Everyone in, nobody out...
Just attended an meeting regarding the state of health care in IL and the enormaty of the issues in dismantling the corrupt system of health insurance as it exists today...
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/transcript1.html
good diaglog on the Bill Moyers site
in addition:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/health/30patient.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&em
NY Times article on why we're only being fed crumbs...
ENOUGH!!!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Rick Scott, founder of a group called Conservatives for Patients' Rights a multimillionaire investor and controversial former hospital chief executive, has become an unlikely and prominent leader of the opposition to health-care reform plans that Congress is expected to take up later this year. While disorganized Republicans and major health-care companies wait for President Obama and Democratic leaders to reveal the details of their plan before criticizing it, Scott is using $5 million of his own money and up to $15 million more from supporters to try to build resistance to any government-run program.
The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, and is inspired by the "Harry and Louise" ads that helped torpedo health-care reform during the Clinton administration.
It's the one and the same Rick Scott who was ousterdas head of the Columbia/HCA health-care company amid a fraud investigation in the 1990s. The firm eventually pleaded guilty to charges that it overbilled state and federal health plans, paying a record $1.7 billion in fines. The one and very same Scott whos's home town of Naples, Fla., last week, a group called Health Care for America Now says of Scott: "He and his insurance-company friends make millions from the broken system we have now."
The group's national campaign manager, Richard Kirsch, said: "Those attacking reform are really looking to protect their own profits, and he's a perfect messenger for that. His history of making a fortune by destroying quality in the health-care system and ripping off the government is a great example of what's really going on."
Rick Scott is a lawyer with no formal medical training, Scott built Columbia/HCA into the largest U.S. health-care company before he was ousted by the board of directors in 1997. He was also once a partner in the Texas Rangers with George W. Bush. Scott now runs an investment firm and owns, among other things, a chain of walk-in urgent-care clinics in Florida called Solantic.
One senior Democratic staffer involved in the health-care debate said the arguments by Luntz, Scott and others are "distractions" that rely on distortions of the actual debate taking place in the House and Senate. Reform advocates note that many of the problems highlighted by Scott, such as long waits and shoddy care, are already major problems in the United States under the private insurance system.
"We are not Europe. We are not Canada," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is leading the debate over a health-care plan as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a recent speech. "We need a uniquely American solution.
The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, and is inspired by the "Harry and Louise" ads that helped torpedo health-care reform during the Clinton administration.
It's the one and the same Rick Scott who was ousterdas head of the Columbia/HCA health-care company amid a fraud investigation in the 1990s. The firm eventually pleaded guilty to charges that it overbilled state and federal health plans, paying a record $1.7 billion in fines. The one and very same Scott whos's home town of Naples, Fla., last week, a group called Health Care for America Now says of Scott: "He and his insurance-company friends make millions from the broken system we have now."
The group's national campaign manager, Richard Kirsch, said: "Those attacking reform are really looking to protect their own profits, and he's a perfect messenger for that. His history of making a fortune by destroying quality in the health-care system and ripping off the government is a great example of what's really going on."
Rick Scott is a lawyer with no formal medical training, Scott built Columbia/HCA into the largest U.S. health-care company before he was ousted by the board of directors in 1997. He was also once a partner in the Texas Rangers with George W. Bush. Scott now runs an investment firm and owns, among other things, a chain of walk-in urgent-care clinics in Florida called Solantic.
One senior Democratic staffer involved in the health-care debate said the arguments by Luntz, Scott and others are "distractions" that rely on distortions of the actual debate taking place in the House and Senate. Reform advocates note that many of the problems highlighted by Scott, such as long waits and shoddy care, are already major problems in the United States under the private insurance system.
"We are not Europe. We are not Canada," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is leading the debate over a health-care plan as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a recent speech. "We need a uniquely American solution.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Shameful
Flashback, the campaign issue of the 1992 presidential election, and we all eagerly awaited the results of the task force created the following year with a goal to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans. Fast forward to 2008, and another election cycle with even more contentious debates over universal health care. Now we have a plan proposing an opportunity to buy into the same health plan federal government employees use.
How many have died, how many more are in bankruptcy due to health care costs? How many have needlessly gone without essential care due to the loss of employment?
Opposition to the plan is mainly from conservatives, libertarians, and the health care industry. Why is the United States the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care? How can you be opposed to health care? Would you still be opposed if you had to look each and everyone in the eye and explain to them why they can’t have access to health care?
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=25945
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced a single-payer health reform bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009, S. 703, in the U.S. Senate March 25. After calling for such national legislation for years, a grassroots movement of citizen coalitions, nurses, unions and progressive medical groups like Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) will surely be rallying for the bill.
PNHP calls the plan “the most fiscally conservative option for reform” because it eliminates costly administrative and bureaucratic overhead from the delivery of health care. Insurance and associated administrative costs represented one-third of every dollar spent on health care, according to some analysts.
PNHP said the $400 billion saved annually can be redirected into clinical care that would cover all 46 million presently uninsured Americans and eliminate the co-pays and deductibles that everyone with insurance current pays.
The single-player plan is at odds with the health care reform proposals now getting the most attention. Those plans are being advanced by President Barack Obama and Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Those plans, still in development, promise to maintain a central role for the insurance industry and likely would involve a public mandate to purchase insurance, and public subsidies to enroll more low-income people in insurance programs. It is unclear who would fund those new enrollments under the plans, how they would contain growing Medicare and Medicaid costs, and how they would reduce the waste in the current system.
The White House and Baucus-Kennedy proposals will be a tougher sell to the public today, particularly after disclosures about the billions contributed to members of Congress by financial lobbyists and the unpopular financial bailouts.
So what’s it gonna be this time around?
How many have died, how many more are in bankruptcy due to health care costs? How many have needlessly gone without essential care due to the loss of employment?
Opposition to the plan is mainly from conservatives, libertarians, and the health care industry. Why is the United States the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care? How can you be opposed to health care? Would you still be opposed if you had to look each and everyone in the eye and explain to them why they can’t have access to health care?
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=25945
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced a single-payer health reform bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009, S. 703, in the U.S. Senate March 25. After calling for such national legislation for years, a grassroots movement of citizen coalitions, nurses, unions and progressive medical groups like Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) will surely be rallying for the bill.
PNHP calls the plan “the most fiscally conservative option for reform” because it eliminates costly administrative and bureaucratic overhead from the delivery of health care. Insurance and associated administrative costs represented one-third of every dollar spent on health care, according to some analysts.
PNHP said the $400 billion saved annually can be redirected into clinical care that would cover all 46 million presently uninsured Americans and eliminate the co-pays and deductibles that everyone with insurance current pays.
The single-player plan is at odds with the health care reform proposals now getting the most attention. Those plans are being advanced by President Barack Obama and Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Those plans, still in development, promise to maintain a central role for the insurance industry and likely would involve a public mandate to purchase insurance, and public subsidies to enroll more low-income people in insurance programs. It is unclear who would fund those new enrollments under the plans, how they would contain growing Medicare and Medicaid costs, and how they would reduce the waste in the current system.
The White House and Baucus-Kennedy proposals will be a tougher sell to the public today, particularly after disclosures about the billions contributed to members of Congress by financial lobbyists and the unpopular financial bailouts.
So what’s it gonna be this time around?
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