Guaranteed Healthcare

So your investment goal is capital preservation, and during these rough economic times to lose a little less money on Wall Street.  Since the economy is under attack after close to eight years of debt and spend,  you just don't know what to do with that nest egg that's getting smaller by the day.

Skyrocketing energy prices. Oil stocks are a possibility.

Skyrocketing heathcare costs. Eureka! The magic formula.

Healthcare stocks, insurance companies.

 I know, I know, even insurance companies are down, but  the industry always has a new trick up its sleeve to cut costs and increase profits. This is where I want to be.  I can count on health insurers to protect the bottom line and I want my money to be safe. I know I'll prosper if I sock away all that money I've stuffed under my mattress in one of America's great denial machines insurance companies.

Maybe I’m seeing things too optimistic, but stepping back from the details of the healthcare reform movement, and looking at the big national trends, there is reason to hope that the movement in California for guaranteed healthcare will lead the nation along a path to progress.

Obviously in many ways the situation is different…labor unions are stronger in California than they are nationally, (and led the way in defeating the insurance industry-backed fake healthcare reform bill offered last year by Arnold Schwarzenneger and former Speaker Fabian Nunez), and the healthcare grassroots might be more developed as well.

But the underlying economics are the same…workers, families, employers and the state budget alike are all being crushed by out-of-control costs for insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays, all for a service that places us last in the industrialized world, and to subsidize a health insurance industry that plays no role in the delivery of patient care.

So let’s just take a look at the evidence that suggests California is leading the nation:

Last week’s action by Congress to override President Bush’s veto of the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (HR 6331) was a landmark step toward reversing the tide of privatization of Medicare over the last three decades. The votes in Congress were a resounding defeat for conservative policies and the lobbying efforts of the insurance industry. There was no ambiguity in the override votes — 383 to 41 in the House and 70 to 26 in the Senate, with 153 Republicans in the House and 21 Republicans in the Senate defying the president. The courageous leadership of Senator Edward Kennedy, long a champion of better access to health care, helped to head off a disastrous veto of this legislation despite his current medical problems.

California's landmark single-payer bill, SB 840, is moving forward in the state legislature. It's not only critical for fixing our broken healthcare system, but also needed for the millions of families struggling with the escalating economic crisis -- as evidenced by a new survey out Wednesday.

Politicians and pundits forget that we still have a public health infrastructure that still fights to prevent preventable diseases like polio, measles, tuberculosis, HIV, std's and would be called upon in a city-wide disaster to provide care and comfort to traumatized citizens left high and dry by natural events.

We are still the safety net for now 48 million Americans without health insurance and even those with insurance  who cannot afford to pay the rising costs of their own care. We are the "white line" against disaster, communicable diseases and those with no real access to care.  But, because of cuts, especially here in California by Arnold Schwarzenegger, medicare and other state programs which for the Govenator has become the only way to ease our budget woes , this thin white line in the sand,  faces more strains than ever before.  We need to get serious about single-payer sooner rather than later.  The public's health is at risk without it.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist CNA/NNOC 

Whatever happened to “Moving On?”

Perhaps it is just my submersion in the ongoing war to guarantee healthcare for every man, woman, and child in this country, but it seems to me like things have really warmed up over the past year, and that everyone is feeling the heat. Since the release of SiCKO approximately a year ago, everyone has been asking themselves the same questions: Am I covered? What does my policy include? Am I one illness, one surgery, one prescription, or one ER visit away from being branded “uninsurable?”

The news media has been focusing on the dark underbelly of the insurance industry (as if there’s a lighter side to the industry). Everyday there are reports of skyrocketing CEO salaries and parallel policy costs, the increasing numbers of uninsured and underinsured, and patients who have been denied care. The downturn in the economy has meant that an entire nation of working- and middle-class people are walking on eggshells, worried that they are a pink slip away from losing health benefits for them and their families. And of course, we welcome home every day women and men who have been irrevocably damaged by war in the Middle East. Some scars are visible, most are not, and few (if any) of them are receiving the full network of health support they require and deserve.

Clearly, this coverage and outrage are coming to a head. They say things need to get worse before they get better, and it doesn’t get much worse than this. With a major political shift in this country a mere six months away, the caregivers and patients of this country are poised to effect profound healthcare reform.

Which is why it’s so disappointing that a group of enormously influential organizations, including MoveOn.Org, Planned Parenthood, and the National Women’s Law Center, are steering a new organization that follows up a mighty swagger with a whimpering compromise: not to chuck out the insurance industry altogether, but to strictly monitor it. Right.

Sen. John McCain Thursday tried to distance himself from the embarrassing statement of one of his top economic advisers ex-Sen. Phil Gramm that the financial distress felt by so many Americans was simply a "mental recession."

