Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The Moral Bankrupts of the Duopoly

Are you among the millions of Americans sweating the possibility that you'll lose your health care if Republican "reform" gets passed?

Well, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wants to make you feel better. In the event that you do have to endure more pain, suffering, depression and premature death because of GOP sadism, at least you'll have helped make the Democrats look good in the process.

This is exactly how Krugman grotesquely closes his piece on the "Trumpcare apocalypse."

Even though the legislation kicking tens of millions of people off Medicaid and increasing the premiums for Obamacare coverage to even more unaffordable proportions now looks to be D.O.A., Krugman doesn't put its passage outside  the realm of possibility. Some right-wing legislators are so depraved and so fanatical that giving a giant middle finger to the fact-based analysts of the Congressional Budget Office might be an opportunity too good for them to pass up:
Something like this C.B.O. score was a foregone conclusion; would it really have mattered much if it were 15 million losing insurance, not 24 million? How was this supposed to work out politically?
Again, I wouldn’t count out the possibility that this law will be rammed through regardless, with budget analyses relegated to the category of fake news. Democrats might even want to hope that this happens, so that there is no question about who to blame if insurance collapses. But the lemming-like way Republicans rushed into this disaster is still amazing.
The cancer patient on Medicaid whose chemo gets cut off when those proposed lifetime benefit caps go into effect will feel so vindicated. It will be so worth it to say "I told you so" on your deathbed, just to get the satisfaction of watching  multimillionaire Nancy "Embrace the Suck" Pelosi go into nonstop virtue-signalling and fundraising mode, as the United States morbidity and mortality rates skyrocket to even more epic proportions. And if more deplorable Trump voters suffer than righteous Democratic voters, so much the better. It's a prospect to absolutely die for, if you're like Krugman and have "the conscience of a liberal" as well as guaranteed insurance coverage of your own.

The Democrats are as morally bankrupt, in their own smarmy way, as the Republicans. Their tepid health care "fight" is not so much about protecting the tens of millions of people from Social Darwinist ideology as it is about winning back power on the theory that "they suck less." And they conveniently forget that what they are fighting so hard to protect is a Republican plan in the first place. No wonder the Republicans are so tied up in knots over its "repeal." It's hard to call something socialistic and then not admit that the main socialistic component of Obamacare is that it is welfare for the insurance cartel.

Assuming that liberals do manage to prevail in the 2018 mid-terms, they still have no intention of rallying around HR 676 and similar single payer health insurance proposals castigated by Krugman and his ilk during the Democratic primaries and still ignored by them as a sure-fire to win over working class voters.  They will instead be celebrating the fact that they managed to "save" the for-profit predatory health insurance system. Or as Krugman so cynically hopes, they will be gloating all the way to the bank.

Let's get real.
Human lives and bodies are way too profitable to just let Obamacare as we know it go the way of the rotary phone. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton put it recently, the pharmaceutical industry is not about to give up its cannibalism when there's so much money to be made by both treating and causing disease in people. Obamacare and its kludge of insurance predators and outsourced Medicaid plans are in the same predatory rent-seeking category as payday loans and rent-to-buy housing scams and charter schools.
Another prime example of rent-seeking is that the Medicaid is funding opioid prescriptions for low-income workers, Deaton said. The results are workers who are becoming addicted and overdosing while profits are going to the Sackler family which owns Purdue Pharma that makes OxyContin.
Deaton said he favors a single-payer health system only because our current part-private and part-public system is exquisitely designed to give opportunities for rent-seeking.
“So I, who do not believe in socialized health-care, would advocate a single-payment system...because it will get this monster that we’ve created out of the economy and allow the rest of capitalism to flourish without the awful things that healthcare is doing to us,” he said.
Democrats have cleverly taken to calling the GOP health bill "Making America Sick Again." Actually, "Making America Sicker by Forcing Poor People to Buy their Own OxyContin" would be more on point. But that would be both too much of a mouthful, and a tacit admission that Democrats like things just the way they are.

 It also helps that the Sackler family of billionaires has generously donated to both sides of the morally bankrupt Duopoly while literally getting away with mass murder.

As a 2016 investigation by the Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity shows, drug companies have spent more than $880 million on lobbying and political contributions since 2000. Compare this to only $4 million spent on similar influencing efforts by organizations which exist to combat opioid addiction and the proliferation of pill mills, and you begin to understand why there is so much turmoil in bipartisan circles over Obamacare repeal and Medicaid destruction.

