Guaranteed Healthcare

Before I go through my own personal list, we should all kneel in front of Senator Kennedy. 

Though the healthcare reform plan he is working on, is far from the ideal single payer plan many of us believe is the only solution to our national catastrophe, Senator Kennedy will force healthcare reform to the top of the legislative agenda, and God bless him for that.

But, now is the time to get it right, even if we need to take a bit more time.

To Senator Kennedy or anyone working with him, I'll echo the words of John McCain's failed VP candidate.  Thanks but no thanks on any version of Romneycare.  It's a failure in Massachusetts and it's a non-starter for the American people.

This is a good day for single payer.

Two champions, Kathy Dahlkemper from the 3rd CD in Pennsylvania and Eric Massa from the 29th CD in New York, won seats in the 111th Congress.

I think it's fair to say that we hope and expect Kathy and Eric will become co-sponsors of HR 676 as soon as they are sworn into office.

During the pre-election bus tour of Northeast swing states in which I was privileged to participate, we swung through the Massa and Dahlkemper districts.

Ms. Dahlkemper scored a huge upset  against the incumbent Representative Phil English in the socially conservative and traditionally Repuglican northwestern corner of Pennsylvania.

Mr. English, a lifelong resident of Erie, has held the Third District seat since 1995 and is a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Good bye  Good riddance Phil English. Go find yourself a job on K Street.

Ms. Dahlkemper, a co-owner of a family landscaping business, boasted that she was “not a career politician,” and she tied Mr. English to President Bush’s economic policies. Welcome to the movement for guaranteed and affordable healthcare.  We hope you will stand shoulder to shoulder with John Conyers on HR 676.

The bus tour also took us the the 29th Congressional district in New York. It was a good night for Eric Massa, another single payer supporter,  another co-sponsor of HR 676, a veteran and war hero, who took down Randy Kuhl. 

For the last several days, the blogosphere has been awash with a single admonition. A single plea.

Stay in Line.

"Don't think for a moment that power concedes."

Stay in line.

In many states the wait to vote could extend through the day. Stay on line.

In many states minorities, first time voters, and even the elderly will encounter all manner of obstructions. Stay on line.

If an elderly person needs assistance, work together with the people around you to provide whatever help you can. But please, stay on line.

Please, no matter the hours, the weather, the heat, the need for a toilet, or a sip of water, please, stay in line.

I just voted. I waited. I stayed in line. I'm one of the lucy ones, my line was only about an hour and a half.  My friend, who votes in a different election district, got up at 4AM and was on his line at 5, the polls open in New York at 6AM, he voted right before 8AM.

We stayed on line and so must you. No matter what.

Vote like you life depends on it, because it does.

STAY ON LINE. STAY IN LINE. NO MATTER WHAT.

If you don't know where to vote, click this link, it will direct you to your polling station.

I am an official (dare I say, proud?) member of Casualty of the Day.

I received my health insurance premium renewal  extortion notice.  They've hit me with an 18.5% increase.

My current monthly premium is $629.83 per month, the renewal notice is $746.30. This represents right around an 18-18.5% increase. They expect me to pay $8955.60 a year for junk insurance.

What makes this assault so deadly, is that we are in the midst of a huge recession, wages are declining, people are losing their jobs and of course, their employer-provided health insurance.

I have a vision though. Armies of desperately sick Americans descending on Congressional offices and emergency rooms across America, pleading for medical care. We are heading over a financial cliff and into a healthcare Armageddon. This is not hyperbole, it is reality.

There are several healthcare horror stories which should cause Americans across the nation to lose their collective appetites.

Today you'll read about a stranger, tomorrow the collpase of the U.S. healthcare system  will have landed on  you or someone you love. Make no mistake, it's only a matter of time before you, yes, you, will be face-to-face with our wrecked healthcare system.

How's this for catastrophe?  Americans, make that insured Americans forgoing cancer care because of the cost.  Yup, this is what's being reported in USA Today.  You pay for junk insurance. You forgo so many of lifes small pleasure to be able to pony up month after month. You assume if you need it, it will be there for you. Think again.

Study: Many cancer patients forgoing care because of cost

At a time when they're already fighting for their lives, more cancer patients are now struggling to pay for their medicines.

One in eight people with advanced cancer turned down recommended care because of the cost, according to a new analysis from Thomson Reuters, which provides news and business information. Among patients with incomes under $40,000, one in four in advanced stages of the disease refused treatment.

