Single Payer Health Care WILL work - it works for fire fghters and police!

One thing that Senator Al Franked proved when he wrote "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" was that people who get their news from talk radio (and now Fox news) feel they are among the best informed people when they are really the least informed people. And their lemming-like repetitious spewing of the same health-care industry talking points that a single-payer or government option is bad socialism and can't work as well as private business is oh so wrong!

Want examples of that? Check out the article below -

http://www.tinadupuy.com/index.php/2009/07/30/firefighting-in-the-1800s-a-corrupt-bloated-private-for-profit-industry/#comments

Firefighting in the 1800’s: A Corrupt, Bloated, Private For-Profit Industry

July 30th, 2009 · Go on and comment

The loudest voice, piercing through the debate over health care is unquestionably sure “privatization is always better.” Because Republicans (who are in the government) will readily tell you - the government never does anything right. Which explains why the most popular people in their Grand Old Party no longer hold any personally “taxing” jobs in the government (Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and as of Sunday, Sarah Palin), opting (fittingly) for private political gigs.

Less government control is always good? The private sector is always first-rate? Free market capitalism is the cure-all? Even for health care?!

Let’s look at this reasonably: Firefighting used to be a private for-profit industry. In the 1800’s, the early days of urbanization, in cities like New York and Baltimore, there were private “clubs” or “gangs” who were in charge of putting out fires. The infamous Boss Tweed started his illustrious political career at a volunteer fire company. The way it functioned was the first club at the scene got money from the insurance company. So, they had an incentive to get there fast. They also had an incentive to sabotage competition. They also often ended up getting in fights over territory and many times buildings would burn down before the issue was resolved. They were glorified looters. It was corrupt, bloated and expensive - but at least it wasn’t the much maligned “government controlled.”

There was a scene in Martin Scorsesse's "Gangs of New York" which illustrated this perfectly!

Actual fire-fighting was rare in the Five Points, and the arson was often used by firefighting companies to settle territorial disputes. The crook William Tweed, of course, had his fingers into every pie, and chief among those pies was fire-fighting.

Firefighting

The territorial warfare extended to the firefighting as well. With more than 37 amateur fire-brigades in the Five Points, there was a lot of competition over who would get to quell the fire.

In the movie we see Tammany’s fire brigade arriving to the scene of a house set on fire, only to get into a fight with a rivalling fire brigade, the Black Joke. (the latter is famous for starting the Draft Riots^[10]) While the two firefighting companies fight over who gets to extinguish the fire, the house is burning down in the background, and looters make their way in to steal any of what’s left of worth^[11]. In a hilarious scene that is unfortunately true to history, we see the exchange between the victims of the fire and fire brigade chief Tweed:

FAMILY: For god’s sake. They’re taking everything!

TWEED: In your next time of trouble ma’m, call Tammany first! (handing a business card)

FAMILY: It’s not too late. You can still save my house!

Of course he can, but that’s not what he is here for. With the house still burning, the two fire ‘tribe’ leaders, Tammany and the Black Joke chief, quarrel casually over a territorial dispute:

BLACK JOKE CHIEF: May I point out that this building is burning to ashes?

TWEED: And may I point out that this area is the provenance of my own America’s firebrigade. And that you lot only belong in the Bowery.

BLACK JOKE CHIEF: May I point out that you are outmanned, outmanouvered, and at the moment outfought!

TWEED: Am I?

Upon which the reinforcements arrive on the scene, Bill the Butcher and his army of Natives. When Bill remarks that the fire has burnt near everything of value in the house, Tweed orders his firefighting ‘thugs’ to ransack the next house. “Mustn’t lead it [the fire] spread!”, he notes with a wink.

In other words, old-time private-enterprise fire fighters functioned a lot like modern-day health care corporations backed by Wall Street gamblers!

Around the time of the Civil War, firefighting in big cities was reformed and taken over by the government. Currently firefighters in most major metropolises are trained by the government, employed by the government and given health care - wait for it - by the government.

That's right - they became employees of the municipal governments and got standardized pay and benefits - all in exchange for risking their lives when they run into burning buildings and rescue people. Would you say that fire fighters themselves and the American people who they protect are better off under a government-run fire fighting system or do you want to go back to the bad old days?

Yet if we had to have the “conversation” about the firefighting industry today, we’d have socialism-phobic South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint on the TV every chance he could get saying things like, “Do you want a government bureaucrat between you and the safety of your home?”

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio would hold press conferences and ask, “Do you want your firefighting to be like going to the DMV? Do you want Uncle Sam to come breaking down your door every time some Washington fat cat says there’s a fire?”

There would be 30-second TV spots paid for by the powerful firefighting lobby featuring stars and stripes graphics and the national anthem playing softly in the background with a booming voice-over trumpeting, “Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were volunteer firefighters. Support traditional values and oppose government waste. Tell your representative you want a bi-partisan solution to fire reform.”

News programs would be interviewing sobbing people whose homes fell through the cracks and burned to the ground. “I don’t want to see the government take-over firefighting, but I sure miss Momma’s oil paintings.”

