If Medicare for Everyone is So Bad, Why Does Every Nation Who Has It Keep It? 10 Questions

That will keep them longer alive and healthy and that means more wars, more torture and more misery in the World. The average life expectancy of US citizens fell back to 67 years! Good news for the rest of the civilized World. Another important question: will proper health care offer a cure against brain washing?

Who Has It Keep It? 10 Questions By Dave Lindorff Created 08/10/2009 - 7:33pm BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY Forwarded by Dave Lindorff (based on an idea from one of his readers) Questions Should You Find Yourself at a microphone at a 'Town Meeting': 1. If Canada's single-payer system is so god-awful, why have repeated Conservative governments at the provincial and national level in Canada never touched it? Canada is a democracy. If Canadians don't like their health care system, why haven't they gotten rid of it in 35 years? Since the system there is run by the separate provinces, many of which are very politically conservative, why has not one province ever tried to get rid of single-payer? Canadians come here when they need all the things socialized medicine doesn't supply 2. Why is rationing by income, as we do it here, better than rationing by need, as they do it in Canada? Rofl. This is what dumbo Obama said today in his Potemkin Village fake townhall. It betrays how stupid he and proudwhore are about the way innovations and economies work. New innovations are created, from lasik surgery to cell phones and they arevery expensive at first. The market then makes them cheaper. (Lasik surgery has become much cheaper; only the things paid for by government regulated tax code generated insurance plans have not.) Government programs, to take dumbo Obama's example, the Post Office, do not even innovate. It took USPS decades to figure out a vending machine could sell a stamp,long after private retailers had them selling tampons, songs, snacks, etc 3. Wouldn't single-payer mean that companies could no longer threaten working people with the loss of their health insurance? Why is this a bad idea? Anyone can buy a heath insurance policy or save for medical bills. The reason this threat exists is because government has used the tax code to make people get health insurance through their employers, because if the buy the policy on their own they pay taxes on it 4. The bigger the insurance pool, the better. So doesn't having a national pool, as with single-payer, make the most sense? Wow. Really stupid. So if we added to your pool of homeowner's insurance a bunch of people with vacation homes near a forest that has annual forest fires that would lower your rates? You are just dumb 5. Why should we be allowing politicians who are taking money from the medical industry to write the new health care legislation? You mean like Obama? A progressive group had to sue him to make him release the list of lobbyists he has met with. Big Pharma is behind his nationalized medicine, because they know they can force everyone to pay for more drugs through taxation, and better yet they can regulate upstart competitorcompanies and new drugs off the market 6. How can the Congress be developing a health system reform scheme and not even invite experts from Canada down to explain their successful system? What makes you an expert when your system has waiting lists for people longer than the one veterinary care has in the same country. That's like saying you should invite the KGB to advise you on prison construction 7. If Medicare--a single-payer system here in America--is so popular with the elderly, how come it's no good for the rest of us? Medicare is going bankrupt. That is one reason Obama wants nationalized health care where he can ration treatment to the elderly so they will die and stop costing money 8. Isn't it true that Medicare currently finances the most costly patient group--the elderly and infirm--so that extending it to the rest of the population--most of whom are young and healthy--would be much cheaper, per person? It would be more expensive for the healthy and young if you are taxing them to pay for the elderly and infirm 9. The AMA, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Insurance Industry all bitterly opposed Medicare in 1964-5 when it was being debated in Congress and passed into law, with the right, led by Ronald Reagan, calling it creeping socialism. It became a life-saver for the elderly and didn't turn the US into a soviet republic. Why should we give a tinker's damn what those same three industry groups and the Republican right think of expanding single-payer now? Such a dishonest question. If your analysis doesn;t take into account the looming bankruptcy of Medicare,then you are just another ignorant flak whore 10. The executives of Canadian subsidiaries of US companies all support Canada's single-payer system, and even lobby collectively to have it expanded and better funded. Why does Congress listen to the executives of the parent companies here at home, and not invite those Canadian execs down to explain why they like single-payer? You are schizophrenic. You cannot decide if it a corporation approving of something damns it or justifies it. Established corporations always want taxpayer subsidies, including for wages and benefits like health care.

