Healthcare

Oh yeah...Remembering the War and Other National and Global Crises

dlindorff — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:25:56 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

The ongoing and deepening global economic crisis, to which Barack
Obama owes his presidential election victory, is no small thing, to be
sure. It also presents us on the left with a lot of openings to press
for progressive change.

We saw how the Republican attempt to derail Obama by labeling him a
“socialist” actually backfired—especially when people were reminded
that a fundamental premise of socialism is “income redistribution,” in
which some of the wealth of the rich is taken away through taxation,
and transferred through federal programs to those who are less wealthy.
Joe the Plumber was outraged, but when most Americans who were having
trouble paying for gas or making their next mortgage payment, or who
were worried that their jobs might be about to vanish, thought about
that for longer than a sound-bite, it turns out that, not surprisingly,
they decided socialism and redistribution didn’t sound like a bad or
scary idea at all.

The same can be said of labor unions. In good times, many Americans
have bought the argument that unions are just out to grab dues payments
from their paychecks. But as job security vanishes and wages languish,
people are waking up to the idea that they are simply expendable
“inputs” to employers, and that a union can help them stand up to
abusive, uncaring management. Republican propaganda about the sanctity
of “secret ballot” union elections—ironic given the GOP’s simultaneous
assault all over the country on the right to vote—fell on deaf ears.

Government itself, long a dirty word thanks to years of
conservative propaganda, aped and spread through the corporate media,
is coming back into favor, now that people see that they cannot count
on either themselves or their employers to pull them through hard
times. The idea that government can step in with things like extended
unemployment insurance benefits, food stamps, and even renegotiated
mortgages, makes people who once mocked “big government” view things a
little differently.

But this unprecedented economic crisis also poses dangers.

Because we are so obsessed with the ongoing collapse of the economy
and the gathering storm of debt, unemployment and loss of retirement
savings that it entails, it’s easy for all of us to lose sight of other
crises that demand our urgent attention and action.

Chief among these are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing threat of climate change.

The wars are not going away on their own. The Iraq puppet
government of Nouri al Maliki is close to approving a deadline for the
removal of US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. That is more than
three years from now—nearly as long as the US was involved in World War
II! It’s longer, even, than the absurd 16 months that Obama said it
would take for him to end the US war and occupation of Iraq during his
campaign, which was bad enough. (In the case of Afghanistan, it
represents a decade of war—as long as the Vietnam War!) The danger is
that Obama will allow that status of troops agreement with Iraq to
become his timetable for withdrawal. We have to say “No!” The Iraq War
must be ended immediately.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, is in a meltdown, and every day that US
forces operate there, the opposition to US occupation grows, simply
strengthening the Taliban. Similarly, the more the US tries to attack
Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in neighboring Pakistan, the more
opposition grows to the US in Pakistan. If we opponents of the war
allow Obama to go ahead with his plans for a larger US military force
in Afghanistan, we will end up with an even bigger and wider war in the
Middle East and Asia, with more terrorist recruits, and with whatever
remains of US funds for important domestic initiatives swallowed up by
the Pentagon and the secret intelligence budget.

Let me put this simply: Nothing progressive that has been proposed
by the Obama campaign can be achieved while the US is engaged in these
two criminal wars. No health care reform, no increase in education
loans, no early childhood education, no public works jobs programs,
Nothing.

And then there is climate change. The Obama campaign promised to
finally end eight years of a new Dark Ages, when government simply
denied science or actively attacked science, and to start taking
serious action to reduce America’s role in spewing out carbon into the
atmosphere. But you don’t hear much about that anymore. That’s because
reducing America’s carbon footprint costs serious money—money for
research into non-carbon energy sources, money for a power transmission
system to serve wind generation farms, money to develop a new
generation of non-polluting vehicles and to rebuild light rail and
inter-city rail systems. And once again, with the economy in a crisis,
and with the two wars sucking up all available tax revenues that aren’t
being given away to banks and Wall Street financial firms and insurance
companies, none of that is going to happen either, unless we demand it.

Meanwhile, while the progressive folks who put their all into the
Obama campaign are reveling in his and their Election Night success,
and are now taking a breather, the forces of darkness that control the
Democratic Party (think Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Rahm
Emanuel and the whole Democratic Leadership Council), are grabbing
control of the new administration, filling the incoming Obama cabinet
with carryover hacks from the Clinton administration, even including
the Clintons themselves, and, in some cases, the outgoing Bush
administration).

This is, in other words, no time to sit back and relax, reveling in
the admittedly hard-to-believe prospect of an African-American moving
into the White House. It is a time for action and then more action.

When Barack Obama makes that dramatic walk from his Inauguration
Day speech at the Capitol building to the White House, the streets need
to be lined with protestors holding up signs calling for an immediate
end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When the new Congress tries to vote for a $50 –billion or
$150-billion bail-out of the US auto industry, we need to be packing
the halls shouting it down. That money should be going only into
development of zero-emission automobiles, and it should be in the form
of voting-share equity in those companies.