But, the presumptive Republican nominee for President has his own disconnect with the American public with the inadequate healthcare plan he has proposed.

As a long term veteran of the fight for single payer healthcare - for a real solution that will meet the care needs of all Americans, I was pretty excited at first when I saw the splashy new rollout for "Healthcare for America Now"

You can see their web ads on this site and on many others.

You can see their splashy website

I took a look at it and at first, things looked pretty good.  They say lots of bad things about the health insurers, which is a good start.  My first clue that something was wrong was when I followed a link to a survey.  Follow me below the fold for that first clue.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, Communications Specialist, CNA/NNOC

CHICAGO -- If we had a healthcare lifeboat within our sinking system, Patrick Murfin of Crystal Lake, IL, is pretty sure there’s no room on board for him.  I recently attended a hearing in McHenry, IL, on the Illinois state single payer bill, and when I heard Patrick testify, I felt sad and angry for him.

Although we pay more and more each year for health insurance (average premium for a family of four now over $12,000), we get less and less for it. Insurers continue to take high profits first, leaving enrollees more vulnerable to high out-of-pocket costs for health care.

It looks like 2008 is going to be a tough year for the for-profit insurance industry.

The crooks bean counters at UnitedHealth are circling the wagon.  Their bottom line is under assault.  This is not good news for you and me.

Let me take you on a quick stroll through the world of insurance denials and what happens when things take a turn for the worse. Worse means that profits are declining and medical costs are on an upswing.  

The for-profit insurance industry serves investors--not you and not me. That's why it's called for-profit. Investors pay money to buy their stock. Investors invest to make money. Last time I checked, the way a company makes investors happy, is to increase earnings and control costs.

Think of our monthly premiums as earnings or revenue. Our bodies are costs. When our bodies get sick they become big costs.

Costs are bad. Costs must be crushed and defeated.

Here's the ugly story. The financial success of the for-profit insurance industry is due to their business model that must limit their medical losses. We, that means you and I, are medical losses.

Dear friends, this is called the medical loss ratio. You and I (and our health needs), are known in insurance lingo as "losses".

Every dollar they spend our our healthcare needs goes against the bottom line.

Some of you may be too young to remember the agony of Vietnam. I remember it well.

On Independence Day, 2008, those of you who weren't around in the sixties and seventies, might like to know how an older generation took down a government and changed the course of a nation.

Some of you may not remember the selective service system and the spectre of young Americans being conscripted to fight in another illegal and immoral war. I remember it well. I remember my brother's draft card. We had a lottery in those days, my brother got lucky, he pulled a low number.

Others, like our current commander-in-chief, joined the National Guard as a means of evading a likely death sentence in Vietnam. As the scion of wealth, Mr. Bush got lucky and got a preferred assignment (from family connections), and was assigned a safe position in the Texas Air National Guard.

So why on a blog devoted to bringing guaranteed and affordable single-payer healthcare to all Americans, am I reminding you of those dark and terrible days?

Because as we know, changing a country requires much more than just showing up to vote.

Conservatives in government, free market stakeholders, and their
lobbyists won a big one last week. Even after the House gave
overwhelming bipartisan support to the Medicare Improvements for
Patients and Providers Act (HR. 6331) by a vote of 355-59 (including
129 Republican votes), the Senate fell two votes short of the 60 votes
needed to overcome a presidential veto. Presidential candidate Obama
voted in favor of the bill; McCain was a no-show. The bill would have
cancelled a physician pay cut of 10.6 percent, reduced overpayments to
private Medicare plans, improved coverage of mental health and
preventive services under Medicare, and added consumer protections for
enrollees in private plans. President Bush planned to veto the
legislation because of payment reductions to private plans and the
improved benefits, claiming that they would “reduce access, benefits
and choices for many of the 2.25 million enrollees in Private Fee for
Service (PFFS) plans. Robert Hayes, President of the Medicare Rights
Center, called this “a craven submission to the insurance industry”.

So you're uninsured.

But like so many, you're hanging in because, in a few years, you'll be eligible for Medicare.

Help has arrived. Finally, as a citizen of the richest country on the planet, you'll be able to access healthcare.

You'll be enrolled in Medicare, one of our most cherished social programs, a program designed to protect the most vulnerable among us, America's senior citizens.

 Not so fast, I'm sad beyond words to report.

You've watched to video at the beginning of this diary.  Now watch another video, heed the bleak words of the new president of the AMA, Dr. Nancy Neilsen.

Dr. Nielsen is ringing the alarm that the country is ''at the brink of a Medicare meltdown.'' To her huge credit, she's also naming names, and fingering those responsible for this latest healthcare atrocity.

The usual criminals as you might suspect. At the top of the list, the for-profit insurance industry (AHIP), and their political lapdogs. They are directing the money toward the private Medicare Advantage schemes, and sapping the lifeblood from traditional Medicare.