President Obama seems to be a congenital liar, and perhaps a little more stupid than his fans thought. A product of a long process of social promotion and congenial B studenthood, perhaps. (If he would release his transcripts we would know.) Today he conducted a Potemkin Village townhall in New Hampshire, much like Stalin created fake Russian villages with fake prosperity and villagers ordered to smile and answer correctly to Western journalists. The New Hampshire Potemkin townhall was pathetic, with staged softball questions and a moronic analogy between his proposed public health option and the US Postal Service. Does Obama want us to think the public health option will suck more and more taxpayer money into a black hole, while providing shoddy service, little innovation, and being forced to close hospitals and leave communities with diminishing services, as does the Post Office? Does he think that the governmental Post Office was created AFTER FedEX and UPS came into existence, to keep them "honest" by providing competition? Leaving aside the Obama crew's failure to grasp that insurance companies provide a check on each other, as long as we are free to pick among them (and would provide more options and be more competitive if the government did not regulate them into uniformity with mandates and prevent them from competing across state lines for our business), what about the question of innovation? The US Post Office only managed to figure out a vending machines could sell a stamp decades after private retailers had been using them to sell gum, snacks, condoms, tampons and everything else. Governments do not innovate, and have little incentive to do so. And what of government's failure to innovate if we allow Obama to nationalize the 1/6 of our economy devoted to medical care? One of President Obama's recent statements about the furor he is facing from voters is that it's OK that nationalized medical care may mean old people (and others? the handicapped? disabled? incurable? genetically compromised?) will be strongly "nudged" (to use Obama team member Cass Sunstein's new Orwellian term for totalitarianism) to forego costly treatments and just take pain killers and expire without making trouble, because "we" already ration health care in that those evil insurance companies sometimes say "no" to such treatments. Of course one can always pick an insurance company that does cover what you need treated. Or you can pay cash for a treatment, even if that means mortgaging a house, borrowing from relatives, or appealing for donations. Obama is either dishonest or dumb in that he evades the way innovations happen, perhaps because he intends for innovation to end, or at least be strictly controlled by a federal government that will decide when any are needed. Innovators in a market economy usually create new products and services that are extremely expensive and available only to the wealthy initially, and then are made more cheaply by new competitors entering the market. A recent example being flat screen TVs or cell phones, once luxury items, a few years later, cheap and ubiquitous. Medicine is, or should be, no different, as such things as lasik surgery have shown. Most medical services, other than cosmetic surgery, today are provided in very heavily regulated markets, and paid for by government-controlled health insurance provided to employees through their employers because of the tax code. Consumers do not have the same control they do in their free market purchases where they shop and control the purse strings. As a result the medical technologies covered by current government-regulated insurance have not fallen in price as rapidly as lasik surgery. Overall health expenditures increased from 5.9 percent to about 14 percent of gross domestic product from 1965 to 2001 and to grow to 16.2 percent of GDP by 2008.1 Henry Aaron, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, recently asserted that medical spending continues to rise faster than the GDP because the population is growing and new medical technologies and therapies are constantly being developed to enable more people to receive treatment than previously possible.2 Professor Mark Pauly of the Wharton School of Business stated, “Basically, most of the data I know about indicates that the lion’s share—whatever that is—of the growth in medical spending per capita, even after you adjust for the aging population, is accounted for by what we call technology.”3 For example, before the development of hip-replacement surgery, an arthritic hip was treated with aspirin and a walker. Now a single hip replacement can cost from $20,000 up to $50,000 depending on age and the length of hospital stay.4 Advances in medical equipment also seem to drive medical expenses ever upward. MRI (magnetic resonance imagery) machines involve both heavy capital outlays and additional personnel. The average x-ray costs $80 while a similar MRI machine costs over $1,200 per examination. Unlike x-rays, MRIs can detect brain and muscular disorders.5 Obamacare plans to solve the problem of costs,not by deregulating and allowing consumers to shop as they do with lasik, but by denying you access to the new services. Obamacare means that new drugs, treatments, procedures and medical devices will not come into being. Perhaps we will have a somewhat more equal access to treatment (except for the ruling political class, like Congress, who are more equal than others) unless we are elderly or in some other group deemed socially value-less. But the care we will be receiving will never include anything that did not already exist in 2009. Notes Steve Eisenberg, medical director of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, September 19, 2001, at www.ssc.k12.mn.us/insuradvminutes.htm. Geri Aston, AMNews staff, “Medicare sound for now, but long-term outlook is gloomy,” April 17, 2000, Amednews. com: The Newspaper for America’s Physicians, at www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_00/gvl10417.htm. “Health Policy Discussion” from “Productivity in Health Care: The Value of Medical Technology,” AEI Conference, February 28, 2001, at www.newt.org/forum_aei_ health.htm. Leigh Hopper, “Hip replacement firm issues recall,” Houston Chronicle, January 23, 2001, at www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/788942. Mark H. Gurda, “Rising costs, September 18, 2000,” at www.healthinsure.com/rising_costs.html. Bruce Majors is an unpaid Tea Party community organizer Anarcho-capitalist pledged to eliminating the tax predator ruling class and their media whores

