RIPPING APART THE RATIONALIZATIONS FOR PASSING THE CURRENT HEALTH ‘CARE’ BILL INTO LAW

An unsigned editorial in today’s NY Times set about to list the reasons why we should pass health care reform legislation. Below, I refute their points, one-by-one.

THE HEALTH OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS The fact that 46 million people in this country have no health insurance should be intolerable.

Wrong. The fact that people in this country cannot afford HEALTH CARE should be intolerable. I know it is hard to think outside of the box, but if we don’t, we end up rewarding the very people who have created this problem. Insurance companies, doctors associations, hospital associations, pharmaceutical corporations and medical supply companies, AMONG OTHERS, have colluded to create a system of ever-rising costs for the consumer. Real reform would cut the waste and fraud from this system. No bill that is currently being considered would begin to do that. It’s not about HEALTH INSURANCE, It’s about HEALTH CARE. Please think about that. It’s important if you want real change instead of a giant corporate giveaway at taxpayer’s expense to stop assuming that we need insurance in order to pay for health care. Other countries don’t.

We consider it a moral obligation and sound policy to provide health insurance to as many people as possible. While the pending bills would fall short of complete coverage, by 2019, the Senate bill would cover 31 million people and the House bill 36 million who would otherwise be uninsured under current trends.

Wrong again. If you look at the bill and the way it intends to go about “covering the uninsured,” it is doing so mainly by forcing people who cannot now afford insurance to purchase insurance. Except that they still can’t afford it. So they aren’t going to buy it. This mandatory insurance clause is based on a premise that the uninsured have the money to buy insurance but are just being irresponsible and not buying it. Even if people who work at places that don’t currently provide insurance for their employees are given the benefit by their employers, it will most likely mean that they have to pay for it somehow. Congress just can’t seem to get it through their heads that PEOPLE CAN’T AFFORD IT.

The argument is that the government will provide SUBSIDIES for people. What is being suggested currently is that the government would subsidize the policies of people making 150% of poverty level according to federal guidelines. Let’s look at those guidelines, shall we?

POVERTY GUIDELINES

The 2009 Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia*

Persons in family / Poverty guideline
1 / $10,830
2 / 14,570
3 / 18,310
4 / 22,050
5 / 25,790
6 / 29,530
7 / 33,270
8 / 37,010
For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.
* Guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii average two to three thousand dollars more per category. SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 74, No. 14, January 23, 2009, pp. 4199–4201

So, using these numbers, those that would qualify for subsidies would be those who made less than the following amounts in the following categories (again, the numbers are slightly different in Alaska and Hawaii):
150% of Poverty income for 1 = $16,245.
150% of Poverty income for 2 = $21,885.
150% of Poverty income for 3 = $27, 465.
150% of Poverty income for 4 = $33,075.

The government would have to pay 100% of the premiums for these people in order for them to be able to have insurance because a family of three could simply not afford a penny of insurance if it was trying to live off of $27,465 per year. And what about a family of four that makes $24,000 per year? No subsidies for them? How will they afford the premiums? THEY CAN’T and that doesn’t change under the legislation. So, those folks get to pay a fine. Great; they can’t afford to out-of-control, sky-rocketing health insurance premiums, so now they have to pay a fine. Increasing the burdens on an already overburdened working class; that really solves the problem, doesn’t it?

MORE SECURITY FOR ALL Horror stories abound of people — mainly those who buy individual policies — who were charged exorbitant premiums or rejected because of pre-existing conditions or paid out for years and then had their policies rescinded when they got sick.
Such practices would be prohibited completely in three or four years under the reform bills. Before that, insurers would be barred from rescinding policies retroactively and the bills would establish temporary high-risk pools to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
If reform legislation is approved, employees enrolled in group coverage at work would also be more secure. If workers are laid off — an all too common occurrence these days — and need to buy policies on their own, insurers would be barred from denying them coverage or charging exorbitant premiums for health reasons.

