Guaranteed Healthcare

 Before I address what Paul Krugman had to say this morning, I urge you to hear what Elizabeth Warren has to say about healthcare and bankruptcy.

This morning Paul Krugman writes about health care in the The New York Times

He asks: Can it happen here?

That he must ask such a question is chilling.

That we as a nation continue to have a discussion which revolves around the concept of whether a human being in pain is entitled to be relieved of his suffering is horrifying.

I often find myself dazzled and amazed that we Americans continue to have the "discussion" about -how- should healthcare be available and affordable to all Americans.

 How do we achieve universal coverage?
 
 How do we make it affordable?

 Are all Americans entitled to healthcare?  That's right, entitled.

I live on a planet where healthcare is a basic human right. A planet where these sorts of questions are a symptom of the disease.  And make no mistake, for-profit healthcare is a cancer on our society.

We continue to ask these questions, and have this so-called discussion for one reason. The American healthcare system is in the deathgrip stranglehold of the for-profit insurance industry. Isn't it strange that the rest of the industrialized or civilized world stopped having these nonsensical discussions eons ago.

In the rest of the industrialized world, delivering affordable and guaranteed healthcare is not something polite people discuss--it's a simple fact of life. But not in the United States. We're still in the talking phase. How revolting 

Many of you quite correctly say that our sky rocketing premiums are nothing more than extortion money. I agree with this sentiment. And despite paying this ransom month after month into the overflowing coffering of the insurance industry, the number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. remains medical bills.

Returning to Elizabeth Warren.

Professor Warren is a great American hero. She just happpens to be a professor at Harvard Law School  and is widely considered the dean of American bankruptcy law. Her immense authority is impossible to dismiss.

"Half of the families who filed for bankrupcy last year did so in the aftermath of receiving medical care"

What's up with the Democratic platform which Krugman highlights?

Michael Yaki, an Obama aide who directed the platform meetings, said the new language was a recognition there may be more than one way to achieve the shared goal of universal coverage.

"There's no real consensus yet on which is the best health care reform to do other than we are committed to universality and we're committed to getting there," Yaki said. "We believe that as you make health care more affordable, people will be able to buy health care — that's the basic principle. How we get there is a matter of the legislative process."

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/politics-2/121778154786910.xml&storylist=cleveland

 

But cutting out the parasitic middleman won't be easy. The middleman insurance industry showered politicians with almost half a billion dollars in 2007!

What we consider "normal" is unthinkable in the rest of the civilized world and Krugman makes this point.

What’s easy about guaranteed health care for all? For one thing, we know that it’s economically feasible: every wealthy country except the United States already has some form of guaranteed health care. The hazards Americans treat as facts of life — the risk of losing your insurance, the risk that you won’t be able to afford necessary care, the chance that you’ll be financially ruined by medical costs — would be considered unthinkable in any other advanced nation.

Krugman has one other concern, will the politcians put healthcare on the back burner?

Not happening, Paul. Not happening. Think Tienanmen Square circa 1989.

The final hurdle facing health care reform is the risk that the next president and Congress will lose focus. There will be many problems crying out for solutions, from a weak economy to foreign policy crises. It will be easy and tempting to put health care on the back burner for a bit — and then forget about it.

The only solution to our national nightmare is single payer healthcare. Medicare for all. Obama knows this. Krugman knows this. Even AHIP knows this. But driving the u$eless and para$itic middleman from the face of the planet won't be ea$y.

If you are outraged contact your congre$$person on her summer break. Ask her why she has heavily taxpayer subsidized healthcare while the American people do without?

Ask her how much money she receives from the in$urance industry?  Ask her if this is the reason she won't sponsor HR 676?

Here again, courtesy of Michael Moore, is a list of the co-sponsors of HR 676.  if your representative is a co-sponsor,  if s/he isn't, give her a call and remind her she works for you, not the insurance industry.