While they were there they had two medical issues show up.

1) Forgotten prescription for high blood pressure.
Went to clinic.
Saw doctor in less than an hour
Had an exam
Obtained prescription
Went to pharmacy
Paid 7 pounds for the prescription ($16 for the same drug that costs 5 times as much here)

NO OTHER COST ----And these guys are not Brits.

2) Fear of concussion. Son fell had some head involvement. Went to bed with a headache which was worse in the morning.
Went to the emergency room
Full exam
Observation
Pain reliever issued
Release

NO COST.

These guys are not Brits

I sure wish that I had as much because I do not have a job right now. IE I am one of the 47 Million that would rather have the health care than to have rich insurance executives.

I sure get tired of listening to the White Trash Temper Tantrum

:D

Ok: 1) They have tinkered with it. There are huge internal problems with the system. 2) Healthcare is not "rationed" in the US, it is just expensive. Hospitals in the US do not turn away patients, no matter what you've heard. The cost of these non-payers is shifted to paying patients. 3) No, it only means that another entity is in charge of it. In the first case there are other options available, in the second case, there are no other options. 4) No. This is a weak and statistically irrelevant point. 5) Why should we let politicians who are vastly increasing their power over the health and welfare of the population write health care legislation nationalizing about 20% of the US economy? 6) First, the Congress is much less interested in the power and money that this legislation moves under their control than seeking to benefit any single person. Second, Canada's system is not viewed as a working and desirable model by most in the US. It is viewed by most as a socialist system good enough for a second world country but not good enough for the US. Sorry. 7) Medicare is used because it is available and cheap. It functions in the US by underpaying the doctors and facilities below market rate. It thereby shifts the real cost of care to private insurance. It is parasitic on the US health care system and could not exist on its own. ANY doctor in the US will tell you how this works. 8) No. Medicare does not carry its own weight in and way shape or form. See answer 7 9) These groups were absolutely right them and they are right now. We are inching toward a socialist America and the decrease in quality of life attendant in that system. 10) I am an executive in a US company with Canadian offices. None of the Canadians I've ever talked with didn't think that US healthcare was of higher quality and that their own care wasn't rationed. If you bother to check, you will find that most large specialty hospitals in the US have a special department, in the case of my hometown, an entire wing, dedicated to servicing paying customers from countries with socialized medicine: the UK, Denmark, ..and CANADA. These are all the people who cannot get care in their own country. This is because their own system has failed them. Look below the surface of your "Workers Paradise" and you will see the dark underbelly of government inefficiency, corruption , favoritism and all the rest that goes with big government. These problems are easily available to you. Just google "Canada health care problems", and you will find more than enough evidence that the rosy picture painted by the socialists is little more than wishful thinking.