But no mention of how much is “exorbitant.” Where in the bill is the language that defines how much the insurance companies CAN charge these people? Could someone find that language for me??? Probably not because the government is mandating that the insurance companies can’t deny anyone coverage, but they aren’t regulating what the greedy buggers can charge. Oh, yes, THAT’S helpful. Without a government-run program, who will ensure that the premiums for these high-risk pools will be affordable? Does anyone remember that one of the problems that we are trying to solve with this so-called reform is that people won’t have to bankrupt themselves in order to afford the care they need? Where is the guarantee in this legislation that people with pre-existing conditions will be able to afford the insurance that the insurance companies are “being forced” to sell them? There is none. What a relief!

And a brief word about portability of coverage. So you get laid off from work and you no longer have insurance coverage. Well, don’t be sad; you can buy your own and the bad old insurance companies can’t charge you “exorbitant” (a term that is never defined) rates. Lucky you! Except, you don’t have the same income you had before but you still have the same bills. How the hell can you afford to buy insurance?? Ooopps. Guess Congress wasn’t thinking about that one. (My husband and I found ourselves in this very situation just three years ago. COBRA would have cost me over $1000 per month. With both of us laid off, it was a challenge just to pay the bills we had in order to not lose everything we had)

CUTTING COSTS Americans are justifiably concerned about the rising cost of health insurance and of the medical care it covers. The reform bills won’t solve these problems quickly, but they would make a good start.
Despite overheated Republican claims that the reforms would drive up premiums, the Congressional Budget Office projected that under the Senate bill the vast majority of Americans (those covered by employer policies) would see little or no change in their average premiums or even a slight decline. Those who buy their own policies would pay somewhat more — but for greatly improved coverage.

Except that I overheard a closed meeting of interested parties behind the scenes of this health care legislation discussing the “fact” that knowledgeable sources are predicting a rise in the rates of health care premiums over the next three years in advance of this legislation going into effect and some are predicting they could double in that time. How is that handled in the legislation? Congress kindly provides the insurance industry with enough time to rape us all real good before the changes go into effect. Now that’s Change you can believe in!

Most people who would be buying their own policies would qualify for tax subsidies to help pay their premiums, which could reduce their costs by thousands of dollars a year. And small businesses would qualify for tax credits to defray the cost of covering their workers.

Wait—tax subsidies??!! Does that mean that people have to come up with $500 per month for insurance premiums for their family (and I am being conservative with that estimate because I am paying $800 for my employer-sponsored plan) and the government will pay them back at tax time?!! HELLO, CONGRESS? POOR PEOPLE DON’T HAVE $500 PER MONTH TO SPEND ON ANYTHING THAT DOESN’T FEED, CLOTHE, OR HOUSE THEM. Do you understand what it means to be poor? Obviously not. Ditto for small employers-the costs of covering employees could force layoffs or complete shut downs in order to keep cash flow in the black.

The inexorably rising cost of hospital and medical care is the underlying factor that drives up premiums, deductibles and co-payments. No one yet has an answer to the problem.

Oh, so you’re saying that this bill does nothing to solve the biggest problem facing us where health care is concerned—rising costs?? You know, you are right. I can’t argue with you, there, New York Times unnamed editor. The bill could have addressed rising costs by setting allowable costs, but the doctors associations and hospital associations that helped to write the bill didn’t see that as advantageous to their bottom line, so those ideas were scuttled. The “inexorable costs” are rising in order for the shareholders to get a larger profit share at the end of each quarter. Are you telling me that there is no way to fix that problem? Other countries have it licked already.

THE TIME HAS COME For decades, presidents from both parties have tried in vain to reform the health care system and cover the uninsured…If this chance is squandered and Republicans gain seats, as expected, in the midterm elections, it could be a decade or more before reformers have another opportunity. Americans shouldn’t have to wait any longer.

