Single Payer or Bust

A GUEST POINT:

terry a July 18th, 2009 8:46 pm
This SP state option is bad-odds dicey for the uninsured, at best.
More likely, it's just what the corporate doctor ordered.
In any case, it's certainly no cause for any USA progressive celebration -- the comparisons of Canada's gradual approach to a national SP system especially notwithstanding.
Canada's political culture is not usefully analogous to the USA's. It never has been. And for the foreseeable future, US progressives can only hope it never will be.

As I posted on a related CD article, only a few US state legislatures have the potential political will AND the adequate population/funding base to make a state SP system work as needed: namely, yielding universal affordable coverage for EVERYBODY, NOW: not in some Who Knows When or How fuzzy future.
Besides, as someone already pointed out: even where one or two US states have recently tried to enact such a SP system, e.g., California, corrupt governors veto it.

During his election campaign, Obama and his Party also wagged loudly that prompt/effective resolution of the health care affordability issue was crucial not just because of the pressing personal needs of 45 million uninsured citizens, but also because the US economy's short and long term viability required it.

Obama's campaign also wagged that this issue's sensible resolution was, additionally, a political crucible out of which Americans' belief that their government works for THEM, instead of for corporate lobbyists, needed to be and at least somewhat could be, thereby restored.

But it was all manipulative BS during the campaign; and it's even more cynically-manipulative BS now.
The shit of this issue has once again momentarily hit the fan, and it's clearly now being re-blown back, as usual, into the face of the reform-clamoring citizenry -- not to the offending corporations and their federal government lackeys .

It's no mystery why conservative power brokers and their duopoly myrmidons in congress allowed this state SP option proviso to pass congress.

Like Obama's election itself, the state SP system option is just another cynically crafted safety valve designed to delay and deflect any clearly defined showdown between the masses of America's abused and disaffected governed and their corporate hijacked government; a showdown that lying Obama, however, specificallypromised to lead in the name of the people.

The real mystery of late, is why so many USA progressives are suddenly willing to be fooled by this merely-latest Oligarchy-driven maneuver.
Because, once again, the issue of a USA national SP health care system is now and for the duration of America's distinctly non-Canadian future, effectively dead in the water.

Nice take and I cosign.

The reason I am all over this health care issue is because the reality behind all the blather and doomed to fail proposals is quite stark. The entire economy is doomed unless and until single payer is enacted. And unless you are for full scale single payer you are a fool and definitely not a progressive. But of course these days America and even supposedly progressive sites such as Huffington Post is still chock loaded with fools on the health care issue which, to me in a kind of juvenile way, is actually kind of amusing.

[The above is in response to this article.]

Obama and the Democrats are Hell Bent on Their Twisted and Lame Plans

Economically, the main reason health care access is a public good and why private health insurance for basic care needs to be illegal is that anyone with half a brain will pay almost anything for something they think is necessary to gain more years of life. So the consumers are by definition desperate from right out of the box. This, in turn, vastly increases the already substantial pressures in favor of monopolization in modern day fake free market economies. So just from the standpoint of basic economics, the whole US health care set-up is a huge fiasco from the get-go, an economics catastrophe waiting to happen if there ever was one..

The Democrats' twisted "reform" proposals have now been officially predicted by the Congressional Budget Office to not slow the growth of health care spending and therefore to not save the Government (the Government as a whole I believe, Federal, state, and local levels) one nickle compared with doing nothing, which has suddenly increased the probability that nothing at all will pass when all is said and done.

The Democrats' proposals involve new taxes. The new taxation would have both progressive and regressive components. The regressive taxation falls on those making between 133% of the Federal poverty line and about $40,000 a year. The regressive taxation also falls on small business owners, in particular ones who have payrolls in excess of $250,000 or maybe $350,000 up to $1,000,000 or perhaps a little more than that.

As for Obama, he appears to be hell-bent to get something passed even if it is doomed to failure in the longer term which, along with the collapsing economy, is another reason why as of right now it is very unlikely he can be reelected.

The bottom line is that it is not simply that single payer would save a lot of money. As the CBO just reported, it is that it is the only thing that will save any money at all! And that money must be saved has become obvious to everyone with half a brain.

[The above is in response to this article.]

