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.

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.

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.

In an ocean of sobering reports on the collapse of the U.S. healthcare system, this just released report from The  Center for Studying Health System Change, is among the most horrifying I've seen.

Falling Behind: Americans' Access to Medical Care Deteriorates, 2003-2007

The number and proportion of Americans reporting going without or delaying needed medical care increased sharply between 2003 and 2007, according to findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change’s (HSC) nationally representative 2007 Health Tracking Household Survey. One in five Americans—59 million people—reported not getting or delaying needed medical care in 2007, up from one in seven—36 million people—in 2003. <u>While access deteriorated for both insured and uninsured people, insured people experienced a larger relative increase in access problems compared with uninsured people.

In my last post, I told about how my
back injury, which eventually ended with me receiving major surgery,
began.

What I want to talk about today is how
I have felt as I have battled my insurance company, Blue Cross of
California in my quest to get the surgery I needed.

This is going to be what's known as a quick and dirty blog entry.

 Please read the editorial The Plight of the Underinsured, from today's New York Times .

Here's the opening paragraph:

It is well known, by now, that almost 50 million Americans lacked health insurance for all or part of last year. What is less well known is that 25 million Americans who did have health insurance often found it pitifully inadequate when a medical crisis hit. They were only marginally better off than those who had no coverage at all.

Read it and just hang your head in shame.

John McCain wants to kill me.

He doesn't know who I am, has never met me, and has probably never heard my name. Nonetheless, he wants to kill me.

The American Association of Health Plans (AHIP) is the national trade
group for some 1,300 private health insurers, which collectively
provide some kind of coverage for more than 200 million Americans. As
the voice of industry, AHIP’s web site boldly describes its goals “to
provide a unified voice for the health care financing industry, to
expand access to high quality, cost effective health care to all
Americans, and to ensure Americans’ financial security through robust
insurance markets, product flexibility and innovation, and an abundance
of consumer choice.” This post examines how successful the industry has
been in one of these goals --- the cost and affordability of coverage.

Most of us have by now heard many indictments of private health
insurance, from its inefficiencies and unaffordable costs to its
profiteering, cherry picking, and avoiding coverage of those who most
need insurance. What’s new and may be surprising to many people is
this: despite its size and political power, it is a dying industry.

Preach it  President Obama.

At a town hall meeting on health care at Virginia High School, a 95-year-old voter gave Senator Obama our beloved Democratic nominee a maple walking stick.

Obama thanked the man, who’d carved the stick himself, and then, admiring his gift, said, “If members of Congress don’t pass my health care plan, I’ll whup them, I’ll whup them. That’s right, don’t mess with me, I’ll have my stick.”

Newsday is reporting that Obama has reaffirmed this historic pledge, and we will hold him to it. Healthcare negotiations will be broadcast to the American people via CSPAN, they will not be conducted under cover of darkness.

The American people will watch the sausage being made.

He stressed that he would have open discussions with the American people -- about 46 million have no health insurance -- vowing that negotiations over his health-care plan would be aired on cable TV's C-SPAN.

Watch the video, Obama means business.

Memo to Members of Congress:  Don't cross Barack Obama. The American people are watching you.