This is the weakest argument of all for passing this lousy legislation that does nothing to solve the problems that were stated at the outset as the reason for reform. The legislation was written by special interests. It is written to benefit them, not to solve any problems that the consumer is having. If all are covered, health insurance companies will see increased business. Good for them. If all are covered, Hospitals and Doctors will be assured payment for their services, no matter how exorbitant those charges may be. Good for them. This bill does nothing to lower the price of medicine, so Pharmaceutical companies are happy. And this bill does nothing to regulate costs for any service or product, so everyone involved with profiting from your illness is happy. Good for them. And it has the added benefit of not solving the problem of unaffordable insurance and health care costs for the working poor of this country, not solving the problem of unaffordable insurance premiums for those with pre-existing conditions and not solving the problem of exponentially-increasing health care costs in the future.

Unnamed New York Times Editor is saying that it’s broke, and although we could have fixed it, this bill doesn’t, but we should support it anyway because it's all we're going to get. That makes no sense at all. And then there is the lingering threat of “pass this bill now or you will get nothing anytime soon.” There is no reason to pass a crappy bill that only benefits the special interests and doesn’t solve the problems because of the possibility that Congress won’t be able to go back to the drawing board and come up with something better. It’s their job and it is up to the American people to force them to do it. If unnamed New York Times Editor wants to be defeatist, that doesn’t mean the rest of us should go along with this charade.

The truth is, since this bill was written by the special interests and has been negotiated all along on a daily basis by and among those special interests, there was never any intent by Congress to fix the problems of the consumer. They only meant to hand more power and money to the people who are plaguing us.

And that is one good reason to NOT vote for or support this fraud.

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Short Film About Cigna; Watch and Learn

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Lynn Jenkins: Racist, Ignorant or Both--You Make the Call

I don’t know much about boxing. I am not a fan of the “sport.” In fact, I don’t even consider it a sport.

But I know my country’s history of racism and I know my country’s culture. I know enough to know that when Jack Johnson, the first African American boxing champion won the Heavyweight Title almost one hundred years ago, whites in this country lamented that a white man might never own the title again and looked to “a great white hope” to regain the title.



For the record, it was several years later that a white fighter finally managed a win over Johnson in a fight surrounded by controversy. And it was over twenty years later that Joe Louis regained the Heavyweight Title for the African American community when he beat “The Cinderella Man” of recent movie fame.



Apparently, I know more than first term Kansas Republican Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins. This does not surprise me. If she believes half of the things that came out of her mouth during her recent campaign, she is either delusional or seriously ignorant.

At a recent town hall meeting with constituents, Jenkins made the following statement:

"Republicans are struggling right now to find the Great White Hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington." Jenkins reportedly went on to list the names of several young, white Republicans.

Of course, since the media got wind of her statement, she has her staff doing some very quick tap-dancing to try to defend herself against allegations of racism. From the Topeka Capital-Journal:

In response to inquiries by The Topeka Capital-Journal, a Jenkins spokeswoman said Wednesday the congresswoman wanted to apologize for her word choice and to emphasize she had no intention of expressing herself in an offensive manner.

Mary Geiger, a spokeswoman for Jenkins, said the reference to a great white hope wasn't meant to denote a preference by Jenkins for politicians of a particular "race, creed or any background." Jenkins was expressing faith fellow GOP representatives in the House would be key players in returning Republicans to a leadership role in Washington, Geiger said.

"There may be some misunderstanding there when she talked about the great white hope," Geiger said. "What she meant by it is they have a bright future. They're bright lights within the party."

Jenkins wasn't available to comment personally on her presentation in Hiawatha, Geiger said.

Figures. What is the criteria for being a “bright light” within the Republican Party? Who can tell? From where I sit, it appears that the criteria is to be able to deliver party LIES in the most effective manner. If that is the case, woe be to Jenkins because she doesn’t even do that well.



I recently had opportunity to view Lynn Jenkins’ White paper on healthcare reform, in which she supports all the lies and propaganda currently being floated by the insurance/healthcare-industry-owned opposition to reform. I won’t bore you with all the details (if interested, read it here: http://republicanwhip.house.gov/blog/HCDocs/KS02.pdf) but she repeats the lies that you hear being parroted at any Teabagger’s picnic. Specifically, she states that, “If you like what you have, you can’t keep it, health savings accounts will be eliminated, 2 of 3 workers will lose their current coverage, and that a proposal will prevent private insurance companies from selling new policies. Her references for these supposed “facts”?? Kaiser State Health Facts, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the Lewin Group. Obviously the first two “authorities” have an ulterior motive. But who is this Lewin Group, which Republican politicians continually cite? They describe themselves as a non-partisan consulting group. From their website:

The Lewin Group employs more than 140 consultants drawn from industry, government, academia, and the health professions. Many are national authorities whose strategies for health and human services system improvements come from their personal experience with imperatives for change.