Somebody should alert that hyper-capitalist Donald Trump about the imminent danger to the oligarchic bottom line which GOP "reform" represents, especially since he himself has advocated for a single payer health care system on more than one occasion. 

If we can't appeal to his psychopathic selfishness, perhaps we can appeal to his psychopathic greed.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party should probably just hurry up and get on with its own collapse so that a new progressive party can arise from the ashes.  

As for HR 676,  re-introduced by John Conyers in January, it has now been referred to the House Committee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs, where it is bound to get maximum attention from the truth-telling mainstream media. Maybe they'll get around to discussing it as soon as they come down off their own latest high: blissing out over two whole pages of an old Donald Trump tax return.

So when you get the email from the White House asking you to share your own Obamacare horror story, you might consider just sending the president a copy of HR 676, that fantastic and fair single payer bill. It would save both him and you, like, an unbelievable amount of money. Best of all, taxpayers wouldn't be on the hook for expensive elective cosmetic procedures for rent-seeking plutocrats. The ultra-rich need to have some skin in the game just like everybody else. HR 676 would force them to pay for their facelifts and tummy tucks out of their own deep pockets. Sad.
This bill establishes the Medicare for All Program to provide all individuals residing in the United States and U.S. territories with free health care that includes all medically necessary care, such as primary care and prevention, dietary and nutritional therapies, prescription drugs, emergency care, long-term care, mental health services, dental services, and vision care.
Only public or nonprofit institutions may participate. Nonprofit health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that deliver care in their own facilities may participate.
Patients may choose from participating physicians and institutions.
Health insurers may not sell health insurance that duplicates the benefits provided under this bill. Insurers may sell benefits that are not medically necessary, such as cosmetic surgery benefits.
The bill sets forth methods to pay institutional providers and health professionals for services. Financial incentives between HMOs and physicians based on utilization are prohibited.
The program is funded: (1) from existing sources of government revenues for health care, (2) by increasing personal income taxes on the top 5% of income earners, (3) by instituting a progressive excise tax on payroll and self-employment income, (4) by instituting a tax on unearned income, and (5) by instituting a tax on stock and bond transactions. Amounts that would have been appropriated for federal public health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), are transferred and appropriated to carry out this bill.

15 comments:

Meredith NYC said...

Confusion reigns. Gop threats to ACA makes pundits idealize a h/c system no other democracy ‘s citizens would even tolerate—which their parliaments wouldn’t insult them with.

KRUGMAN THE PHONY
I commented to his column the other day---

Krugman says insurance companies are “regulated”, (!) prevented from denying coverage or charging more for pre-existing conditions. But that’s just one part of the problem, so it’s misleading. Real regulation, common in other democratically elected govts, is off the table in US.

In countries that use insurance mandates, govts regulate/negotiate the general premium prices all citizens pay. This isn’t seen as extreme left wing---te are capitalist democracies. Too bad PK wouldn’t explain how that works, to inform voters of what they deserve, instead of the 2nd rate ACA he defends. .

PHONY LIBERALS MORE DANGEROUS THAN RW?

….if they won’t contradict the fatal flaw ---that h/c for profit protects our ‘freedom from big govt’. A Darwinian credo of economic might makes right, turning democracy into a sick joke.

WE HAVE REGULATION – BUT OF GOVT BY BUSINESS
Then profits are legally passed on to lawmakers with ‘free speech’ donations, from the biggest donors along with oil and Wall St.

So US regulations allow high profits off the sick, hiding behind the mask of freedom. As Churchill might say---never in the history of democracy, have so many been hoaxed by so few.

Meredith NYC said...

(continued)
US VOTERS CUT OFF FROM THE WORLD
In the internet age, US voters seem cut off from advanced countries by 2 big oceans and Canadian border. Only concrete real people comparisons with other nations can challenge our lawmakers, but this is mostly kept out of our media.

ALI VELSHI, FROM CANADA TELLS IT AT LEAST
….A very unusual exchange on msnbc with Ali Velshi as recounted in Daily Kos. I saw Velshi talk on the O’donnell show Friday. This should go viral on the media---(just like that cute video of the 2 cute toddlers interrupting the father-expert at his home during his BBC interview on Korea!)