A Very Plausible Doomsday Scenario for Health Legislation

If I had to bet right now I'd say a plan doomed to economically fail will pass, but I would not be shocked or even very surprised if little in the way of even doomed reform passes.

There is a very substantial probability that the "public option," which if you are a true progressive you know is not a true or long term solution, will be lost in a final scramble to get something, anything passed for the hell bent Obama and his rabid supporters. Specifically, public option can be lost if the Senate Democrats, due to a complete lack of Republican support and perhaps a defection or two or three among their own ranks, are forced to use a procedure called reconciliation.

In reconciliation, public option can be stripped (by the ultra right wing Republicans and extreme right wing Democrats) because it is not an established "budgetary item". Although either way the "reform" fails, this would be the ultimate doomsday scenario. No public option would make the taxes on certain lower income people and certain small businesses staggeringly regressive, and would in fact result in large scale refusal of such individuals and businesses to participate in any "health care exchange".

[The above is in response to this report.]

Impoverished by Goldman Sachs Etc.

Its to the point now that Sachs alone is costing every man, woman, and child alive in the US (and elsewhere for that matter) who does not work for Sachs lost income. Companies like this need to be dismantled or at least extremely regulated if people want to stop being impoverished by them.

Homelessness and Poverty in the US: How it Works

Remember how things work in the US:

--If you are homeless, you are often a "criminal" even if you never commit (a real) crime.
--If you are poor but not homeless, you will in many cases be homeless at one time or another, in which case see the previous item.
--If you are poor but never homeless, you deserve an award. But instead of an award, there is a good chance you too are a criminal, since statistics show that the poor are far more likely to have violated a law than the non-poor. By far the most prevalent motivation for breaking the law among the poor is to avoid total destitution and homelessness. In other words, they break the law to try to avoid being a homeless-criminal.
--If you are rich, except in rare cases, you are not a criminal regardless of how many crimes you commit. The rich very often know how to avoid getting caught, and they have plenty of money for highly qualified defense attorneys if they do get caught.
--Many rich people make some of their huge pots of money by doing things that are considered crimes in many other countires of the world. Selling health insurance policies and then refusing to pay for care is an example.
--The rich are getting richer, everyone else is getting poorer. Some formerly middle class people are falling into poverty so quickly that their heads are spinning.
--Even though it is more than ever society's fault, homelessness and poverty in general is virtually always blamed on the victim by the established institutions. There may be some sympathy for the poor from time to time, but officially the poor themselves are always to blame for poverty. For example, if a poor person (or anyone, actually) can not get a job, it's the individual's fault, even when the number of jobs available is shrinking, so that it is not mathematically possible for everyone to get a job!

I know, this stuff is very confusing and very disturbing to say the least, but what can I say? Don't expect things to make sense in countries run by right wingers.

Here is the full report, 194 pages, pdf:

http://nlchp.org/content/pubs/2009HomesNotHandcuffs1.pdf

[The above is in response to this report.]

"Health Care (Health Insurance) Reform": Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

All the health "reform" being discussed and proposed in the House and Senate, overall, is too little too late and is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. "Sir, would you like the lounge chair astern or the padded one to starboard, before we all slide into the drink?" Laugh out loud.

The 2009 legislation is all about making sure that single payer, which has become very obviously necessary, is delayed indefintely. The more poor the US becomes, and the more excessive health costs become, the less the US will be able to implement single payer, so it is possible that the delay will actually turn out to be pretty much permanent.

There are many shortcomings, but the top two specific problems with the proposals are:

1. There is no where near enough cost reduction / cost containment power. So the Titanic is still going down. BOTH single payer and strong and immediate cost reduction is necessary, and I must say that this was obvious even before the economy and the people in it started to drown due in part to excessive health costs.

2. The mandate and the associated penalties amount to an unprecedented, regressive (exactly how regressive is not clear to me yet) and apparently an unconstitutional tax.

The last time I checked, taxation is supposed to be only for the common good, and private health insurance is definitely not a common good. Isn't it obvious that in a democracy the Government can never have a tax/mandate where the proceeds go directly to a private industry, where the Government is little more than a bill collector for that industry? Won't the Supreme Court eventually rule that forcing someone to buy a private insurance product is unconstitutional?