However, a Washington Post article is very enlightening about who they really are:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072202216.html?hpid=topnews

July 22 Washington Post

Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.

More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association…of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care. In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994.

In that article, a representative of the Group explains that there is an APPEARANCE of conflict of interest since the Group was bought out by UnitedHealthcare, but that they retain all editorial control over their reports. If that was meant to comfort me about the unbiased nature of their numbers, the following paragraph disabused me of any notion of lack of bias:

But not all of the firm's reports see the light of day. For example, a study for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association was never released, Sheils said.

"Let's just say, sometimes studies come out that don't show exactly what the client wants to see. And in those instances, they have [the] option to bury the study -- to not release it, rather," Sheils said.

And, sadly, as they so often do, not only are the Republicans citing biased corporate-produced data, they are also cherry-picking what they want from the report that they are currently quoting.

Politicians have argued that the public plan would place bureaucrats between patients and doctors. However, Lewin wrote that, like traditional Medicare, the federal program for the elderly, a public plan would do less than private insurers to restrict medical care.

"People would indeed lose what they have, but they might very well be better off," he said.

The Tax Foundation, which Jenkins also cites in her white paper, could more aptly be called the ANTI-Tax Foundation. The Board members are all engaged in careers that either help others avoid paying taxes, are associated with tax preparation. The commentary page listed articles such as, Higher Cigarette Taxes: Unhealthy and Unfair, and The Tyranny of Taxing Sin. I’d say it’s a good bet that this foundation is not going to be coming out in support of anything that might raise anyone’s taxes anytime soon.

SO

Is Lynn Jenkins lazy?

Is she a liar or just a syncophant?

OR is she actually THAT stupid?

Whatever the case, I sure as hell would not judge her a qualified representative of ME to our Federal Government. Hear that Second District? The Representative you elected is either knowingly lying to you, parroting the Republican Party line, protecting the insurance industry at your expense and probably raking in lots of insurance company lobbying money OR she is lazy and/or lacking the intelligence to properly gather and analyze the FACTS and come to a logical conclusion.

LYNN JENKINS: REPUBLICAN ASSHAT OF THE WEEK

Kansans and Americans: We cannot allow the willfully misinformed and purposefully propagandizing opposition movement to hijack and derail progress for meaningful health care reform in this country. Stand up and Fight Back!

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HEALTHCARE POSTER

This is my healthcare protest flyer/sign. I am fed up with the Democrats on this issue.

Are they weak? No testicular fortitude?

Are they in bed with the insurance industry?

Are they stupid or lacking in vision?

DON'T KNOW---NO LONGER CARE.

I will not settle for anything less than the Public Option. It isn't even the answer, but it is a better band-aid. We need to fight against anyone, from any party, that doesn't have the best interest of the people at heart and isn't willing to stand up and do the right thing, regardless of the political consequences.

I STAND AGAINST THE REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS AND ANYONE ELSE THAT WILL NOT WORK FOR HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.

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Can the US Senate screw up health care any more than it already is? You betcha!

I read a few articles last week in the NY Times and am finally making the time to respond. This health care debate is really the most important issue that we are facing under this new administration. If we let them get it wrong, we can potentially make things far worse than they already are.

“Senators struggled Wednesday with the possibility that in offering subsidized health insurance to millions of individuals and families, they could inadvertently speed the erosion of employer-provided coverage, which they want to preserve.”