Daily Kos:
"There was never affordable insurance," Velshi responded. "And I was just saying to Bill Kristol, nowhere on the face of the earth is there a free health insurance market that works. If you could point me to one and say that a free market works; It is just one of those areas where a free market does not work."

(Rep Jim) Jordan of course, ignored the question because a functional free market health insurance system does not exist on earth.
"It will work much better than it is working now under a complete government control of health care for goodness sake," a delusional Jordan said. "Do you think people are satisfied now? How about people in the individual market who went from paying, single people in the individual market went from paying a hundred to two hundred a month to paying five six hundred dollars a month for a six thousand dollar deductible policy."

"But you know sir that in all those countries, all the developed countries that have single-payer systems or Universal Healthcare, happiness about healthcare is actually substantially greater than it is in the United States. Life expectancy [is also higher].
"Why do they all come here for treatment," Jordan falsely interjected.
"They don't all come here," Velshi fired back sternly. "Republicans say that all the time. They don't all come here. People in Canada, people in Norway, people in the United Kingdom, people in Sweden, people in Denmark, they don't all come to the United States for health care. Why do you say that?"
"Well because you see it all the time," Jordan disingenuously replied. "People in Canada come here for extensive surgery. They come here and get it done in the United States."

"Sir, I grew up in Canada," Velshi responded. "I live in Canada. My entire family is in Canada. Nobody I know ever came to the United States for health care. I am sure you have a handful of stories about things like that. It is not actually statistically true."

Pearl said...

Universal health care works best in Nordic and Swedish Danish countries because they are politically social democracies. Canada has weaknesses that have shocked me because the taxpaying arrangements favor the wealthy.
No coverage for eye, ear or dental needs, inadequate funds for Senior care, etc.and too many overfilled Enmergency Rooms due to doctor and nurse shortages thanks to the Harper years.

Adequate and complete coverage does not thrive in a capitalistic structure.

annenigma said...

I don't know what got into me yesterday, but I was agitated and motivated enough about this to send Trump a K.I.S.S. I think it was the fact that I can't depend on the Democratic Party to represent my interests. Even Independent Bernie has yet to introduce his long-promised Medicare For All bill in the Senate, instead advocating for keeping the Un-Affordable Care Act.

I encourage everyone to write directly to the White House because it's time for more direct democracy. I also sent a message asking Trump for his leadership and support for requiring national referendums on major issues costing big bucks that affect the whole country since neither Party is representing the will of the people. It's time for Direct Democracy, otherwise, we continue to be disenfranchised.

The White House website states they prefer email because it's faster:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

'Re: Health Care

Mr. President, please ditch the plans of the pathetic, low-approval and low energy Congress and the greedy, selfish low-approval insurance cartel and support 'Single Payer/Medicare For All' because that's what we all really want. Go on tour and ask the crowds if they want Medicare For All and you'll get a rousing 'Yes!'

Mr. President, it's time to deliver what you promised.'

annenigma said...

The city of Everett, Washington has filed a civil suit against Purdue Pharmaceuticals for allowing OxyContin to be funneled through the black market, causing the current opioid crisis of deaths and crime in Everett (and elsewhere) - a classic case of putting profits over people. This is AFTER the company pleaded guilty to federal criminal complaints and settling lawsuits in several states, agreeing to implement controls. The city website about this is linked below as is the lawsuit. The first few pages of the complaint are a must read. SHUT THEM DOWN AND LOCK THEM UP!!!

https://everettwa.gov/1681/Purdue-Lawsuit
https://everettwa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9016

Jay–Ottawa said...

ATTENTION, CLASS ! You are all so smart today, how about a little pop quiz?

What do the initials PNHP stand for?

Correct: Physicians for a National Health Program.


How long have they been around?

Since forever, very good. And, btw, the PNHP is one of the best research sources for everything you ever wanted to know about all aspects of single payer ... and death to the private health insurance racket.


Who takes up almost half the space and half the maintenance cost in the average physician's office, (a) the doctors and nurses or (b) the clerical staff?

Right, (b). Because a gargantuan clerical staff is needed nationwide to track all those bits of paper, by procedure, by all the little items of a procedure, by patient, for the various competing private health insurance companies, each with their separate forms and systems. Beyond tracking the paper deluge is the fact that insurance companies routinely fight the doctor's office staff over whether or not they, the insurance companies, should pay for services already rendered. All that back and forth is wasteful but necessary so that for-profit private health insurance CEOs can afford the best yachts our health dollars can buy.


