With so many millions of us without health insurance (or even the ability to afford it), something had to give. Right? Well, remember all the promises during last year’s campaign? Solutions! Solutions! “Health care for all!” I, for one, sensed a disaster – for the POOR. Why? The stage was being set with proclamations of “mandatory” requirements for citizens to buy Private Policies.
And here it is: House Democrats Unveil Plan For Health Care Overhaul “House Democrats on Friday answered President Obama’s call for a sweeping overhaul of the health care system by putting forward a . . . bill that would require all Americans to obtain health insurance. . . .”
Senators Durbin, Leahy, and Schumer: “We support a Public health insurance option that would foster greater competition in the marketplace.” Does the word “option” mean we may choose to participate? Or, will we find ourselves forced into making a choice between only two options? “This month, Congress is working on new reform legislation that will make quality health care available and affordable for all Americans.” Multitudes who were looking to you to actually provide health care through a Universal (Single-Payer) system will wonder where you discovered figures somehow making this “affordable,” since, to them, you are about to put so many on the street. “The whole reason for health insurance in the first place is to spread costs among as large a group of people as possible, so we all pay a reasonable amount for quality health care….” Again, “a reasonable amount,” – just where and how did you come up with those figures? How “reasonable” do you think a man or woman grossing $23,000 a year will consider it? Any chance they, or even husbands and wives grossing $34,000, might prefer health care – as provided – at no cost – as opposed to being required/mandated (like car insurance – where you get fined without it)? We know the covers, like “for those making under a certain amount, it will be free.” Yeah, and that’s how it all starts. Later, the gates widen with a “reasonable/affordable” co-pay – even for the minimum-waged. Further on, it becomes only rational, within “personal responsibility”: Even they (the poor) should work out payment plans when the time comes to cover those new “deductible” requirements/mandates.
Of our citizens, 63% support a Universal/Medicare-for-All/Single-Payer system. It’s the Will of the people. Obama has the presidency – and a majority in Congress. There are no tactics, or waves, of propaganda that would have arrived in this battle which could not have been overcome. And still, they did not have their own Will – to stand up. Instead of fighting (all the way) – primarily for the people, the weak-kneed cohorts cowered (once again) in the face of corporate and politically minor powers.
Can you afford this? “Not our problem.” Are you at or below the middle class? “Sorry (bootstraps).” Are you Poor? “Again, sorry (get a third job). Furthermore, if you are poor (or, whatever class) and this ‘Mandatory’ Bill is enough to be seen as a death knell (since you absolutely and literally cannot afford another bill), do you think we care? No.” Why? “Because, hey, we’ve solved the health care crisis! Now, everyone will have health care! Get it? We are heroes.” Yes, many millions of us will get it, eventually – as the sounds of those final nails in our coffins are pounded (for our own good).
Update (06/25): “Health Care Reform Bill Price Tag Goes Down.” How? “Senate Finance Committee members said they found $400 billion in savings earlier this week, largely by reducing the amount of subsidies for low-income people to buy insurance.” It’s only the beginning. Prepare your bootstraps and find those third jobs.
Public Options, Single-Payers, and Bootstraps
[ FAIR’s PETITION ]
Awakenings 
The bottom line is in relation to Universal Health Care – which is Provided, like in a Single-Payer system. Parsing the word “free” does not change this central point. Do we consider our streets and bridges, police departments, libraries, public parks, etc., as being provided for “free” – even though our taxes fund their ongoing existence? Yes. And no, we should not be overtaxed. Still, as mentioned, to force/mandate people into plans – whether or not they can afford them, is wholly abusive. Furthermore, to do the latter as a means to say “We’ve solved the health care crisis!” is completely outrageous. Health care should be Provided – to all classes – equally. Period. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/19/house-democratsanxious-to_n_218177.html?show_comment_id=25938579#comment_25938579
The Policy That Dare Not Speak Its Name
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/the-policy-that-dare-not_b_218688.html
Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3733
Physicians for a National Health Program
http://www.pnhp.org
Obama’s Fourth Press Conference:
“You have to wonder why some of these reporters sound like they’re ventriloquists for Big Pharma or GOP Pollster Frank Luntz. We already know, as Senator Dick Durbin acknowledged about Congress, that the banks and their lobbyists “frankly own the place.” So, what do we as consumers and citizens get: not one question about why single-payer, Medicare-for-All, is excluded from the legislative debate and process. Instead we get a handful of grumpy questions focused on the dangers of a public plan pushing private insurance companies out of the marketplace!”
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/445525/obama_refocus_and_reset
Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/43855
QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D.: “The health reform bills emerging from the House and Senate are deeply flawed. The crisis in health care is due to one big thing: our multi-payer system of private insurance companies. Everybody knows that. Obama knows that. He said he was for single payer not that many years ago…. A so-called public plan option won’t touch the foundations of this dysfunctional, wasteful, multi-payer system of insurers.”
Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama, 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=2023
Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate?
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3816
Single-Payer Health Coverage is Optimal Rx:
“I find it really horrific that 62 percent of bankruptcies (in 2007) are due to people having medical issues – and 78 percent of them had health insurance.”
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/25-7
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “To me, the evidence is overwhelming that we must end the for-profit private insurance company domination of health care in our country and move toward a publicly-funded, single-payer Medicare for All system.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/we-must-stop-the-rampant_b_222510.html
Industry Salivating Over Forced/Mandated Coverage:
“If everyone in the country were required to have insurance, the industry says…the costs and risks of insurance would be spread over a large enough pool of people to let insurers provide full, affordable coverage….”
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/01-0
(Note the shared language of/with the Senators)
More Industry Salivation:
A single-payer (Universal) system would (mostly) put an end to the rampantly scurrilous private industry, which is primarily focused on profit (the more claims denied, the more bonuses given) – as opposed to the health of humans. Further, this idea of “mandating” or “requiring” (like car insurance) everyone to get a policy (without it being provided for free, like Medicare – funded by our tax dollars) has the current corporations of related control in full salivating mode. Remember how another industry salivated at the possibility of social security being diverted to the stock market during the Bush administration? The same type of watered-mouth anticipation is happening right now – as the insurers revel in the possibilities of new “cash cows” (us) being forced into their pens.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-r-price/who-killed-obamas-health_b_229812.html?show_comment_id=26948172#comment_26948172
Why the Left Lost Single-Payer Health Care Reform
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/44503
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