This opening paragraph is puzzling to me. As everyone here knows, one of the PROBLEMS with our health care system is that insurance is offered through our employers. It's a problem because all employers are not mandated to offer it and it is not portable when you leave a job. Employer-sponsored health insurance is also creating a HUGE overhead expense, making it difficult for American companies to compete in an ever-growing global economy. Corporations from most other nations have no health care or insurance overhead costs.

So one would think that the best thing we could do in reforming the health care system in this country would be to move it away from being the responsibility of the employer. Instead, what the Senators have in mind is to FORCE employers to provide insurance for their employees by implementing penalties for those that don’t.

“Higher penalties are more effective in preventing the erosion of employer-sponsored coverage, the bedrock of insurance for more than 150 million Americans, the Congressional Budget Office told lawmakers.”

Won’t this effectively run some of the smaller businesses out of business entirely? Apparently, that is not a problem for our wise Senate.

Small business employs a large percentage of workers in this country and is generally a better employer to those workers than the large corporations that can afford to offer insurance. So why is it that the Senate is not concerned about the effect that this will have on small business?

And just who is the Senate trying to protect with laws like this? Not small business. Not employers in general. Not the citizenry, since employer-sponsored insurance is not portable and takes all control away from the end user and hands it to the employer. No, it is apparent that they are protecting the insurance industry at the expense of all else.

"Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, said preserving employer-sponsored insurance ‘needs to be a huge objective.’”

But no reason is given for that. Over and over in this article it is repeated like a mantra, but no good reason is EVER given for protecting the employer-sponsored system. And if we maintain that framework, what are we really changing?

“Mr. Baucus said he and other senators wanted to minimize the chance that employees ‘may be enticed to leave their firms in order to get health insurance in the exchange.’”

This is a most cosmetic change that they seem to be fabricating instead of the real reform that we were promised and that we NEED. This kind of change will probably make things worse instead of better, ironically proving the conservative argument that government interference makes things worse. Conservative government interference DOES make things worse because it tends to interfere in the interest of some industry instead of in the best interest of the country or its citizens.

And make no mistake; even if the Congress and Senate are majority Democrats at this time, the changes as currently being discussed for our health care system are CONSERVATIVE ones in that they are based upon retaining the status quo over addressing problems with real progressive change. This article proves it.

“The budget office said: ‘The availability of subsidized coverage in the new insurance exchange would be an attractive option for many lower-income workers. As a result, some employers would decide not to offer their employees health insurance coverage, opting instead to provide other forms of compensation…In a letter to Congress three weeks ago, President Obama said small businesses “should be exempted” from any employer mandate…‘We will give assistance to small business through tax credits,’ Mr. Baucus said Wednesday…(However)…When asked about an exemption for small businesses, Mr. Baucus said: ‘We talked about it. But how much sense does that really make?’”

This is absolute insanity at a time of such high unemployment in this country. It is unbelievable that Congress would dismiss the importance of retaining jobs and small business in this country. It is NONSENSICAL.

“The United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small employers, said the proposed requirement amounted to a new tax and would frustrate the creation of jobs.”

That’s a no-brainer. Why would Congress even be considering this plan? It will not improve our health care system. It will not provide relief to businesses that are hanging on for dear life in this terrible economy. It will not save or create jobs. It will not increase the capability of American companies to compete in the global marketplace. SO WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS PLAN???

In an Op-ed piece titled, The Only Public Health Plan We Need appearing in the same edition of the NY Times, authors David Riemer and Alain Enthoven state:

“Everyone assumes that a public plan means a government-sponsored insurer that makes payments to doctors and hospitals, whether in the form of Medicare or — the latest idea — state-sponsored cooperatives. But Medicare has a dismal record of controlling costs and improving quality, and we lack evidence that co-ops could do any better.”

They go on to give no evidence to support that statement and to advocate “a mechanism” that they claim would use “free market forces” to motivate the insurance industry to provide better policies. Even if you believe in the mythical “free market,” their claims are shaky at best. They claim that a large enough pool would force the industry to increase quality and decrease cost, however that claim is in direct contrast to the one they made earlier in the article that Medicare, which insures a huge pool of people, has a lousy record of controlling prices or improving quality.