How many millions of dollars are wasted in the endless war between these opposing armies of clerks in doctor, clinic, hospital and governmental offices vs those in insurance companies?

Not "millions" of dollars, teacher––BILLIONS!!! Over the years, from a variety of independent researchers, there have been many published studies about administrative savings on both national and state levels. For starters, here's one. (Many others, including several by state, will be found at this link)
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-system-cost

July, 2013: Economist Gerald Friedman, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Under the single-payer system created by HR 676 [the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.], the U.S. could save an estimated [$476] billion annually by slashing the administrative waste associated with the private insurance industry. . . . In 2014, the savings would be enough to cover all 44 million uninsured and upgrade benefits for everyone else."


Ah, but what will happen to all of the little people who work for insurance companies?

"The new system will still need some people to administer claims. Administration will shrink, however, eliminating the need for many insurance workers, as well as administrative staff in hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. More health care providers, especially in the fields of long-term care, home health care, and public health, will be needed, and many insurance clerks can be retrained to enter these fields. Many people now working in the insurance industry are, in fact, already health professionals (e.g. nurses) who will be able to find work in the health care field again. But many insurance and health administrative workers will need a job retraining and placement program. We anticipate that such a program would cost about $20 billion, a small fraction of the administrative savings from the transition to national health insurance.

"PNHP has worked with labor unions and others to develop plans for a jobs conversion program with would protect the incomes of displaced clerical workers until they were retrained and transitioned to other jobs."
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-faq#insurance_companies

In summary, sure, tell your congressperson, whether R or D, about single payer. Tell Trump too. And, btw, lots of luck with that. But the first thing you might attempt is to educate as many people as you can face to face––family, friends, neighbors––about the PNHP and its message.


Last question on today's quiz: What is the for-profit health insurance industry inside a sealed box at the bottom of the sea?

It's a start.

Zee said...

@ Prof. Jay and The Rest of the Class—

Although I have earned your collective ire on a number of occasions in the past, I hope that ONE THING that I have persuaded you all of is that I REALLY DO support some form of “single-payer” health care. Health care simply doesn’t respond to market forces, as part of my lengthy tale will confirm. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that.

Still, I have a number of questions that, yes, perhaps could wait until I can fully explore the PNHP website over the next two weeks or so while I am lying face-down for 45 minutes out of every hour following emergency surgery for a detaching retina; but I am sufficiently scared about tomorrow that it is something of an emotional release for me to pester you all tonight with questions that Professor Jay has raised, even if they could be better answered by a close reading of the PNHP website.

Patience was never a virtue of mine.

I have been on Medicare since October, 2015. Can’t say that I have any complaints thus far.

Still, Medicare Part A doesn’t cover all costs. So we need Medicare Part B, which costs what—$104/month or so per person? (Mrs. Zee pays all the bills, so I can’t recall!)—and then THAT pays for only about 80% of additional “covered costs.” So to FURTHER fill that gap, I pay an ADDITIONAL $xxxx.yy for a MediGap policy, which, thus far, seems to cover everything else.

So what, exactly, does “[T]he Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.” really cover?

What “add-ons” are required to get the kind of coverage that I currently enjoy, or what services/coverage will I NOT be able to obtain/enjoy under Conyer’s bill that I currently can “pay for” under Medigap Part F? I guess that I’m concerned that there are either going to be additional hidden costs or hidden “denials” under Conyer’s “Medicare for All.”

(One thing that I have learnt working for a quasi-governmental bureaucracy is that the easiest way to cut administrative costs is simply to say “No.” )

Thus far, I have been lucky. And tomorrow, I will be “lucky” too. Today, my physician deemed my eye surgery to be of the utmost importance, and so I am “getting in” tomorrow, with a top-quality surgeon in a state-of-the-art operating theater, with full anesthesia. (My doc would have operated this very evening, but I had lunch too late, and he would have needed to do the surgery under a local “block.” Alas, I am too cowardly for such a procedure. Needles scare the hell out of me, as does “pain.”}

Still, costs seem not to be a concern to anyone!

Would I get such instantaneous “service” under Conyer’s plan?

Just askin’

If the answers are too complex, i will spend the next week or two exploring the PNHP website face-down, using a mirror. But this has been therapeutic, nonetheless.

Zee said...

