way to preserve the beloved donkey that is often mentioned is full campaign finance reform, removing the endemic bribery from the system.

then, you may have a more co-operative donkey if that unlikely systematic overhaul is ever completed.

but as long as we are talking the long odds and high difficulty of such an effort, why not consider redirecting some of the effort spent fruitlessly pushing on the obstinate Donkey into procuring a more willing steed?

there was a huge desire for change this last election cycle, but all we got was chump change.

with the economy sliding further into depression, there will be even more urgency for change, which will have nowhere to go, the Obama administration having squandered its credibility funding Bush’s failed wars for hundreds of billions, bailing out Wall Street scoundrels for trillions, and failing to square the circle on health care reform.

we need a political formation that cannot be suborned by the corporate oligarchy, or the Right will gain strength with some extremist populist demagoguery of a very nasty flavor.

Obama should appoint a Stimulus Czar or something like that to oversee that republican politicians who are hoping he fails are FORCED to allocate the money in their states where it’s supposed to be spent-NOT for bailing out their states. Also, (thanks Sarah) nice new layout on the site Janey

Not sure if that has been posted at FDL,
Lambert has posted Kennedy HELP health care bill at CorrentWire. Asking for analysis by any and all. Not fun reading, may be easier for those who have dealt with legislative language.

href=”http://www.correntewire.com/kennedy_help_bill_draft_text”>–As it stands now. Each general section has subsections, which can be opened separately, if I read things right.

Thanks for any help!

Just saw that some kind of dental care is included.

Drat, hit submit before preview.

LINK for Lambert’s HELP bill post.

No health care plan should be passed until there is a very firm way to pay for it. We’re better off where we are now that to add more debt onto our grandchildren’s heads.

Health care is not an entitlement.
You can say it is and you can say it over and over again.
In the end it is not.
It never has been and never will be.
The individual has to take some responsibility.

Dean Baker proposed health care reform as stimulus during the debate about the last stimulus. See his Guardian column from last Nov:

Save the economy, spend on healthcare

We need to spend big to boost the ailing US economy – and extending healthcare is where Obama should do it

The U.S. already spends more than enough to provide health care for each and every citizen.

WE ARE ALREADY PAYING FOR IT – RIGHT NOW.

You can stop with your right-wing talking points, because they come from the same kind of stupidity and lousy management that launched an illegal war costing us at least a trillion dollars — and we don’t see too many of your kind complaining about that, now do we? And what do we have to show for it?

How about doing a better job of managing the money WE ARE ALREADY SPENDING and ensuring that we all of us have a better health care system? It’s a national security prerogative since we can’t protect our people and our resources without having adequate systems in place. We already spend more per person on health care in the U.S. than any other country in the world, including those with nationalized health care systems — yet a large percentage of our people do not have health care.

And how about ensuring that all those grandchildren you’re so worried about actually have health care NOW? It’s going to be awfully hard for them to pay their own bills as adults if they are unable to get health care as children.

You want to worry about the little ones? How about the fact that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate of all developed countries? Cheese-on-a-stick, the grandchildren aren’t going to survive your right-wing bullshit because you refuse to spend allocate* the rather puny amount it costs for preventative prenatal care than on the catastrophic coverage a sick newborn requires.

* American men spend $5 MILLION A DAY on a certain drug therapy for ED EVERY DAY. How about allocating just a percentage of the profits from this single drug to health care for children 18 and under?

I’ve been pounding this idea forever…a great health system that serves all citizens is ‘infrastructure’. Just like roads, bridges and fire and police protection universal health care could protect our people and country and preserve democracy.

I’ve long felt the same way.

Jane you were wonderful on MSNBC.

I’m all for single payer this year. Now, what can you and I do about that considering that the President and Max Baucus have taken it off the table, and all the progressive groups have gone along by concentrating their support on the public option. I was at a Moveon event today pressuring Senator Webb, and a lady next to me said “. . . of course single payer is better, but we’ll never get it passed now. We need to take the sneaky way and support a public option.” That’s the attitude among most progressives. They want to take the “sneaky way” thinking we’ll outsmart someone else outside of ourselves.

Or we could just become a Socialist nation now that we have Hannity and Palin cheering for it.

Must watch. Socialism…HOORAY!!!

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2025

Thanks, I’ll be looking for it. I didn’t know about Amnesty International, so thanks for that information. My activist group will welcome the news.

Thank you Victoria!

I thought maybe people were just busy, but I’ve gotten a small fraction of the hate mail I usually get when we change formats. RGB worked REALLY hard on this and so did Siun. I think they did a great job, too.

You’re right! I knew it came from somewhere. Thanks for that. When I heard Biden speak about more stimulus, I thought “why are we trying to cut costs here so we can spend them there when it’s the same thing.”

Jane, you were great. Who was that low-life Dave Shuster had on opposite you? The latest version of Cheri Jacobus, or Fran Townsend?