“An exchange is a key feature of the public plan we’d like to see, but it’s only one element. Two other features are needed to give an exchange the power to pressure insurers … to hold down prices and improve care.
First, the exchange would need to act on behalf of a critical mass of people — at least 20 percent of the insured population that does not already receive Medicaid or Medicare. Only a pool of this size could attract serious bids from insurers. To amass such a large purchasing pool, Congress might need to require that all government employees, or all employers with fewer than 100 employees, join the pool.
Second, the exchange would need to ensure that no subsidies for health insurance, whether provided by employers or the government (through the tax system), exceed the price submitted by the lowest-bidding qualified insurer and benefit package. All individuals in the pool would be free to join any insurer that submits a bid. But enrollees would have to pay out of pocket — and preferably with after-tax dollars — any amount above the price of the lowest-bidding plan. “

What they are describing is a system that protects the private insurance industry at every turn. They are basing their ideas on the philosophy that there is currently not enough profit being made to enable the insurance industry to cut costs, which we all know is a load of garbage. They also claim that this would in turn force hospitals and doctors to improve the quality of care and lower costs.

"How would insurers lower prices and raise quality? By passing their incentive along to doctors and hospitals. To maximize their revenue from insurance companies, doctors and hospitals would need to provide better care at a lower price — something they can accomplish only by squeezing out error, waste and inefficiency.”

Yes, error, waste and inefficiency are a problem, but some of that error, waste and inefficiency is caused by the much larger problem of corporate greed. Corporations are not people, although they are run by people. However, people who run corporations tend to make decisions based SOLELY upon what is best for the corporation and its shareholders, i.e., the bottom line is profit. If you are looking for ways to improve quality and efficiency in our health care system, you would do well to be working with people who have the same goals in mind. And private insurance companies will NOT be on that page with you because their ultimate goal will always be profit.

The error with Riemer and Enthoven’s foundational philosophy is that they believe that competition will motivate the insurance industry to look for ways to improve quality and efficiency. It won’t. Insurance companies will always have a bottom line, a handful of excuses, fingers to point and absolutely, positively no guilt or shame about what they have to do to achieve their goals. Actually past history of “free market’ in this country shows that companies from the same industries will collude with each other to set prices at a level that will enable them to obtain a substantial profit for their shareholders. So there really is no motivation for them to improve the quality of the product they are selling.

And, finally, there is another subject that pops up regularly when discussing the health care issue: curbing health care-related litigation. Nicholas Kristoff, of whom I am a big fan, while advocating a single-payer system in his column in the same issue of the NY Times, made this statement:

“I don’t mind the A.M.A. lobbying on behalf of doctors in the many areas where physicians and patients have common interests. The association is dead right, for example, in calling for curbs on lawsuits, which raise medical costs for everyone. An excellent study published in 2006 in The New England Journal of Medicine found that for every dollar paid in compensation as a result of lawsuits against doctors, 54 cents goes to legal and administrative costs…Moreover, aggressive law leads to defensive medicine, in the form of extra medical tests that waste everybody’s money. Tort reform should be a part of health reform.”

Accepting the statistic quoted in the New England Journal of Medicine at face value as a valid statistical fact, that fact alone is not enough information upon which to base the conclusion that Mr. Kristoff leaps to, which is that we need to restrict the constitutional right of redress that comes to us from as far back as English Common Law. Mr. Kristoff might be unaware of a few other facts that play into that statistic.

The insurance industry, which we have established as being motivated purely by profit, has set up a system that does not allow doctors to admit medical mistakes, denies all claims of medical error, and is so adamant about NOT paying for ANY error that it is willing to pay lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to limit any eventual award to a mere few thousand dollars. Because they REFUSE to admit any liability in even the most egregious cases of medical error or negligence, the malpractice industry, NOT MALPRACTICE VICTIMS, are driving up the cost of medicine for everyone.

If insurance companies were willing to admit to and pay for the mistakes that are made, the system would be in better shape. Instead, they protect the doctors and hospitals that make mistakes, freeing them from the consequences of their errors and allowing them to go on and commit more errors. Eventually insurers will drop a doctor if he has enough lawsuits filed against him, but not before many lives are ruined and hundreds of thousands of dollars or more are paid in legal fees to fight the victims.

