Who’s afraid of public insurance? THIS POST shows clearly that people taking advantage of Medicare have a considerably higher opinion of their service than privately insured people do. This particular stat is just wild:
 

All we need to do is drop the words “65 and over” from the Medicare plan and we’d have it nailed. What’s so tough?

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So, you think you’re in danger of losing control of your healthcare decisions because the government might get involved? Who do you think is really making your decisions now?

Right now, unless you pay cash for everything you do (in which case you’re paying WAY too much, but I’ll address that later) your health care decisions are not made by your doctor. They are not even made by you. They are made by the for-profit insurance companies. Understand: they are playing a legalized form of craps and your health is not even on the table. Essentially they are betting that they can take more money from people than they’ll need to pay out in medical fees. So if you start to get expensive, or if your health gets in the way of their profits, YOU WILL BE DUMPED. Make no mistake about it, your health is not a function of your health - it is a function of their P&L.

The Republicans that are in staunch opposition (as well as the Blue Dogs) to health care reform and specifically a single-payer option are on that side because A) health costs are an excellent way to perpetuate a caste society and B) they don’t want to damage the profits of the insurance companies. On one hand, they say that a single payer option will be too awesome and the insurance companies will not be able to compete, on the other they say that the government can’t do anything right. So if you take that at face value, a government option will be horrible and the current private option is worse. Or, it’s nonsensical horsepoop and big money politics. You decide.

The Republicans also want us to focus on Canada as what a public option looks like - and although Canada is not a perfect system, it is far from horrible. In any case though, no one is talking about that kind of option. The best minds are focused on France’s single-payer system, which is arguably the best in the world today. And they insure 100% of the population. And they pay WAY WAY less per capita and per GDP than we do. And they have a considerably higher life expectancy. And they have a considerably lower infant mortality rate. And they have a WAY high customer satisfaction index.

Now this option will not work if we don’t have pretty significant legal reform as well, which is another reason why health care costs so much. That will be addressed next. But for now consider this simple thought: If you didn’t have to pay for health insurance, yet you had world-class care, how much more tax would you be willing to pay for that? In my case, about $1600/month (what I pay for my BC/BS premiums). Or how much more could your employer pay you if he no longer had to pay for either your health insurance OR workman’s comp (which would no longer be required)? You see? The lie is to tell you about the costs without talking about the benefits or balancing savings.

Are you ready to talk about health and not protecting insurance companies? Are you ready to talk financial reality? Are you ready to look at other countries in the world and see how we can be better? Are you prepared to address the fact that, despite being one of the highest costing health care countries in the world, we are 50th in terms of real benefit and health … just behind Morocco. Honestly. When you’re tired of throwing your health care dollars at the insurance companies and would prefer, instead, to receive health care for them, then let’s talk.

The single payer option: It’s about time.

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I think it’s about time to start blogging again.

I haven’t been here for a while because the political landscape has been pretty plenty full of opinions, and yet there’s really been little happening except the Repubs stonewalling the Dems. But it is starting to be very different.

Recent polls show that more than 72% of Americans want to see a single payer system for healthcare. Yet the Obama administration has said that a single payer system is off the table. And just today they commented that they are open to a non-public option.

I need to be clear here: if Obama doesn’t start showing some spine on this issue, I may begin to waiver in my support for him. I mean, this is the guy that said during the campaign, “if he could wave a magic wand he’d make it all a single payer system.” Where have his testicles gone? Has he been purchased by the insurance industry as well? I mean, just how powerful can a 40 person minority in Senate really be FFS?

We’re really going to have to start watching and paying attention again. Obama is our president - we elected him and he is there because of a mandate for CHANGE not bipartisanship. That would be a nice also, but frankly, when the opposition was in power they could give a shit about the Dems, Liberals or, frankly, anyone that wasn’t in their club. I say this with the utmost respect and conviction: FUCK THEM. They brought us war, almost managed to collapse our economy, have outsourced our jobs overseas and lied repeatedly about what they are up to. The current push to write a check to the insurance companies is nothing more than CORPORATE WELFARE. The insurance companies ARE THE PROBLEM.

I’m going to have to start taking up digital ink again on this issue, because it’s really, really starting to bother me. Hoping you’re still out there,

/perk

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I was driving home from a client’s today, when I heard a man on the radio making an analogy about the stimulus plan. He said it was like a man holding a gun to our head, forcing us to give money to the poor. And enforced redistribution of wealth.

