The first time I pressed Yes, all I got was one of those annoying error messages, the bland equivalent of a "Danger Danger, Will Robinson, Does Not Compute!" warning siren. Nevertheless, I persisted, and after a couple more tries, I finally got my "vote" counted. (I think.) I know, I know, it was nothing but a ham-fisted push poll to get more money and gin up more resentment by Have-Not white people against Have-Not brown and black people. But nasty person that I am, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to mess even briefly with their race-baiting algorithms. It felt therapeutic for all of five minutes.
Naturally, they want to warn their base that the corporate Democratic Party has been completely taken over by Bernie Sanders in the dead of night, and that his Medicare for All bill has a fantastic chance of passing, and that the luxuriously appointed medical suites of the rich are about to turn into Siberian forced labor camps.
"The leftist dream is gaining more traction with the Democratic Party every day. Even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agrees it should be on the table. We need to let these extreme leftist Democrats like Schumer and Bernie know that Americans refuse to support a single payer health system," the email hilariously warned.
Just a few points:
-The Republicans need the Democrats as much as the Democrats need the Republicans. GOP hyperbole against such Wall Street extremists as Schumer saves the Democrats themselves the trouble of bashing the real left wing, which does not naturally reside within the Democratic Party.
-Something being "on the table" is politician-speak for an appetizer made out of such fake ingredients as thin air.
-The majority of Americans do, in fact, now support single payer government health coverage. Of course, the GOP's own twisted definition of "American" is the white, the whole white, and nothing but the white - or more specifically, the party's wealthy clients and donors. They're banking on the base being willing to starve or die for the plutocracy rather than see black and brown people score a trip to the doctor. "Let them eat resentment" just about sums up the Republican platform.
-Although Bernie Sanders has yet to release his long-promised Medicare for All legislation, the word is that it will be far less inclusive than John Conyers's HR 676, which now has the support ("on the table") of the majority of House Democrats.
According to Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Plan, Sanders is instead going the Barack Obama sellout route by offering to compromise with the privateers and the profiteers as a totally unnecessary and weak starting point in reform negotiations. Sanders is walking the tenuous line between serving the citizens of this country and serving his Senate colleagues in the exclusive millionaires' club to which they all belong.
Flowers writes:
When it comes to the healthcare crisis, the smallest incremental step is National Improved Medicare for All. That will create the system and the cost savings needed to provide universal comprehensive coverage. Throughout history, every movement for social transformation has been told that it is asking for too much. When the single payer movement is told that it must compromise, that is no different. The movement is demanding a proven solution to the healthcare crisis, and anything less will not work.You can write to Sanders here. With any luck and with any human decency, he will take your concerns and your pain a lot more seriously than the Republicans and the Wall Street Democrats currently do. And keep in mind, of course, that he is no populist savior; like all politicians, he is a mere instrument and a public servant. All the billionaire donations in the world do not translate into actual votes, as Hillary Clinton could very ruefully tell him.
With so many people now taking matters into their own hands and offering their own powerful helping hands in flood-ravaged Houston, what better time than now to build on this newfound solidarity? People of all ethnicities and skin colors and classes are proving that we're all in this together, that we can sink or we can swim together, and that class and race have always been mutually intertwined.
Before the catastrophic flooding, we'd already been taking the first important step: a widespread recognition, in the wake of Charlottesville, of the racist/oppressive/militaristic American past and how it has evolved seamlessly into the neo-feudal present of the most extreme wealth inequality in modern history.
We have a choice: we can use this crisis to become a more humane country, or we can allow the privateers and the profiteers to use it as just one more excuse to crush people into ever deeper levels of submission.
Carpe diem.
7 comments:
Bernie Sanders working with Rep.Conroy whose universal health care bill has been languishing in Congress are organizing an important battle for extended Medicare coverage for the nation. I get many articles about their work plus speeches Bernie is making as he travels throughout the nation. Maybe we shouldn't ignore their important push for change.
In addition, although I would prefer complete universal coverage, evidently Rep.Conroy is working with Bernie and if we can get a foot in the door, improvements if necessary can follow.
When my husband retired from his work in Canada, we had a house in Florida to which we went every winter. When I was diagnosed in 1998 as needing triple bypass surgery while in the U.S., I chose to have it done in my birth country as we had retained our U.S.citizenship. It was done immediately which might have had a wait for such surgery in Canada at that time and was fully covered. When my husband needed chemotherapy for cancer he was advised to have it done in the U.S. which had approved better therapy before Canada. He also was fully covered. In later years the U.S. did not cover a great deal of such costs but if Medicare is capable of covering all the costs for all the people fairly, it can work well.
By the way, I later discovered that the cardiac center and surgeon in Lakeland Florida where we were living was one of the 100 best places for such a procedure which I then knew nothing about. Maybe that is why I am still alive at 94, l8 years later and can go on fighting the good fight along with Bernie.
"Although Bernie Sanders has yet to release his long-promised Medicare for All legislation, the word is that it will be far less inclusive than John Conyers's HR 676, which now has the support … of the majority of House Democrats."
The majority of House Democrats is behind HR 676, but over in the Senate, Bernie, who is the champion of progressives under the spell of incrementalism and leftists suffering from amnesia, is brewing a much weaker tea for a Senate Bill? This news is shocking.
"According to Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Plan, Sanders is instead going the Barack Obama sellout route by offering to compromise with the privateers and the profiteers as a totally unnecessary and weak starting point in reform negotiations."