Doctors are people and hospitals are not perfect and everyone makes mistakes. But most mistakes that you and I make do not result in catastrophic medical bills for someone or in them losing the use of part of their body or brain function. When these mistakes happen, it is only fair that the victim be awarded some financial help in dealing with the consequences of those mistakes. But the current system does not allow doctors to admit mistakes, face their patients and say they are sorry. It does not provide for proper restitution where restitution is necessary. It is an adversarial system that leaves doctors and other treaters feeling guilty or defensive and patients feeling betrayed and angry while insurance companies keep raking in the profits.

If reform is needed in regards to health care litigation, it is malpractice insurance reform, not tort reform. We should mandate that a truly independent review of claims be made and that doctors and hospitals must or be allowed to admit when they have made an error and be given the opportunity to offer restitution in those cases. It should mandate that State Medical Boards take swift and proportional action in cases where doctors are not performing properly, have lost their faculties, etc.

We should not allow the malpractice insurance industry to keep driving health insurance litigation, playing both ends against each other while their profits increase exponentially each year. Don’t take the right to sue away from the victim, take the self-interested profiteer out of the middle of the conflict.

P.S. Check out this article about the healthcare lobbyist that may be bending the reform to the benefit of the insurance industry:

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/06/30/lobbyist_at_center_of_healthcare_overhaul/?page=full


Karen Ignagni

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How Many Police Does It Take To Silence the Voice of the People?

The following is the text of a newsletter that I received regarding the current health care debate in this country. Though much has been made about real change in our nation’s health care policies, we are in real danger of no change, especially if we leave the decision up to our bought-and-paid-for Senators. Obama’s health care plan never included the kind of REAL CHANGE that this country needs in order to stay viable and healthy (physically and economically). But the small amount of change that he has supported is in danger of being stomped out, too. Please view the video, read below and pass a link to this blog on to your friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members that are concerned about the rising cost of health care and insurance.



How many police does it take to silence the voice of the people? That’s a question a despot might ask in a totalitarian police state.

But this week the Senate Finance Committee thought it was a hilarious joke as they ejected one brave activist after another, for protesting that not even one spokesperson for single payer health care was being allowed to sit at the hearing table. Yes, Senator Max Baucus (MT), who had preemptively declared that consideration of a single payer option was off the table, actually joked, “We need more police [1:58 on video].” And the rest of the Senate panel just laughed their heads off.



Senator Chuck Grassley (IA), the ranking Republican, not to be outdone in his contempt for the people, then asked if there was “somewhere they can watch it on television [2:05 on video],” which elicited additional hearty guffaws. Yes, what a wonderful entertaining show that would be, the spectacle of the will of the people being excluded while corporate special interests, like butchers, carve up our pocketbooks and our bodies.



…It’s time for the U.S. Senate to get the message that We The People are not just a joke to be laughed off. Why is it that not ONE senator on that committee has the integrity to stand up for an even handed debate of health care issues? Why should any of them be elected to public office ever again?

So let’s see a show of hands. How many of you would like to sign up now for a commie Marxist national health care system ... like in Canada, England and other pinko Bolshevik countries like that? How stupid do they think we are, to try to reduce the terms of the debate to such an ignorant level?

Meet the new mass media scare label, “socialized” medicine. As opposed to, like, what? ... the ANTI-social corporate medical insurance industry we have now, where patients have no role except to be cash cows, by design never to be actually cured?

If you or anyone in your family has ever been seriously ill, and as we ALL will be someday, you know the medical industry will pick your bones clean of every dime you ever earned in your life, just in time to drop you into the cheapest possible pine box.

Why are members of Congress fighting so hard to keep single payer health care out of the public debate? Because there are no fat profits in it for their special interest corporate campaign contributors, who maximize their profits the sicker we are. They cannot compete with a low overhead, efficiently-run government program, just like we have NOW with the existing proven Medicare system.