Here, for what it’s worth, are my top 10 demands for action by the new Democratic government iin Washington:

1. US forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Immediately! Shift the
funds saved to reconstruction aid for those two countries and to
veterans benefits, with any extra savings going to help fund education
in poor school districts in the US.

2. Slash military spending by closing most or all overseas military
bases, by dramatically reducing nuclear forces to near zero, by
reducing the number of men and women in uniform, and by closing bases
in the US. Savings should go to shoring up the Social Security and
Medicare Trust Fund.

3. Open up the secret intelligence budget, currently running at over
$40 billion a year, and cut it, for starters, by half. Savings should
also go to the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund. (Along the way,
ban all spying on Americans, and revive the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act in full as originally written.)

4. Break up the banking and automobile industry, as well as any
other industry in which any player is so large it is able to extort
money out of the government by threatening that its failure would cause
a national economic crisis. “Too big to fail” needs to mean “too big to
be permitted to exist.”

5. Join the Kyoto Treaty, and pledge to immediately begin a campaign
to reduce US carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 or better, 2030.
Establish a crash national research program to develop carbon-free
energy sources, and provide funding for households to convert to
passive geo-thermal heating and cooling systems. Funds can come from
the unused $350-billion portion of the Paulson/Bernacke Wall Street
bailout fund. (Talk about a job-creation program, not to mention a big
whack at imported oil!)

6. Pass the Employer Free Choice Act, requiring employers to
recognize a labor union wherever a majority of the workers have signed
cards saying they want a union, and requiring those employers to
negotiate and reach an initial contract agreement within 90 days, or
under mandatory mediation.

7. Reassert the Constitutionally mandated authority of Congress by
rescinding all Bush/Cheney-era signing statements and executive orders
and declaring them, by Presidental declaration and by Joint Resolution
of the Congress, to have been invalid and unconstitutional.

8. Order the US Justice Department to investigate the actions of the
prior administration and, where crimes are discovered, to prosecute
offenders, up to and including the former president, to the full extent
of the law. This would include obstruction of justice, abuse of power,
commission of war crimes, conspiracy, fraud, bribery, war profiteering
and criminal negligence.

9. Appoint Ralph Nader as new chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission, with a powerful mandate take the necessary steps to restore
competition and fairness to the nation’s media. (My pet proposal:
Establish a government loan fund to allow workers at failing newspapers
to buy their publications from the owners and to operate them as
employee-owned enterprises, on a tax-free basis.)

10. Enact a national health care program that provides health
insurance for every person in America. My choice here would be a
single-payer system—essentially an expansion of Medicare to cover
everyone, funded by progressive taxation. Failing that, a system in
which the government has an insurance program operating in competition
with the private sector, should eventually lead to a single-payer plan.
One idea: dispatch a public-citizen commission to Canada to study the
Canadian health system and report back to Congress and the White House
in 90 days.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006).
His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Single-Payer Healthcare Alliance Forms in Washington, D.C.

davidswanson — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:30:54 -0500

l-r: Kay Tillow, Rep. Conyers, Tim Carpenter
With Barack Obama about to assume the presidency and take up the healthcare issue, leaders of single-payer healthcare organizations met for two days, November 11 - 12, at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), Healthcare-NOW! , and Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) convened the meeting. Providing healthcare to the millions of Americans who lack it was a centerpiece of the presidential campaigns.

Approximately sixty people representing over a dozen organizations and three members of Congress were in attendance. The agenda included a political overview, developing a legislative strategy, and alliance-building discussions. Among the represented groups were Healthcare-NOW!, the AFL-CIO, All Unions Committee for Single-Payer, American Medical Students Association, Rep. John Conyers, and aides from the offices of Reps. Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich.

There was broad agreement among the participants that a single-payer healthcare plan, H.R. 676 specifically, is not only the solution to solving the problem of providing healthcare to every American, but is also a sensible part of any economic stimulus package and lasting economic recovery.

Concern was expressed that a plan similar to the Massachusetts health plan will be offered by Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, which could pass out of respect for his service in the Senate. The law, enacted in 2006, subsidizes healthcare corporations with taxpayer dollars and mandates that Massachusetts citizens buy health insurance.

The Boston Globe reports the costs of providing healthcare to most of its residents have risen well above the original estimates-the state faces huge shortfalls and will need to secure additional revenue from the federal government or drastically reduce the benefits. While a deep respect for Sen. Kennedy's contributions was evident, participants rejected the Massachusetts plan as the cure to U.S. healthcare woes.

In addition, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus's healthcare plan was rejected on the same grounds. See this article, Baucus Health Plan is Fatally Flawed.