And it's only going to get worse. Much worse.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that employees will see vastly higher out-of-pocket costs as employers attempt, in the face of shrply escaling costs to maintain some semblance of junk insurance. You'll be paying more, lots more.

As companies head into open-enrollment season, when they let employees pick their plans for next year, many firms say they are reluctant to boost health-care premiums too sharply at a time when wages are stagnant. Instead, workers can expect to pay significantly more for such out-of-pocket items as deductibles, co-payments and other fees.

Employees' charges next year are expected to jump 10.1% from 2008, to an average of $1,880, according to a recent projection by Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm. By contrast, health-care premiums are expected to rise 7.8%, after posting double-digit percentage gains in four of the last five years. In 2008, out-of-pocket costs also increased 10.1%.

. . .

Lauralee Schiraga, a nurse from Brewster, Mass., says she was surprised when she was billed $250 last month for a breast biopsy that had been done to check on a suspicious mass. Around the same time, she got another $250 charge, this time for an endoscopy ordered by her doctor after she had digestive problems. She called her health insurer and was told the bills were her co-payments for the out-patient procedures.

There's an interesting article in Politico which makes the case for a possible 60 seat filibuster proof Democratic Senate.  An unthinkable dream only a few short weeks ago, is now being discussed as the electoral landscape looks increasingly dire for the thoroughly discredited Republican Party. Should this happen, such a miraculous turn of events, would be further fallout of the economic catastrophe Mr. Bush created and now bequeathes to his successor.

Certainly, a sixty seat Democratic Senate, would also be the ultimate referendum on the last eight years of the worst and most corrupt administration in the history of our nation. Finally, a neutered and defanged Republican Party. 

If this happens, will we see great progressive legislation? Will we see at the top of the list, universal, affordable and guaranteed healthcare reform? Will such historic legislation move with lightening speed through the House and the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama? 

Many analysts believe the financial crisis will worsen dramatically (despite the bailout of Wall Street) between now and January 20th. The collapse of the U.S. healthcare system seems poised to be the next shoe to drop in the pyramid scheme legacy of the Bush Administration.

As Rose Ann DeMoro states in The Nation, "If only the federal government could be mobilized so quickly to solve the nation's healthcare crisis."  Perhaps the repercussions from the bailout, and a 60 seat Senate will give us an unprecedented historic opportunity to enact sweeping healthcare reform.

What must single-payer activists do between now and then, to prepare for a possible 60 seat Democratic Senate? 

The meltdown of the U.S. economy has Americans deciding between milk and medicine. We won't get a second chance to make healthcare the top domestic priority of the Obama Administration.

President Obama will of necessity, hit the ground running. His economic team has some mess to deal with. 

Will we too be ready? 

A government takeover? 

The collapse of the U.S. financial system may present single-payer advocates with a strategic advantage.

What until recently was only whispered about behind closed doors--a government takeover of the U.S. healthcare system is now being openly discussed.

Two new studies The New York Times is reporting on today are causing renewed new alarm that the United States is facing another perfect storm, the full meltdown of the healthcare system. One study is from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the other from the Center for Studying Health System Change.

Two studies released Wednesday morning provide further evidence of the toll health care is increasingly placing on working families, even for those who have health insurance. And as employees are paying more medical expenses out of their own pockets, they are having a harder time coming up with the money.

The studies, by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Center for Studying Health System Change, were completed earlier this year before the financial markets reached their current state of crisis. But policy analysts say the findings underscore the mounting additional strain that medical care is placing on working Americans.

The video you've just watched is an American tragedy.

A citizen of the richest country on the planet, evidently an immigrant from Spain, asking John McPalin why she was compelled to bring her ill relative, a "so-called uninsurable", home to Spain to die?

And McPalin's rambling, disjointed and utterly pathetic response.

The traditional media didn't see fit to make these chilling remarks public.  You should do yourself a favor and look at the man  shameless con artist who hopes he can lie and three card monte his way into becoming the 44th President of the United States.

Why is John McCain hiding? Why is John McCain hiding Sarah Palin? Why is John McCain hiding his grotesque record from the American people?

This video ought to make it very clear.

He's going to tax your precious employer health benefits. And if that doesn't sit well with you, he'll give you a tax credit and send on your own into the merciless and unregulated individual insurance cesspool. Once in that toxic waste heap, "my friend", you'll be on your own.