And then, of course, there is one more question before surgery tomorrow:

Som years ago I had two herniated discs in my lower back impinge on the sciatic nerve of my left leg, crippling me. (Valerie Tweedie-Long may remember this episode)

The story is a long one, which I won’t recount in detail here. But sufficeth to say that ONLY massive doses of OxyContin got me through from the e-room admission, on to the orthopedic specialists, through the X-rays and then the MRI, and on to the agonizing spinal injection, which STILL, then took about a month+ to start to have a beneficial effect.

In the interim, even with the maximum dose of OxyContin, I could only just barely crawl from the bedroom to the bathroom and back. Without that drug, I think that I just might have killed myself.

Oh, and by the way, I discovered the Starz Western channel, and drifted my drug-addled way into oblivion watching re-runs of “Wagon Train” and “Have Gun Will Travel.”

OxyContin saved my life and my sanity. I am hoping that I never have to undergo that experience again. I am doing my best to strengthen my core and my lower back.

But if it happens again, I pray God that I have a physician who will prescribe OxyContin again, and I am fearful that I won’t be able to do so:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/02/doctors-curtail-opioids-but-many-see-harm-pain-patients/z4Ci68TePafcD9AcORs04J/story.html


The physician panic over prescribing “opiod” pain-killers is complete and utter nonsense, driven entirely by conservative political concerns. We are truly doomed when politicians begin to prescribe for patients over concerns about “addiction.”

PS: After about two months of taking heavy doses of OxyContin, I felt no addictive tendencies. Don’t want to sound “holier than thou,” but tapered off and walked away after two+ months. Addiction may be more about need than pain. Something that may also need to be treated.

Zee said...

PS: Wish me luck tomorrow!

Ranch Chimp said...

Actually, I have alwayz thought the same about the corporate cash grab of ACA/ ObamaCare ... I mean, as it was going down in 09, the minute they dropped the "partial public option" Obama proposal of a 20% public option, and brought in Olympia Snowe and Max Baucus to compromise ... I knew a "snoweJOB" was in the worx. Of course, it's tad better than what we had, but the price of healthcare, out of pocket and premiums are skyrocketing at an alarming rate, and ya, a bunch of corporate welfare. And no one on Capitalism Hill (Capitol Hill) is doing a bloody damn thing to regulate that end more, they're just letting everyone go hog wild. And I dont see much change in the democrat party, I mean, sure, they want the peoples donations and votes, especially of those more progressive ... but they have done everything they can to shut out any progressive agenda ... I mean ... what is called "progressive" these dayz ... is silly, these folks arent progressive. Anywayz, first visit here, liked your posting on this, pretty straight up.

Erik Roth said...

Here's what I quoted to my surgeon:

Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit -- Life!
~ Emily Dickinson

And here are a few more apropos quotes:

"Coming to recognize you are wrong is like coming to recognize you are sick. You feel bad long before you admit you have any of the symptoms and certainly long before you are willing to take your medicine."
~ Norman Maclean, "Young Men and Fire"

"Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey."
~ Marcel Proust

“When health is absent Wisdom cannot reveal itself, Art cannot become manifest, Strength cannot be exerted, Wealth is useless and Reason is powerless.”
~ Herophilies, 300 B.C.

“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature cures the disease.”
~ Voltaire

"America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system."
~ Walter Cronkite

Neil said...

Re: Jay and the Physicians for a National Health Program - PNHP

All good points about the PNHP. But still no Medicare for All. No current Medicare for All bill in the senate, that I know of.

Why?

The PNHP has failed to get its message out in the mainstream. Ordinary people are not going to spend hours pouring over pages and pages of PNHP research. Some are too sick and disabled, some are too young and healthy and not interested in healthcare, many work jobs to exhaustion and want to relax until the next shift, and some lack the background and education required.

Medicare for All, including the PNHP, does not have an effective spokesperson. The PNHP in particular lacks effective videos. Go to the PNHP YouTube Channel. I was able to find only one video ready for prime time, a now-dated "Presidential Debate Question" which is only 36 seconds long. At least the video features a doctor, Dr. Mark Krasnoff. Many of the others only feature students, interns or residents. https://youtu.be/pvyLQknNgt8

The rest of the PNHP videos consist of unappealing webinars, and low production value videos with poor sound quality (can’t hear the speakers), and poor images, they look like bad selfies.