THESE are GREAT 'questions'/observations. As is usual, it's the question that makes ALL the difference. Start asking better questions, folks. The reich-wing fear-mongers have 'spooked' the herd and it's on the verge of 'stampeding' (just like '93). One PISSED OFF Viet Vet ('72-'73)

"Never stop questioning." - Einstein I have friends in both the English and French parts of Canada. Their take on heathcare. It works, period. Single payer is the only logical way to go. something my idiotic country will not do. Simply unreal but when one has a private financial system to run things, corruption, incompetence and bankruptcy is the rule. Very sad to see and yes, we have Woodrow Wilson to thank for creating a disaster that took 96 years to happen. 1913 - The Fed 1912 - The IRS Any questions?

doing actual public service would understand the benefit of single-payer. The ten points above are absolutely unchallengeable, an open and shut case. The advantages of such a system aren't just a direct benefit to all citizens, business would benefit as well. The trouble is more than half of our elected officials are only interested in the prestige of the office and/or to use that office for future significant financial reward. Actual public service ranks way down the list. Campaign support from the private health insurance industry, the private for profit health care industry and big Pharma are means to those ends. This goes all the way into the White House. Obama got more campaign support from the aforementioned in 2008 than any other candidate. Maybe that's why he never submitted a bill and seems willing to sign most anything. All Presidents are eager to have a legacy. What counts is the effect of that legacy. Too often in recent decades it seems that the attitude is not to leave behind a legacy but to possess a legacy. Big difference. If a President can boast that he/she got "reforms" passed they are happy that THEY have a legacy. Doesn't matter if those "reforms" were an actual benefit to the nation. This is one of the ways where office holders of our era differ from some office holders in the past. Not that the past was golden and motives pure. It wasn't. It's that in the past a larger percentage of elected officials actually ran for office for the sake of public service. Many felt that their legacy was connected with public good. I can't help but remember this little lesson. A place in the Roman Senate became a matter of prestige intead of service. Then they exempted Senators from taxation, then the Sentor's family, then the Senator's class ...

From the previous comments I read here, even so-called progressives can't get it together. The system you have now is broken but it makes the insurance companies,the pharmaceutical companies, private hospitals and other special interests rich. Do you think they will give all that up for the public good?? With the left pulling in so many different directions, you don't have a hope in Hell of making any changes. I think the U.S. is messed up in so many ways (economy, foreign policy, erosion of civil rights, increasing religious extremism, access to health care, etc.) that there is no real way to save it. We are witnessing the fall of an empire. Perhaps it is time. D. Roberts, Thunder Bay, ON

...is the sound made when empty-headed Red Staters and Birthers and Dittoheads attempt to think - which doesn't happen until their corporate health care providers deny them care deemed vital to their continued health and welfare.

What is needed, even more that "Medicare" for all or a Canadian style single payer health care system, though France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands all have mixed public/private systems and they work quite well. Oh, yes France has the number one health care system in the world. But arguing with the merits of single payer is not the reason for my post.

O.K., I digressed. What is needed is two amendments to the U.S. Constitution: One for the public financing of all elections, from the presidency on down to city dog catcher, the other overturning the corrupt 1886 Supreme Court decision on Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad which has been accepted by generations of business lawyers as conferring "person-hood" on corporations.

Two simple amendments to the US Constitution will change everything, remove all roadblocks to real progressive reform.

ET Spoon

HR 676 is essentially Single Payer Health Insurance modeled on Medicare. It has been around since 2003. (So at least it could not be called Obamacare.)

I am throwing my support to that proposal and would urge anyone interested in a fair and just single payer system to do so also.

Although the radical right is thoroughly fanatical in their opposition to HR3200 and the other new proposal via claims of euthanasia, free care for illegals, rationed care and so on, the truth is more worrisome.

It appears the new law may be nothing more than a private insurance welfare act which criminalizes those who do not have insurance while guaranteeing rising costs, high profits and exorbitant pay packages for CEOs and executives. Admittedly, there are a few bones thrown at the howling pack.

Look at HR 676. It needs some work, but the concept is sound and much better than the corporatist Frankenstein now being created:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.676: