Obama must push single payer - that's his job. Mandatory health insurance is not health care.

[grahamhgreen]

Obama should get behind and PUSH SINGLE PAYER! There will be no Repubs voting for the health care bill, unless it is a complete give-away to big insurance.

Even now the bill DOES NOT end rescission, does not start until 2013, and includes increasing taxes on the middle-class and not giving them health care.

By the time the bill looks like something we might get a Repub vote for - it will not be in the best interests of the American people. Basically, it will most likely be a bill that mandates you go out and buy the most inexpensive and crappy private insurance you can find, so that you don't have to pay a huge fine - that is not health care!

So, why bother?

Please call the White house and ask Obama to get on the stump and pass real reform - HR676! We need him to rally the people behind single-payer - that's his job!!!

Call - 202-456-1414

visit hr676.org, and pnhp.org

PS - DU rules! Keep doing what you do!

[babylonsister]

1. ...

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/07/14/breaking-house-bill-good-wish-it-could-happen-quicker.aspx


And at least one key insurer regulation would kick in right away: Come 2010, insurers could no longer yank coverage from people retroactively because they've uncovered new evidence of pre-existing conditions. This practice, known as "rescission," is among the most patently unjust features of our health care system.

[madfloridian]

4. That's a fair article. There are good thing in those plans.

Some want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but there are good things there in those plans.

That one regulation alone would help millions of people right away.

Thanks for posting it.

[grahamhgreen]

7. Unfortunatley, that is not the case because of one sentence - quoting from HR3200 -

"Section SEC. 162. ENDING HEALTH INSURANCE RESCISSION ABUSE.
........

(f) RESCISSION.—A health insurance issuer may rescind health insurance coverage only upon clear and convincing evidence of fraud..."



Which means that a team of sharp lawyers can argue that if you failed to inform the insurer when you signed that you had taken a medication for acne when you were seventeen, you committed fraud.

Therefore, you insurance is rescinded.

Therefore, you will not be covered for your current skin cancer.

Which is exactly what they do now.

The PR is good on that one, but the bill is the law. Devil in the details and all that.


Single payer is better, even Obama has said so.

[babylonsister]

20. I guess it depends on who's doing the interpreting...

http://www.knoxviews.com/node/11713

HR3200: The House plan for health care reform


• Prohibits rescission except in provable cases of fraud, provides for independent appeals process.

[grahamhgreen]

29. Right. It will be me vs. a team of corporate lawyers with unlimited funds. More...

They rescind me.

They claim fraud.

Then, what is it exactly that I do????

Sue them? Take them to court?

Hell, I can't even win an argument on the DU boards much less against a gaggle of corporate lawyers!

[Kansas Wyatt]

2. Obama & the Democrats do not realize....

That the American People gave them the White House and Congress to do just that, among other things for We The People.

The Party that is suppose to be so much more intelligent. For some reason, they try so hard to act just like dumb ass Republicans.

For all you politicians and the underlings out there....
Chump change token effort shell games are NOT going to cut it!

[jwirr]

5. And they will backfire. If we pass a bill that does not work to cover

all people we are going to get nothing but blame. Why don't the idiot blue dogs see that? Maybe when they go home to recess they will get an earful from their people and come back with renewed faith in the Democratic platform.

[timeforpeace]

3. Excellent OP. Time is allowing the truth to come out.

[pnorman]

6. "That's his job"

From a recent DU discussion:

"President Bush argued frequently and forcefully that his first job was to keep us safe. . . . He was wrong. The Constitution tells us that his sole job was to enforce the Constitution; and that means keeping us free. Free from tyrants who sought and claimed power from thin air; free from prince-like federal agents who could behave without constitutional or legal restraint; free to live with a government that obeyed its own laws. Any president who keeps us safe but unfree is rejecting his oath to the American people."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6090230&mesg_id=6090230

When we discuss issues such as Health Care in terms of what Obama MUST do, we may end up fatally flawing the argument.

pnorman

[grahamhgreen]

8. We the People of the United States, in Order to... promote the general Welfare... do ordain and esta

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Single payer health care would be promoting the general welfare, which is his job to uphold according to his oath of office, IMHO.

[pnorman]

23. I'll let my observation stand alongside yours.

n/t

pnorman

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. It we want to be a force for change, we should be less ridiculous.

It. Ain't. Happening.

[grahamhgreen]

11. It's the CURRENT BILL THAT AINT HAPPENING! Single Payer Now. HR3200 has failed already.

Time for the bill people want HR676.