Now stepping aside, for just a moment, that ANY tax system is a redistribution of wealth I was struck by the selfishness of his attitude … the lack of understanding of society, but I couldn’t quite place my hand on the philosophical reasoning for why I should feel thus. But the light went on and I was moved to do something I have not done in a while, and it gave me what I was looking for. I re-read one of my favorite pieces of literature - it’s a nobility play, lush with stirring notions and even a happy ending. Today I re-read the U. S. Constitution.
 

Wow. I mean, wow. How much I had fallen into simple arguments of faith, philosophical difference, the notions of selfishness and right/wrong, when the answer we have all been looking for was written in the boldest prose I’ve ever seen a couple hundred years ago.

We, the people of the United States, have an obligation. This is not one we signed on the dotted line for, it was borne by us the moment we were born. The obligation is to our Union … our country, our Constitution. You see, you can’t just have the parts of our Constitution that you really like… like “provide for the common defense” - you must also address two other, vitally important parts, of that sentence: insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare. And how do you do such things? Well, you need revenue to create a standing government that can do those things. If you think that fulfilling your obligation to America by paying taxes is equivalent to having a gun put to your head, then perhaps you need to find another country. Immediately.

I dislike paying taxes every bit as much as the next person. But I use the law to legally make sure that I am paying only my fair share - what I am required to pay and no more (thanks, Ben Franklin for that advice). But what I like even less is the thought of people who have profited in this country, people who have a helluva life and are monumentally successful and healthy that want to pay less and less ie., take the gifts of our forefathers and the tax payers before them and run. That is where the definition of selfish comes in. We have an obligation to our country, the essence of why we are a country and our countrymen. We have an obligation to carry forth the vision and brilliance of the framers and founders, and continue this Grand Experiment.

This is how, philosophically, I can stand strong when right-wing boneheads want to talk all their crap about how bad the stimulus is, how wrong it is to have a single payer health care system, wrong to nationalize the banks - all of the so-called “Socialist” programs are actually one way of insuring domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare. Our country was founded on these very Liberal notions. We were built by Federalists that were not only fine with a strong central government, but had clear ideas for how that central government would promote the ideals of the enlightened age. It is time for us to get back to the essential thoughts of how and why our country IS, not what Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, or Billo don’tt want to spend their money on.

Our government needs careful and vigilant oversite. We should not spend or waste any more money than we absolutely have to … but we need to get back to the essence of why we have a government in the first place.

Get back to reading the classics. The prequel, The Declaration of Independence” is a page turner, and the sequel, The Bill of Rights is also an excellent, if wonky, read. But my favorite, hands down is our Constitution. I am pleased, that before there were able to shred the very last copy, the Republicans were kicked to the curb.

Let’s hope they stay in Time Out for a reasonably long time.

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According to the Wall Street Journal, Nova M, would be competitor to Air America Radio is filing for complete bankruptcy liquidation and leaving a trail of trouble in it’s wake.

When Randi Rhodes left Air America last year during the kerfuffle surrounding her making off-color remarks about Hillary Clinton during a stand up comedy show in San Francisco, she was picked up by Nova M and an awful lot of people thought NovaM had a nowhere to go but up.

But at the article which spells it out quite nicely HERE, it’s clear that things have been rough for a long time for the founders of Nova M, Anita and Sheldon Drobny. According to the article, Rhodes and Nova M had a legal disagreement regarding her protection from litigation and when it was not resolved she terminated her feed to the station. This was probably the last straw in a long, rather sad story for the Drobnys, founders of Air America as well. In a horribly ironic twist, Randi, the number 1 liberal talk show host in the nation, was replaced on her hometown station by Sean Hannity.

It now seems that Dr. Mike Newcomb, another popular liberal talk show host, will be taking the physical infrastructure and the frequency here in Phoenix (KNUV) left in the rubble that was Nova M and creating a new station. It looks like Mike Malloy will be going there as well, so at least the new station will be starting with some talent. Perhaps they entice Randi to come back. Hopefully they’ll keep streaming Stephanie Miller in the morning, she is about the only thing out here in the wild west that keeps the morning drive reasonable.

Well, best of luck to Dr. Mike and Mike Malloy - the valley certainly needs their voices. And let’s hope that the disrepair that is liberal talk in America today straightens itself out. The right wing certainly has their act together, what the hell is our problem?

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