Bernie is working behind the scenes to salvage the essence of the old private insurance system and calling it Medicare for All? Could our champion Bernie be flying a false flag? Of course not. It's all a negotiating strategy. You see, if you don't enter negotiations insisting on the whole loaf, or even half a loaf, then you're sure to be granted a few more crumbs than you already have. Be grateful.
I suppose one anecdotal endorsement is as good as another. A member of my family had a heart attack and needed a triple coronary bypass, which he got right away, in Canada. No wait, otherwise, with that pressing diagnosis he'd have died or spent the rest of his life greatly incapacitated. Neither he nor his family ever paid a dime for the whole experience. I understand just about every other developed country has a similar system for responsive medical care for all, except the exceptional USA.
Another point of view by Jennifer Flowers in Counterpoint:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/31/to-sen-sanders-we-cannot-begin-from-a-position-of-compromise/
So much awesome language in this post, Sardonicky-style! I love it!
Funny, it is all in the packaging or phrasing. "Do you want GOVERNMENT takeover of (FILL IN THE BLANK)???!!!" If you answer yes to any of those types of questions, you are a scummy LIBERAL. The thing is, our government is actually a corporate entity and as such, has already taken over health care in this country.
The genuine, non-biased question would read more like, "Do you want your tax dollars to pay for 100% health care coverage?"
Jay: I will not argue about your feelings about how to get the best single payer coverage for the USA. It is difficult to know how it will turn out or how people can successfully support the possibilities with the lack of adequate knowledge.
I am glad your relative had a successful outcome and when did it happen? I hope that is the situation now. When I had a choice of where to have heart surgery in 1998, there was a lengthy waiting list in Canada and fortunately I chose Medicare in the U.S.because the surgery was unusually complicated and if I waited I might have had a serious heart attack in my 70's.
At the present time I have to have full time care here in Canada because of a severe form of arthritis which severely limits doing anything physical. The outcome: I am being bankrupted by the costs with no help from government medical funding and am hanging on to my 10 year Condo home as long as I can.
Other elderly people who deserve to remain in their home don't have much choice and go to long term care facilities which are overcrowded and not well attended. Canada's current system for the elderly is disgraceful via hospital beds and care, plus space in long term care, etc., adequate coverage for needed caretaker care and equals the neglect in the U.S. I am sure you are aware of these problems via your professional work history. I also am unable to find a passable family doctor as mine is totally useless and there is a shortage thanks to Harper.
The point of which we need to create proper priorities for health coverage all over the place and perhaps my hopes of starting with Medicare coverage via Bernie and others seems like some hope to start the ball rolling in the U.S. which is far behind others.
With best wishes and hopes for the removal of what tries to pass as a presidency. We have our work cut out for us. Needless to say, the fighting words of Karen on this hot topic among others keeps us heading in the right direction.
I hope Harvey shakes more people up about our priorities as well: the information coming out about how Houston and other areas overbuilt, kept only minimal safeguards in place and may now suddenly changing the ability for homeowners to be able to get compensation for damaged homes, says it all.
End of rant.
Hi Pearl,
I hear what you're saying about the care of the elderly, whether in Canada or the US. It's miles short of where it should be. I worry about getting much older than I already am.
Last time I looked around, Medicare only paid for a short period of taper down care by RNs, respiratory or physical therapists and nurse aides after a patient was discharged (pushed) out of a hospital following stabilization from a serious medical event.
Medicare covered 80% of the hospital stay and a brief (weeks) period of homecare. After that, the patient payed the entire amount of continued care at home, maybe with the help of pricey private insurance covering long term care at home. Long term care insurance is only for the well-to-do who can afford the premiums in the first place. Watch out for the contract's fine print full of exclusions.
Nursing homes––which are expensive whether good or bad and which appear to be the inevitable fate of patients like us who live too long and lack big money and large and supportive families––are pretty much paid for entirely by the patient. If the patient cannot sustain nursing home costs, he or she goes on Medicaid in the US after first turning over assets like tangible property (house or condo) and savings worth looking at. If the average citizen lives too long in the US or Canada, he or she is sure to die broke. Forget mindfulness. Instead, practice detachment in your seventies; it will be absolutely necessary to get through the years just ahead.
Professional services inside nursing homes are most often of inferior quality whether you're looking at hands on caregivers, their immediate supervisors or the management.
Rich nations like ours could have done so much better by all age groups if our elected leaders hadn't gambled trillions in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., etc.
First, support our troops; if there's any money left after that, deal with the kids, the young families, the middle aged and the oldtimers, all of whom are part of the neglected infrastructure of the country. That the Pentagon should pocket most of the discretionary budget is a domestic crime unleashing more crimes around the world.
Medicare in the US covers the 65+ while in Canada it covers all ages; but in both countries Medicare fails to cover eye or dental care, unless of course you go back to the gambling tables of the private insurance dealers. If Medicare for All for Everything ever happens, those two gaps in care will thankfully be covered.
In sum, Pearl, I agree entirely with you about what is and what should be when it comes to elder care. Our only difference is our faith in Bernie. As I understand it, you trust he is in there doing whatever is possible for the little guys and gals. I most emphatically believe, based on moves he's made in recent years, that he's a cowardly paladin who will settle for crumbs falling from the table of the obscenely rich.
End of rant on this end, Pearl. I wish you better days with that severe arthritis and the financial burden it imposes. If you pray, don't forget to thank Yahweh for your keen mind and good heart.
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