Instead, they will line up a bunch of corporate lobbyists and stooges to tell bald-faced lies. Just like Senator Jim Bunning himself who asserted that Canada and England had tax rate of at LEAST 60% to support single payer. (Not even close)

But they don’t even want anyone around to even have a chance to call them out on their willful and malicious lies. [THIS IS THE KIND OF LIE THAT, ONCE THROWN INTO THE PUBLIC FORUM WILL BE REPEATED OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN THE RIGHT WING MEDIA, REGARDLESS OF ITS INACCURACY-WATCH FOR IT.]

Yes, all those who love to preach to the rest of us about the free market and competition are shown to be interested only in a rigged market and a rigged debate. Baucus may put on a face of being slightly chastened, but he STILL will not allow any honest testimony on single payer.

But we can beat them.

This is the pivotal moment. We have been speaking out for HR 676 (Medicare for all) for YEARS. And now 8 incredibly brave activists have been hauled away because they would not remain silent. But in doing so, in putting their own bodies on the line, they have shown up the current “debate” for the total sham that it is.

...submit a one-click action page that we have specially configured to send your message to the Senate Finance Committee as a hard copy pdf that they can’t just laugh off, because it will be part of the permanent record. Plus your message will go to all your regular members of Congress, plus your nearest daily local newspaper as well if that option is selected.

Click on link in Blog Title to be redirected to the Single Payer Action Page or type the following address into your browser window: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum982.php

At 3:20 of the video posted on the action page above you will hear a woman loudly ask, “I wonder how many there are?” Let’s show them.

Let’s show them there are millions and millions of us out here who will no longer be ignored, who will no longer be laughed off. Because they KNOW we can stop them if and only if large numbers of us will raise our voices now.

Let’s just do it.

And here is a list of all Senators on the Finance Committee, including at least a couple who you might have considered to be “liberals”. Where are their voices? Is there not a single one of them who will stand up and say, “No wait a minute, we need to hear what the single payer advocates have to say”? So, especially if one of these is one of YOUR personal Senators, they need to hear from you now. [THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE PROCESS THAT WILL EITHER CHANGE HEALTHCARE FOR THE BETTER IN THIS COUNTRY OR LEAVE US AT THE MERCY OF THE GREEDY CORPORATOCRACY.]



No, we don’t need more police. We need fewer Senators with plugs in their ears like Max Baucus. And he and the rest of them need to hear that.

My sixteen cents: (inflation)

For a long time now, we have been hearing about how costly single-payer health insurance would be, all the while watching our private, for-profit health insurance rise precipitously.

We’ve been told that the quality of care we receive would suffer in a single-payer system. Meanwhile, both the quality and the availability of care is decreasing for an ever-increasing number of people who can no longer afford health insurance or are unemployed and have lost their coverage.

We’ve heard that increased enrollment in Medicare would bankrupt the nation and that we would all be taxed at a higher rate to pay for it. News Flash: We are already paying for it. [That’s right, Senator Bunning, if you had been paying attention, the point has already been made in a multitude of studies and articles on the subject, some even by the government you work for, that the costs of the uninsured are being passed on to the rest of us in increased health insurance premiums and increased hospital and physician charges.] The kicker is, if you know anything about the way health insurance works, the hospitals, doctors, medical supply companies and pharmaceutical companies are CHARGING MORE for the care of uninsured people because those with insurance have the benefit of insurance companies bargaining charges down with providers. So, they bargain down charges and fees for those that have insurance and then the hospital charges the increased rates ONLY for those that do not have insurance coverage and, when those fees go uncollected, they then get passed on to the rest of us in the form of rising costs and inflated premiums (And are a nifty loss on the books at tax timewhich results in less taxes, therefore ripping off the taxpayers again).

Nice little racket, isn’t it? I can see how this system would be preferable to one in which the government sets the charges and the hospitals and doctors get paid for all of their charges instead of just some. Right, Senator Bunning???

And to answer the misguided statement again, NO, Senator Baucus, we don’t more police. We need a Senate that listens to WE THE PEOPLE instead of the greedy corporatocracy.

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