Here's what Joe Biden had to say yesterday about healthcare in Missouri a very critical swing state. These voters will decide who will be the 44th President of the United States.

Did you see this yesterday on the news?  Did you hear about this yesterday? Do you think John McCain wants you to know anything about his healthcare "plan"?

Should we add knowledge, information, and an informed electorate, to the list we call casualty of the day?

The state of our nation has had me in something of a decline over the past few days. Why talk or write about healthcare when our election may be in jeopardy?

Well this is a good day, a very good day on the healthcare front.  The esteemed journal Health Affairs has a dazzling report on the merits of single payer healthcare. It's brilliantly titled, Medicare-for-All: Why We Should Say Yes, Not “Yes But”

Will this silence once and for all the "yes but" crowd?  Unlikely, but we're on the side of the angels and if we manage to win this election, one nail after another gets banged in the coffin of the murder by spreadsheet for-profit health insurance industry.

After listening to John McPalin last night, the new morning does not bring relief from the frightening possibility that team Palin/McCain could (God forbid) end up in the White House.

Even worse, each day continues the avalanche of terrible news on the healthcare front.

Here are a few items that caught my attention.

Gas prices confine sick people

Sick Americans who travel far or frequently to get medical treatment are skipping or delaying appointments, leaving support groups and applying for grants to defray high gasoline prices.

People who visit the doctor multiple times each week or month, such as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and people needing dialysis, have been hardest hit.

The video you've just watched,  answers some questions about the awful "decision" to close Charity Hospital.  It's a real eye-opener. I urge you to watch it during these bleak days of media analysis on the Republican vice presidential nomination.

Surely you remember Charity Hospital three short years ago, during the terrible days of Katrina?

Charity, like Grady in Atlanta, Cook County in Chicago, Parkland in Dallas, and many others--all are under financial siege. They are also iconic American healthcare institutions.

Before it was shuttered, Charity had one million ER visits a year.

Eighty five percent of the people who came through its doors had no insurance--no Medicare, no Medicaid, nothing.

Would someone wake me when it's over?

You can't make this stuff up.

John Goodman, the architect of McMoron's healthcare "plan" had this to say today regarding the news that Texas leads the nation in the number of uninsured.

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

I (that's me, nyceve) have nothing to add except. . .

God help us.

Who wouldn't walk to the end of the earth linked arm-in-arm with this great American?

Senator Kennedy has devoted his life to fighting for the American people. His simple idea is to bring guaranteed affordable, cradle to grave healthcare to all of us.

He never shies away from shaming his seemingly shameless colleagues who eagerly accept heavily taxpayer subsidized healthcare benefits while denying you and me--the American people what they have.

Always remember the Little Pink Card given on on Day One to every member of the United States Senate.

His candor is utterly refreshing.

Save for Sherrod Brown of Ohio, all 99 members of the United States Senate eagerly accept taxpayer subsidized health benefits.

Kennedy's favorite line which he repeats at every opportunity is, "the American taxpayer is paying 72% of the healthcare premium for every member of the United States Senate."

It's long overdue that this taxpayer generosity be ended. Each member of the U.S. Senate should be forced into the merciless for-profit individual market. They should experience the depraved world of pre-existing conditions, exclusions, waiting periods and denials,  the same grim reality as so many of the people they represent.

I receive lots of letters like this.   Desperate American citizens turning to me for help.

 You were the only person I could think of that could possibly help  me. I
just got off the phone with a hysterical 26 yr old(my daughter) she is
living in NY working two jobs with no insurance coverage going to school and
has just been told by a clinic ther is a 2cm lump in her breast. This child
of mine is freaking out as are we about a possible 7000 dollar cost for a
mammagram and the biopsy. Her father and I don't have the moeny to pay for
this and we have tried to get family involved to see if together we may be
able to come up with the money. My question to you is, do you have any
information that I could give her about free or low cost places she might be
able to get access to? I am literally freaking out about this because I have
no way of coming up with this money. I am currently on Social security for
an injury I sustaiend at work and we are barely getting by month to month.
If you can give me any names of clinics or hospitals that cater to no
insurance I would be forever in your debt. I've only been with dailykos over
a year but I am an ardent follower of your murder by spreadsheet diaries.
Did not think I would ever be in this position though. Any help you could
give us would be so appreciated.

Letters like this are pornography.