There was general agreement that single-payer healthcare legislation would provide economic stimulus by drastically reducing the number of employee sick days, creating thousands of new jobs in the delivery of healthcare (as opposed to the thousands of jobs which currently exist for the purpose of denying health insurance claims), and by containing rising costs from bulk-purchasing, advertising, CEO salaries and benefit packages, and a profit-driven system.

Members of the alliance will continue to meet regularly to ensure single-payer healthcare, H.R. 676, becomes a meaningful part of the healthcare reforms Obama will consider as the debate moves forward.

National health-care fix

rgh1951Mo — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:45:01 -0400

Here's a health plan that preserves the private sector, insures everyone, and provides for a moderate degree of cost controls.

The Dept. of Health and Human Services, authorized by federal law, writes a health-insurance policy (structured similar to United Health, Cigna, etc, with coverage for prescriptions, preventitive care, pre-natal, disabled and elder/long-term care). The policy is THE ONLY HEALTH INSURANCE POLICY health insurance companies nationwide can offer, and with no modifications, no declines, and no one written-up. Health insurance companies could compete only on the basis of their premiums and the efficiency of the operations; not by denial of care. Other than writing and occasionally revising the policy, the only role for the federal government (no role at all for the states) would be to subsidize premium payors, on a sliding scale, thru the income tax system.

The system would be self enforcing. Health-care providers (doctors, clinics, hospitals) would enforce insurance company compliance thru lawsuits; the governments would not have to have an enforement role. The affluent would pay the full premiums; with declining percentages for less affluent patients.

Prescription costs and medical technology costs would be controlled by the policy established recompensation to the pharma/tech companies. Example: Prescription copays of, for example, $5, 15,25 would be recompensated by the insurance companies to the pharma companies at $50,100-500 or so, for one month supply. No $2,000 a month pharaceutical costs. Similar situation with advanced medical technology, recompensation built into the plan would force technology back into the larger (mostly public and not-for-profit) hospitals, due to economies of scale. No more private doctor boutique practices.

Tell me what is wrong with this? Please. I have yet to see one serious valid economic or structural criticism of it. Political? Yes, I know. But this plan gets around the mindless "socialized medicine" scam, as it leaves companies, insurance and otherwise, completely intact. The government would NOT be running any company....

McCain's Ambitious New Health Care Program

davidswanson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:19:02 -0400

"Socialized Medicine" Misleading Rhetoric No Longer Works to Block Single-Payer Health Coverage: LA Times

davidswanson — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:46:48 -0400

Details here.

2 out of 3 Doctors Recommend National Health Insurance!

Bob Fertik — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:26:23 -0400

I haven't heard this Madison Avenue slogan recently, but years ago I often heard it: "two out of three doctors recommend" this or that. Now it's National Health Insurance by 59%-32%, or nearly 2:1.

The survey suggests that opinions have changed substantially since the last survey in 2002 and as the country debates serious changes to the health care system.

Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

This shows our privatized health care system sucks so bad that even doctors hate it. A generation ago, doctors fough tooth and nail for privatized health care.

Dennis Kucinich: 911 Rescue Workers Need Health Care

davidswanson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:23:43 -0500

VIDEOS: 911 Rescue Workers Need Health Care

davidswanson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:54:22 -0500

By David Swanson

Yesterday in the rain in front of the U.S. Capitol hundreds of 911 rescue workers who risked their lives in a toxic mess they were told was safe piled off buses from New York. They held a rally with a handful of Congress Members and asked Congress to get them health care so that they can stop suffering every day while we slaughter people abroad in their names and in the name of those who died that day.

I shot a video and have broken it into six pieces and posted them on Youtube. The first features Rep. Tim Bishop, the second Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the third Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the fourth a young woman singing "God Bless America," the fifth Rep. Jerrold Nader, and the sixth some of the rescue workers speaking.

Here are the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/afterdowningstreet

Another Bush coverup - CDC refuses to disclose details of infection of cardiac surgery patients

Flaming Democrat — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:15:54 -0500

The Fresno Bee is reporting: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued findings of its investigation into the infections of at least 12 cardiac surgery patients at Saint Agnes Medical Center earlier this year, but refused to release them to the public. Saint Agnes spokeswoman Kelley Sanchez said the CDC concluded that samples taken from the hospital last month and examined in Atlanta “could not determine a single cause for the infections” and no patterns were found to explain the “increase in infections” between January and September.http://www.care-mates.com/blog/?p=31

Health Care in America in Three Stories

davidswanson — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:13:27 -0500

1. The Centers for Disease Control just released a report that says that 20% of Americans can't afford or access needed health care.

2. The American College of Physicians just joined majority opinion and now backs single payer health coverage.

3. One candidate for president would make single payer a reality in this country. Only this one candidate is even interested in trying. Watch this terrific video!