And President Barack Obama would relay his childhood experience with a fire then point out the failure of the for-profit firefighting industrial complex that “threatens to bankrupt this country.” And then those most in need of firefighting services would foam about his birth certificate and confuse Karl Marx with Charles Darwin on misspelled protest signs at events put on by covert firefighting lobbyists.

But instead, today firefighters are national heroes. They’re organized, quick, competent and with few exceptions pillars of the community. Their duty is to protect people and their property and they do it. They make no profits, are part of the government and they help people 24-hours a day. They even let seniors live. No debate necessary. What started out as a shady gaming of the system where the general public’s welfare was at risk is today something of national pride.

You're damn right they are national heroes. On 9/11, NYFD and NYPD members ran into buildings to rescue people, even though there was a chance the buildings might collapse on them. I was in NYC a few weeks after 9/11, and if they thought you were NYFD, or NYPD, or even fire or police from another part of the country - you couldn't buy yourself a drink in ANY bar in NYC.

Do you really think that private for-profit fire fighters of the Tweed era would have the training or the "testicular fortitude" to run into those buildings? No - they'd be fighting amongst themselves to see who would get the honor or sitting on a barrel over a hydrant. Maybe even trying to find a way to collect the insurance bounty for not doing any actual work - or looting nearby stores!

So government can do something right. It’s happened.

You're damn right it's happened!

Less government is not always good. The private sector is not always first-rate. And free market capitalism does not cure all.

Do I want my health care to be like the DMV? I’ve seen clinics that make the DMV look like destination spa. DMV is affordable and I can always get seen the same day (I have insurance and I can’t say the same about my doctor). So yeah, DMV-esque wouldn’t be too bad. What would be better is if doctors could be like firefighters.

This piece ran at the Huffington Post.

(gutless cowardly) Senate Dems (who have a majority) pare back health bill

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090619/ap_on_go_co/us_health_overhaul

Senate Dems pare back health bill
By DAVID ESPO and ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writers David Espo And Erica Werner, Associated Press Writers 39 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Key Senate Democrats, bidding for bipartisan support on health care, pared back subsidies designed to make insurance more affordable on Thursday and floated a compromise that rules out direct government competition against private insurers.

So if you have a majority - why do you need bipartisan support from Republicans when you know the health care industry will oppose anything that lessens their profits? All you are doing is making sure that health care won't be available for more people, and that it will be more expensive. In fact - you are looking at a boondoggle that makes Medicare Part D look like chicken feed!

Despite the cost-cutting, the proposal backed by Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, requires most individuals to purchase coverage and forbids insurance companies from denying it on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

If you don't have a job - what do you purchase your insurance with?

The brief outline did not specify how the government's costs would be covered, although Baucus and many Republicans favor a tax on certain employer-provided health benefits. The Montana Democrat has said he intends to hold the cost of the legislation to about $1 trillion, well below the $1.6 trillion estimate the Congressional Budget Office made of an earlier set of options.

So in other words, if the insurance companies are already over-charging for health care insurance paid for by employers because there are no government controls, the government will now tax your health insurance?

Across the Capitol, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee privately circulated a list of possible tax increases to pay for expanded health care.

Geeze - what happened to the estimates that showed that a single-payer plan would provide health care for all Americans with what our current system costs exclude 51 million Americans. So why is it seen as an increase in taxes? It's a shift from paying larger fees to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. They get the same amount of money they get now - they just have to cover all Americans. Their business model won't allow them to squeeze more profit out of the Americans and American businesses who can afford to pay for health care.

They ranged from raising the Medicare tax, slapping a 10-cents-per-can increase on sweetened drinks, raising the alcohol tax, imposing a new payroll tax on employers equal to 3 percent of their health care expenditures and taxing employer-provided health insurance benefits above certain levels.

All nice regressive taxes designed not to cut into the profits of the businesses that got us into this problem in the first place.

Also under consideration was a value added tax, a sort of national sales tax, of up to 1.5 percent or more, with housing, education, financial services and medical care potentially exempt.

Again - regressive taxes that will end up hurting the unemployed, the underemployed, and the working/middle classes.

House Democrats were expected to unveil an outline of their own to expand health coverage on Friday, although several officials said they did not plan to include mention of the tax increases under consideration.

Taken together, the developments reflected an eagerness by congressional Democrats in both houses to meet a self-imposed deadline of having health care legislation to the floor of both houses of Congress by summer. President Barack Obama has made the issue one of his top priorities.

Maybe he's pushing too soon for this. Maybe he should be seriously considering building the Democratic party with his legions of followers in his separate organization before he blows his chance at making some meaningful change - and screws up our chances for building bigger majorities where we won't need to count on Blue Dog Dems for support - let them hang out in the steam room with the Republicans.

Neither the Senate Finance Committee outline nor the list of tax options under review by House Democrats was made public. The Associated Press obtained copies of both.