[lumberjack_jeff]

16. You ain't talking to the right "people". n/t

[grahamhgreen]

17. HR3200 will most likely be a boondoggle - then we'll convince you guys to do real reform, and

it will create a Democratic powerhouse the likes of which you have not seen since FDR!

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. I'm all for using hr3200 a first step.

I think it will be a good first step because it will work.

Absent that first step.
a) nothing will happen
b) people will die
c) inflation will continue to accelerate, making reform even less possible.

If we can't get elected officials to pass reform because it's too expensive at 17% of gdp, we won't fare any better in ten years when it's 20%.

Democratic powerhouses are not created by failure.

[paulk]

24. I'm not even sure anymore that hr3200 is a good first step

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07242009/transcript3.html

this Bill Moyers interview is worth reading, imo.

[leftstreet]

25. hr3200 is a first step toward an Insurance industry bubble > bailout

Apparently taxpayers have to give the Medical Industrial Complex their turn at the trough.

After that, single payer is pretty much inevitable.

[grahamhgreen]

30. I will too, but not if it's a step in the wrong direction. nt

[ipaint]

10. How a reasonably sane government approaches a problem

The government set up a planning commission and looked abroad to study other countries’ health care systems. Taiwan looked at more than ten countries and combined their best qualities to form their own unique system. In 1995, Taiwan formed the National Health Insurance (NHI) model. NHI delivers universal coverage offered by a government-run insurer. The working population pays premiums split with their employers, others pay a flat rate with government help and the poor or veterans are fully subsidized. Taiwan’s citizens no longer have to worry about going bankrupt due to medical bills.<4>

Under this model, citizens have free range to choose hospitals and physicians without using a gatekeeper and do not have to worry about waiting lists. NHI offers a comprehensive benefit package that covers preventive medical services, prescription drugs, dental services, Chinese medicine, home nurse visits and many more. Working people do not have to worry about losing their jobs or changing jobs because they will not lose their insurance. Since NHI, the previously uninsured have increased their usage of medical services. Most preventive services are free such as annual checkups and maternal and child care. Regular office visits have co-payments as low as US $5 per visit. Co-payments are fixed and unvaried by the person’s income.<5>

By 2001, 97 percent of the population were enrolled in the program. Every enrollee has a Health IC smart card. This credit-card-size card only contains a kilobyte of memory that includes provider and patient profiles to identify and reduce Insurance Fraud, overcharges, duplication of services and tests.<7> The physician puts the card into a reader and the patient’s medical history and prescriptions come up on a computer screen. The insurer is billed the medical bill and it is automatically paid. Taiwan’s single-payer insurer monitors standards, usage and quality of treatment for diagnosis by requiring the providers to submit a full report every 24 hours. This improves quality of treatment and limits physicians from over prescribing medications as well as keeps patients from abusing the system.<4>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Taiwan

6 years and it's in place, compared to 64 years and counting for us. And people here still think allowing for profit providers to be the gatekeepers to health care will solve the problem.

[nightrain]

26. yes, Taiwan's system was described very well in "Getting Sick Around the World"

by Frontline. If memory serves, they say their cost is about 3% of their GDP, and it's not quite enough, so they were going to see about increasing it.

Amazing, isn't it? Oh, but the US has to have a uniquely American system! LOL Congress just doesn't learn/won't learn/can't learn. Donations have gotten in the way of smarts. Sad....

[Cleita]

12. How should they pay for it?

I have an idea. Place an extra tax on every job of every company who outsources American jobs overseas. That should bring in a lot of revenue or at least the jobs back.

[grahamhgreen]

18. What a great and simple idea - and bipartisan, as well!

[onethatcares]

13. you are exactly correct

anything else is just an insurance scam, created to keep the dollars flowing in to the corporate masters.

I just don't understand how the Democratic Party elected representatives can not support us. I am at a complete loss about that.

[Cleita]

14. Follow the money. If this fails, what Congress really needs to do next is

campaign finance reform.

[Davis_X_Machina]

15. Which is why...

...there's no health care in Germany, Switzerland, or the Netherlands.

[ipaint]

19. Germany- NON profit private ins.

Germany, like Japan, uses a social insurance model. In fact, Germany is the birthplace of social insurance, which dates back to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. But unlike the Japanese, who get insurance from work or are assigned to a community fund, Germans are free to buy their insurance from one of more than 200 private, nonprofit "sickness funds." As in Japan, the poor receive public assistance to pay their premiums.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/

Switzerland-- private for profit insurers cannot make a profit on basic care. Even so the swiss have the second most expensive ins. because they allow for profits.