Two long time advocates are no longer effective either, and not just because of old age. Bernie Sanders is age 75, and T.R. Reid is age 72–73. An older person might be very effective, but not these guys, especially Sanders. They look tired, and Sanders comes off as a cranky. Reid might work well as an expert to a new, effective spokesperson, where his age and experience would be seen as positive.

Sanders is finished politically in my view, and he has a credibility problem by throwing in a winning hand, or worse, he never really wanted to be president, as suggested by this article on Slate.com, "Bernie’s Fundraising Was Revolutionary. How He Spent His Money Was Not."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/07/how_bernie_spent_his_millions_was_anything_but_revolutionary.html

T.R. Reid is now writing about taxes. Reid’s next book, on taxes around the world, is to be published April 15, 2017. Reid did his part for Medicare for All, see Sick Around the World. But Reid suffered retaliation by Frontline/PBS for his stance on Medicare for All in a second film, Sick Around America. Reid parted company with PBS before Sick Around America was finished.

"However, Reid parted company with PBS before the film was finished[11] when his conclusion, quoted by Russell Mokhiber in CounterPunch that "You can't allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance," was omitted from the program.[12] Instead, Reid argued that the film came off as supporting mandated private-insurance coverage.[11] Reid was quoted as saying "...mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world. I said I'm not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.R._Reid

Medicare for All and the PNHP need a new spokesperson, someone who is a dynamic personality to get the attention of Pres. Trump, the American People, and Congress.

Mcclatchy reports, "Trump is doing what Obama didn’t do: reach out and listen" http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article138103703.html

It's time to give Pres. Trump someone to listen to.

(Yes, I'm contacting someone to see if they are interested)

Jay–Ottawa said...

Hi Neil, Good to hear President Trump is listening. And I thought he was just programmed to interrupt and think in twitter bytes while Steve Bannon had an arm up his back.

The problem with the dissemination of the good word about Medicare for All isn't the lack of young dynamic speakers. Why blame them before attacking the effective and well funded propaganda of Big Insurance? Those good missionaries for just causes are exhausting themselves on overlooked blogs and basement church halls because the MSM refuses to cover them and people in the reform community who should be supporting them are snipping at their heels. They are too young, they are too old, the didn't say this, they spend too much ink saying that. Lefties have a long tradition of being intolerant to other Lefties. I wonder why.

As someone more sympathetic to Trump, maybe you could send him the following. Being able to read is not required. It's the PNHP again––sorry that they disappoint you so at every turn––but this audio was made by Nat Hentoff only yesterday, March 16, so it's certainly recent, and the quality isn't bad for the average ear.

March 16, 2017 Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on Ryancare, Obamacare, and the prospects for single-payer • Cinzia Arruzza on the women’s strike
https://lbo-news.com/2017/03/16/fresh-audio-product-81/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LboNewsFromDougHenwood+%28LBO+News+from+Doug+Henwood%29

It isn't necessary to read the PNHP site from top to bottom to get the idea that their proposals are sound, fact based and that 'Medicare for All' amounts to the PNHP program. PNHP did all the detailed ground work for the proposals now held up as good, strong and true.

Nor do people working hard and struggling to raise families have to invest big time to become certified policy wonks to understand the fraud behind the ACA or good sense of single payer, i.e., Medicare for All, i.e., Conyers' bill, HR 676.

Neil said...

Jay part 1

Jay wrote, "Good to hear President Trump is listening. And I thought he was just programmed to interrupt and think in twitter bytes while Steve Bannon had an arm up his back."

We either work with the president we have, or tilt at windmills at the president we wish we had.

Jay wrote, "The problem with the dissemination of the good word about Medicare for All isn't the lack of young dynamic speakers. Why blame them before attacking the effective and well funded propaganda of Big Insurance?"

First, dynamic spokespersons can be any age, I hope you don’t limit yourself to "young". And in my view, a serious Medicare for All project will need a number of dynamic spokespersons. And some music please, a good jingle. From what I viewed on the PNHP YouTube channel, the PNHP has a bunch of shitty videos. Yes, I blame the PNHP for its shitty, stinky, horrible, videos. Time to fix that problem. The "well funded propaganda of Big Insurance" did not create the PNHP’s shitty videos, the PNHP created them.

Jay said "Those good missionaries for just causes are exhausting themselves on overlooked blogs and basement church halls because the MSM refuses to cover them and people in the reform community who should be supporting them are snipping at their heels."

