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And as I've said, it will take a Million citizen march to DC to make this change.
Those who speak about morality and don't practice it should be run out of the village!!!
It would scare the pants off the gutless politicians!!!!
Also, we have had million-person marches before -- Million Man March, Million Mom March, just for openers -- and none of them have had any real effect on government. The idea of a bunch of people marching in DC and changing Congress is just a fantasy.
The only thing that is going to save the US is getting corporate money out of elections. Until that happens, we are screwed. And, there's no sign it's going to happen.
UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE - affects EVERYONE!!!!!
You can bet your ass if everyone jumped on a bus, car, train, plane to DC on one single issue, UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL!! Then you would see change!!!
Yes, they are chicken shit to let this happen, thus the draconian laws like the Military Commissions Acts, Patriot Acts, etc. There are reasons why these laws are in place.
Socialized healthcare is a mistake because I am a better judge of what healthcare is right for me than my government.
I do believe it should be decoupled from employment however. That never made sense to me. It should be sold just like car insurance or auto insurance to individuals.
That bullshit line is used by rightwinger fascists who think government should be drowned down the tub.
The government does not dictate where you go no in providers, but Part B in the medicare program is the huge problem, which the right wingers added to that bill.
Out country was founded on a socialist movement of the "greater good" - you dimwit.
Non-profits make money but pour it back into the system not into the back pocket of the CEO.
Take your rightwing garbage points of view and shove it.
And the countries that do have socialized health insurance have much lower costs and much better health care than the crappy US system.
And, the government will not be deciding what's right for you. Even if it did, I would rather have the government deciding than some insurance company beancounter who gets a bonus for stalling you until you die.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
What would be the point of keeping it if it becomes even more expensive. I already pay a fortune for what the insurance does not cover.
What would be the point of remaining on the work related health care?
When did your dad use the VA? If before aproximately 1993, then VA Medical care probably was substandard. A new chief Medical Officer took charge then and a complete reform of VA Health care has occurred. In preventive care and in medical care, the VA is excellent (Most complaints about the VA now are about the slow determination of disability benefits, ie payments, not the health care.
I should know. I just got out of 6 days of VA hospital care. It was first rate, much better than the care I got for an extensive hospitalization in 2005, and I had good health insurance then. The best part was not worrying about the cost, or getting thrown out of the hospital before I was ready, which happen in '05 and caused an infection that could have killed me.
Phillip Longman, who has written for the Washington Monthy, Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and Harvard Business Review wrote and article in Wash Monthly which became a book.., his fourth full-length book published by PoliPointPress. Titled
Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Healthcare is Better Than Yours, it reflects on Longman's loss of his first wife to cancer and aims to show that in fact private health insurance is not superior to public health care as is often presumed. (wikipedia)
I agree with the point of this post, just want to make the point that today's VA Health care is not what your Dad received.
A bit of legislation is needed that elegantly and simply states that no physician, clinic or hospital is allowed to charge an uninsured patient more than the minimum billed to any insurer for the same procedure or service.
In other words, if an insurer has negotiated a price of $100 for a routine physical, the hospital may not bill more than this to an uninsured patient. It would be allowed to charge other insurers more than this, however.
This might encourage hospitals to establish a standard set of rates that everyone pays. As the situation now stands, large insurers pay a fraction of what an uninsured person does.
That, at least would be a small step.
Trying to reform the insurance industry is like treating a symptom, not a disease.
No, our problem is exactly the insurance industry as well as overpricing from a pure capitalist based system. We don't need insurance companies at all. Insurance will never solve our medical crisis.
We need socialized medicine. Full cradle to grave national healthcare. Nothing else solves the problem. Anything less than national healthcare will not solve the problem simply because medical costs are out of control. Capitalism regulates costs based on demand and there will never be less demand for healthcare, always more. So costs will always go up. There cannot be enough hospitals to create a cost effective competitive market. Its an impossibility.
Thats how medicine was practiced in the past and America had the best healthcare
Until it happens to them...
Let me add: Not so sure color has anything to do with it, we do have hopelessly dumb people in every color as leaders in our communities.
Imagine you are a senator. Someone comes up to you and says, "i'll make you a very rich and powerful man...all you have to do is vote this way, this way and this way when you get into the white house". Are you saying that you won't do it? Well, guess what, if you turn that offer down, the corporations will find someone who will do their bidding. That's how the game works. No one turns down $30 million dollars and that's why all the presidents from the last 20 yrs or so left the white house as very very rich men because they were bought and paid for.
If they knew they only had a 50-50 chance their insurabce would stick with them thru a major illness, perhaps more would support single payer, or at least insist on a Medicare-for-all option.
I think it is stories like the one on MSNBC today, where I got these figures, that is the best way to improve support for healthy care reform.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31103572/
One huge corporate donate to a congressman outweighs 100,000 constituent letters.
The last sentence not so much......
But now, as Al Gore pointed out in his book, the democratic process has turned into a one-way conversation with everything turning on 30-second commercials and the cable propaganda networks.
Members of Congress know that they need to raise millions of dollars to orchestrate that one-way conversation. So, donors will always come ahead of voters, because those millions of dollars allow the voters to be manipulated.
Also, it is much much easier to corrupt state-level officials. This is why the corporations love it.
Only corporatists and goofy "libertarians" believe in this.
They can barely piece together a broken educational system there!!!
We went from a power house industrial building nation where cars, engines, and all kinds of things were built here - to a service industry, servicing the goods others make....
And wal-mart is right in the midst of this bullshit.
-------------------
Wal-Mart says it will create 22,000 jobs in 2009
BENTONVILLE, Ark. – As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opens about 150 new or expanded stores in the U.S. in 2009, the company expects to hire about 22,000 people for new positions.
Those positions include plenty of cashiers and stock clerks, but the world's largest retailer will also be adding store managers, pharmacists and personnel workers.
And this doesn't even begin to address the problems of the uninsured, which are ever-increasing because of unemployment, and because many employers are cutting down on or eliminating health care benefits because they're getting too expensive. And private pay is out of reach for far too many people who are just over the Medicaid cut-off. And Medicaid is being cut back in most states, anyway.
Often the FDA doesn't even disagree with the veracity of producers claims (cherries, Cheerios,) but instead insists that attaching FDA accepted health information to natural products is to make a drug claim.
This waste of tax money fuels more financial devastation, and bolsters profits of their pharma-buddies.
I work full time and have for 35 years, paid my taxes, raised our child, and carry the insurance for my entire family. My husband has Medicare. He is on 16 pills a day. Recently I had a colonosopy in which the doctor put 2 holes in my colon, had emergency surgery now stuck with thousand of dollars of medical debt. We can not pay them..so what do we do?? True hard working Americans, always pay our bills but even with inusrance can;t pay them. Should we just dump the insurance and start going to the emergency room for free care?