In general taxation becomes invalid, intolerable, and regressive when the Government plays little or at best a marginal role in providing the goods and services involved, and even more so if the Government mandates the purchase of a private product, as in this case.

I do like the Medicaid expansion in the House bill, but that is like 2% of the bill really, and you have to be really, really poor to benefit from that. Those who are just "kind of poor" will have to maneuver through a new large bureaucracy in order to get subsidized by the Government so that they can meet the requirment that they buy private health insurance.

The public option is lame or dead on arrival, mainly because when all is said and done the cost to consumers will be, at best, 10-12% less than a full scale private health insurance plan. That is no where near enough less. And if forced to choose I might actually stick with a private plan, since any new "public option" plan will not necessarily have enough providers associated with it to meet the care demand.

So where are we at, progressives? Are we just supposed to "just give fascism a chance" while we sit on the deck of the Titanic and await going down into the briny blue?

[The above is in response to this article.]

Health Care in South Korea and Japan

Also, South Korea has a relatively progressive health care system where almost everyone gets health care, although it apparently is not full scale single payer, and it is not as progressive as all the countries that do have that.

Thom Hartmann, nice history here. Your next assignment is to tell us what historically happens if a country disbands its middle class. Do such countries become dirt poor? Do they have revolutions? Has one ever woke up one morning and decided to start the long process of bringing the middle class back again?

I really want to know, because the horses have left the barn if you know what I am saying.

But I am betting that the reason we have not seen Thom Hartmann tell us what happens if a middle class is completely zapped out of existence is that this has seldom if ever happened in the World.

A RESPONSE:

Bliss Doubt July 14th, 2009 1:12 pm
Doesn't Japan have universal health care too?

I think maybe FDR is the story of someone who decided to start the long process of bringing back the middle class, starting with the regulation of banks, then on to national infrastructure works, social safety nets, etc., everything that led to the mid- to late 20th century period of prosperity in this country, though there is a neo-con movement to discredit FDR and to say that war is what saved our country.

Japan is to universal single payer health care as the Los Angeles Lakers are to basketball. They have a system that is beyond good.

There is a very strong correlation between the progressiveness and quality (excuse the redundancy) of a countries' health care system and the overall, long term success of its economy and especially of its middle class.

The causation actually runs in both directions. It has become basically irrefutable that the countries with the best, most progressive health care systems are the ones where the average person (middle class by definition) is the most well off overall. At the same time, looking at the flip side, the more right wing and/or the more poor a country is, the less likely it is able to implement or support a single payer system.

The Scourge of Celebrity Worship in the USA

This has to be the best explanation I've ever seen of the close ties between the worship of Celebrities and the worship of money (and the Corporations that control most of it) in the now failing US society. This is a very, very important essay.

Obama has a high "celebrity index score," which would seem to go far in explaining why he is failing. His wife has become a total celebrity. Celebrities can sing, dance, and make nice speeches, but don't expect them to be able to substantially improve economies and societies.

This essay is telling progressives in detail why they have been basically shut out of the US system, whereas by contrast they get at least some traction in Europe, Canada, and so forth. Progressives are always among the first to be voted off of the hell hole of an island known as the US.

Boiling Frogs

Boiling frogs is a very good analogy, and Obama is a gradually boiling frog too.

If virtually or literally no net new jobs are created during Obama's four years, and Obama is already in the hole by about 3 million jobs in the counting, Independents, who sometimes vote Republican and sometimes Democratic, and who like everyone else need a job, will be deserting Obama in droves in 2012, while numerous and by rights most progressives will be staying home or voting 3rd party.

The side benefit to Obama being a boiling frog and a 2012 lost cause is that progressives who are on the fence between voting Democratic or voting 3rd party will be totally free to vote 3rd party.

Even Bush 2 (The Horror Returns Sequel) managed to create a few jobs, laugh out loud.

A COUNTERPOINT

CATO July 13th, 2009 12:25 pm
Voting thrid party is political suicide for progressives.
We need to work within the Democratic party. That means voting out the road blocks within the Democratic Party ASAP!
Unfortunately, right or wrong our system is set up as a two party system. That is the pair-a-dime we have to deal with.

When and if the revolution comes will someone remind the revolutionaries to create a parliamentary, multiparty system along with a progressive economy? The two party straightjacket has got to go, too.