Those good missionaries need competent LEADERSHIP! Otherwise the good missionaries exhaust themselves in vain.

Jay wrote, "Lefties have a long tradition of being intolerant to other Lefties. I wonder why."

FYI, I am a radical, not a lefty. From what I see on the left, it lacks competent leadership. Regarding intolerance, one definition is an "unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behavior that differ from one's own." So the left may be just be a different form of bigotry.

Jay wrote, "As someone more sympathetic to Trump, maybe you could send him the following. Being able to read is not required. It's the PNHP again––sorry that they disappoint you so at every turn––but this audio was made by Nat Hentoff only yesterday, March 16, so it's certainly recent, and the quality isn't bad for the average ear."

Not sympathetic to Trump. We either work with the president we have, or tilt at windmills at the president we wish we had.

I support the PNHP, and I am sympathetic to the PNHP. I want the PNHP to succeed. That’s why I believe the PNHP needs better videos - FOR SUCCESS! Don’t see a link to audio made by Nat Hentoff, so I can’t comment.

Jay wrote, "March 16, 2017 Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on Ryancare, Obamacare, and the prospects for single-payer • Cinzia Arruzza on the women’s strike"

The link you provided goes to other links, one ultimately leads to the PNHP homepage, http://www.pnhp.org/

Neil said...

Jay part 2

I am very pleased to see the PNHP has profiled "The business case for single payer" Perhaps someone at the PNHP read my comments on this blog about the business case for single payer.

"Business owner Richard Master knows firsthand how the dysfunctional U.S. health care system punishes not only patients, but also employers who are forced to spend more and more to insure their workers. His documentary, "Fix It," makes a strong business case for addressing this festering problem, and includes interviews with many PNHP members. A trailer for the film can be accessed above, or you can view the full version for free by visiting the "Fix It" website."

Fix It Healthcare homepage
http://fixithealthcare.com/

Fix It Healthcare Get Active (Excellent)
http://fixithealthcare.com/get-active/

Fix It Watch The Movie
http://fixithealthcare.com/watch-the-movie/

Regarding the links to "Cinzia Arruzza on the women’s strike" one link goes to her faculty website at the New School as Director of Undergraduate Studies, Philosophy, but nothing there about Medicare for All. http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/?id=4e44-4d78-4e54-5178

The https://www.womenstrikeus.org/ is not currently working, but when I viewed it yesterday, there was nothing about Medicare for All.

I believe it is counterproductive to link the Medicare For All issue with a bunch of unrelated issues, no matter how worthy they might be in your view. Medicare For All has broad popular support in the USA. Marxism, Feminism, Queer Studies, etc. are a distraction to the Medicare For All issue, and do not have broad popular support in the United States. Since many people are opposed to Marxism, Feminism, Queer Studies, etc., linking those issues to Medicare For All will lessen support for Medicare For All.

Jay wrote, "It isn't necessary to read the PNHP site from top to bottom to get the idea that their proposals are sound, fact based and that 'Medicare for All' amounts to the PNHP program. PNHP did all the detailed ground work for the proposals now held up as good, strong and true."

Bottom line, Medicare For All already has broad popular support in the USA. Even if every single person in the USA read the PNHP website, that does not create competent LEADERSHIP!

Jay wrote, "Nor do people working hard and struggling to raise families have to invest big time to become certified policy wonks to understand the fraud behind the ACA or good sense of single payer, i.e., Medicare for All, i.e., Conyers' bill, HR 676."

Medicare For All already has broad popular support in the USA; but not by our elected government officials. So the people must act unilaterally. The Medicare For All movement lacks competent leadership, dynamic spokespersons, compelling videos, and music, a good jingle, or two or three, whatever it takes. Yes, Conyers filed another HR 676 bill. But that bill will die like all the previous bills unless the people act unilaterally.

FYI, I have had Medicare since disability in 1994. In my view Medicare is the best thing since Blue Cross/Blue Shield was converted into for-profit healthcare. See this PBS article, "Did Blue Cross' Mission Stray When Plans Became For-Profit?"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124807720

In the 1980’s, my small business provided coverage to employees through a group plan offered by Pennsylvania Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The coverage was great (I opted for the best plan available), coverage was affordable, and adding new employees to the group plan was easy. One covered employee who’s wife had a baby in the hospital told me everything was covered.

This is my final post on this thread.