"There's no doubt in my mind we're going to get a bipartisan bill," Baucus told reporters as he emerged from a meeting with a small group of Republicans he referred to as a "coalition of the willing."

If Single Payer isn't on the table - all you will have is a bipartisan transfer of even more wealth to the health care industry.

The senior Republican on the Finance Committee was not nearly as bullish.

"I'm still at the table. I wouldn't be at the table if I didn't think there was some hope for it," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. "But tomorrow it could be an entirely different story."

According to a 10-page outline that described the proposal, federal subsidies would be available to help families up to 300 percent of poverty, or $66,000, purchase insurance. An earlier proposal set the level at 400 percent of poverty, or $88,000.

What good will subsidies do for people with little to no money at the end of the month - who are already going bankrupt!

At the same time, the new outline could require higher out of pocket costs from individuals because companies would be permitted to offer policies that cover less of an insured's anticipated medical costs than was earlier proposed.

Once again - a sh*tty idea for people who already can't afford to buy meds because their insurance already costs too must now!

Many Democrats want the government to be able to offer insurance in competition with the private industry, a provision they say would hold down costs. But most Republicans are opposed.

Screw them - they aren't in the majority anymore. I think our Dems have no "testicular fortitude" to tell the Republicans and the health care lobby that their business model doesn't work anymore - and it's time for a new patient-centered business model. That if we don't fix health care NOW, their won't be anyone who can afford their products and services in years to come. It's time to think long-term survival, not just this year's massive bonus.

The outline presented at meeting with Republicans left the matter open, but suggested creation of nonprofit co-ops to offer insurance, rather than the government. The co-ops could accept federal loans for startup operations, but would have to repay the money.

Similarly, the outline leaves open the question of requiring larger employers to provide insurance.

As an alternative, it suggests requiring companies to pay a portion of the cost of insurance for lower income workers not offered coverage at work.

While Baucus supports a tax on health benefits, Obama opposed it in last year's presidential campaign and attacked his rival, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for proposing it.

Administration officials have refrained from criticizing it in recent weeks, but organized labor is opposed, fearing it would mean higher taxes for some of its members.

Congressional aides say Democrats are eager to exempt union contracts from the proposed tax, but Republicans want to include them. In its most recent form, the proposal would impose a tax on plans in which the combined employer and employee premiums are above about $17,000.

That would raise an estimated $270 billion over a decade, less if union-negotiated plans were exempt.

(This version CORRECTS that list of possible tax increases includes soda tax of 10 cents per can and employer tax of 3 percent of health care costs.))

Once again - why is no one delivering the figures that would show how Universal Single-Payer would cover all Americans for the same amount or less than what we are spending to deliver spotty health care that misses 50 million Americans? Is it because Congress cares so much for the jobs and bank accounts of people affiliated with the health care industry ALONE vs the jobs and bank accounts of 50 million or more Americans?

As elections near and the issue of health care tops opinion polls as the most pressing domestic issue, various proposals for universal health care are circulating. The bipartisan NCHC looked at four options: employer mandates, extending existing federal programs like Medicaid to all those uninsured, creating a new federal program for the uninsured, and single-payer national health insurance. All the options saved billions of dollars compared to the current system, but single payer was by far the winner, saving more than $100 billion a year.

With all the support and all the good reasons to adopt universal health care, why don't we have it yet? Why do politicians refuse to talk about the solution people want?

It could be the fact that the health care industry, the top spender on Capitol Hill, spent $183.3 million on lobbying just in the second half of 2005, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.com. And in the 2003–2004 election cycle, they spent $123.7 million on election campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Politicians dread the propaganda barrage and political fallout that surrounded the failed Clinton health care plan. But in the years since, health care costs have outpaced growth in wages and inflation by huge margins, Americans have joined the ranks of the uninsured at the rate of 2 million each year, and businesses are taking a major competitiveness hit as they struggle to pay rising premiums.

Single-payer plans eliminate the $300 billion to $400 billion that insurance companies spend annually in administrative overhead and waste. Second, single-payer plans are best positioned to take on the enormous challenge of reducing or eliminating the financial incentives that have led to so much overtreatment and undertreatment.

The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. 28 industrialized nations have single payer universal health care systems, while 1 (Germany) has a multipayer universal health care system like President Clinton proposed for the United States.

Universal Single-Payer or some form of health care for all is on the platform or resolutions of damn near every precinct, county, district or state Democratic Party. So why in the hell are they telling us it's not politically feasible?

A 2007 AP-Yahoo poll asked respondents whether they agreed with this statement: "The United States should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers."

A whopping 65 percent said yes to that question. By political standards, this is a landslide. It is time for Congress to pay attention to the voters, not the well-funded lobbyists.

I want to see what gutless Dems in Congress come back to NC this year and ask us for their support in defeating the Republicans. We turned NC blue and helped Obama win. We have majorities in both houses of Congress - including damn near a veto-proof majority in the Senate! What more do these people need before they can give US what WE want!

Chris Telesca