The Swiss example shows that universal coverage is possible, even in a highly capitalist nation with powerful insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Insurance companies are not allowed to make a profit on basic care and are prohibited from cherry-picking only young and healthy applicants. They can make money on supplemental insurance, however. As in Germany, the insurers negotiate with providers to set standard prices for services, but drug prices are set by the government.

The Netherlands prior to 2006 only allowed NON profit insurers to compete but they are now allowing for profit ins. in and the price is already starting to rise. Even so under the plan in the Netherlands a single person is completely covered including eye and dental for $142.00 a month. Subsidies are available for low income.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_Netherlands

We can't touch any of these plans using the proposed health care reform either in cost or coverage.
Implying that private insurers like the vultures we have are working benevolently side by side with a public option in other countries is a lie.

But when folks don't have facts to back their claims, all they have left is spin and lies.

[Davis_X_Machina]

21. Could have non-profit here...

...hell we had non-profit here -- the BC/BS programs were originally non-profit, and many of America's largest insurance companies -- MetLife, Prudential, John Hancock -- began as mutual insurance societies.

You can get there without single payer. You can even get there with private insurance. But it has to be heavily regulated.

National single-payer you will not see in your lifetime.

I know it's more efficient, you know it's more efficient. But you can't refute a theology, and it's an article of faith for a large enough minority, a committed enough minority -- that the state cannot, will not, shall not, must not perform that function.

Majorities aren't enough. Committed minorities roll apathetic majorities all the time -- the gun lobby, e.g.

I'd rather fix legislation in Congress than try to refute a theology burned into in the hearts of 70 million voters. In the middle ages, the only effective way to do that involved a pile of brushwood, a stake, and a box of medieval kitchen matches.

[ipaint]

27. Wall street will never allow the regulation of banks or the insurance industry.

Too many of our representatives have millions of dollars tied up in investments and so don't most, upper middle class and above folks.

The settle for less theory doubled the number of uninsured americans in the last 30 years and brought this country to it's knees following bank deregulation.
Folks with means are collectively way too selfish and invested in the current system to understand that taking care of the least of us benefits them and the country. Rocking the elite's boat is not their style.

I've watched public opinion gradually change to the point where the majority want a canadian style system. That is a direct result of both single payer folks not shutting up and the rot of the system making it's way into the middle class. It's interesting to see people change their tune when they have to suffer just like the 24 million uninsured did in 1980 and the 50 million uninsured do today.
Not giving a second thought, for decades, to millions of folks with no healthcare does have consequences.

The loudest voices in the media and government who repeat the better than nothing meme are exactly the folks who are invested in the system and see the potential of additional monetary gain as this scam health reform takes shape. Once again this is all about hoarding money.

I used to think, oh that's the best we can do. Seeing and living the results of that attitude over the last few decades has taught me one thing. It's a cop out.

I'm not interested in participating in it anymore.

As far as single payer goes. The pain and suffering will have to cut much deeper into the middle class to change their particular burned into the heart theology- as long as it's not me left behind, I'll settle.

Maybe we should talk to the 8 million americans who will fall through the cracks immediately or perhaps just the tens of thousands of those in Mass., where Romneycare originated, who have been discarded as waste by the system. Or we can wait a few years to ask the millions who see their premiums go up and their subsidies go down to the point where they have insurance but can't afford co-pays, deductibles etc so they might as well have nothing. They are going to make a great target for conservatives in the coming years.

Of course the president gave the middle class the perfect out the other night. He said anyone without insurance will be a deadbeat by choice. There you go. Someone to blame when the reform starts falling apart ala reagan.

The reform will placate the middle class for a while and we will repeat the last 30 years over again. Only this time we are criminals if we don't pay a for profit private business for their overpriced under performing product.

After years of for profit insurance corp abuse people are willing to lock the cell door and give them the key.

Amazing and disturbing.

[grahamhgreen]

28. This is why Obama has to get on the stump and push single-payer, or else, you will be right. It's up

to him as far as i'm concerned.

It's time for him to be a man and do the job the people elected him to do.

Great post, BTW.

[Cal33]

31. Yes, I do hope more and more people will call up the White

White House to ask for the single-payer system. Obama did say that he wants to know
what the people really want. The greater the pressure from the people, the more
sure he becomes of what the people really want! So, call the White House.