Guaranteed Healthcare

 But this time, he was alone, there was no Joe Lieberman to whisper in his ear. McSame doesn't have a clue about the economy, Iraq, Sunni, Shia, the Anbar Awakening--now add to the McSame catalogue of cluelessness, the collapse of the U.S. healthcare system. 

The mind reels at Mr. McSame's ignorance, and Lance Armstrong should be ashamed of himself for not vigorously challenging him.

I've spent the morning reviewing some video clips of McSame's appearance at the Lance Armstrong Cancer Summit.

It's a treasure trove. This one The entire event should inspire fear in the hearts of all Americans.

Either the "presumptive nominee" had another senior moment, or just add the collapse of the U.S. healthcare system to the long list of catastrophes this moron doesn't have a clue about.

"No limits on premiums", you really said this, McSame?  You bet, just ask any American, we all know about no limits on premiums. I pay $686.00 a month for junk insurance. The American people don't need a tired has-been like John McSame telling us about "no limits on premiums.

This is one of those updates on the movement for guaranteed healthcare that is difficult to write, both in terms of the gravity of the situation, and the need for Washington to act accordingly.

The numbers are staggering, and barely made it into the US media: 101,000 Americans died preventable deaths last year due to our insurance industry-dominated health care system, according to a new study by the respected Commonwealth Fund.
 
That is shocking, lobbyist-induced genocide.
 
The good news is that, despite the best efforts of the insurance industry and their Washington allies, the movement towards guaranteeing healthcare on a Medicare for All or “single-payer” model is clearly strengthening.  The latest advocates?  Doctors, who just this decade have joined nurse, in solidly supporting Universal Medicare, a fact which will fundamentally alter healthcare politics.  
 

Our health care system is in critical condition.

It is difficult if not impossible for Americans in less than optimal health and even many healthy ones, to find affordable, individual coverage. Health-related costs are the leading cause for personal bankruptcy in the United States.

This morning NPR told the stories of two patients with multiple sclerosis, Linda Oatley lives in Buckland England, Jeffrey Rubin lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Linda, like all residents of the United Kingdom, is covered under one form or another of the NHS. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, but unlike her brethrem in the United States, she did not have to file for bankruptcy or lose her home because she had the misfortune to get sick.

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

While ad campaigns rolled out from some groups and the media focused themselves on -- well -- themselves, and their coverage of the presidential race, the champion of single payer healthcare reform rolled out his own plans and moved ever forward in the steady march toward victory.

Rep-John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary and primary sponsor of HR676, joined the national Healthcare Not Warfare campaign in seeking national platform status for true reform.  No wiggle, no waffle, no sequential silliness that allows some Americans in while holding others partially out of the plan.  Conyers knows that with 91 co-sponsors already on board and many more in the November election pool, the path to passage of HR676 is much more "politically feasable" than the convoluted and corrupt path to marginal change.

Awesomely simple and exquisitely responsible, single payer offers patients maximum flexibility in seeking quality healthcare, and it offers the nation maximum “bang for the buck” by removing the mark-ups for excessive profit necessary in the current for-profit, private health insurance markets.

The incremental health reform plans are quite convoluted and difficult to follow. Designed to protect all the corporate, for-profit entities currently making money in our system, it is nearly impossible to accomplish universal access to care while maintaining the status quo of our national corporate healthcare system.

Steady as we go, single payer friends, Conyers and his cohorts always remind us that our cause is just, the path is clear and we can win true, universal care for every American.  

I am blessed to be one of the four national co-chairs of this PDA campaign, along with Conyers, Soloman and Marilyn Clement of Healthcare-Now.  Read the attached article and jump in with us.

Sign on to this effort and spread the good word.  Single payer reform is on the agenda.

What's wrong with this picture? Sen. John McCain, who has implicitly criticized his opponent in the Presidential campaign for inadequate support for the troops, now wants to limit veterans' healthcare benefits to those with combat injuries.

McCain's latest scheme, in fact, mirrors his overhall antipathy to anything that smacks of "government" health care, mirroring the views of the Bush administration. But is that the humane system our veterans deserve?

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.