Thursday October 15, 2009, 3:40 pm
I thank my friends for respectfully noting this . . .

But more?

I'd appreciate your comments and feelings.

Thursday October 15, 2009, 3:46 pm

Ya know . . .

The man stepped up, bravely, and told truth.

You HAVE to admire him for that -- because it took great strength!

(and also Palast -- who is MY HERO!)

Thursday October 15, 2009, 3:49 pm

It never ceases to amaze me how this country's earliest settlers stood up against formidable opposition and are, to this day, admired and oft-quoted . . .

but the cowardice of present-day citizens, who will not repeat that bravery!

Thursday October 15, 2009, 3:51 pm

(Mind you, being of Native American descent, I'm not particularly fond of the "founding fathers;" however, I cannot overlook their extreme devotion.)

Thursday October 15, 2009, 4:01 pm

From the article:

"So what's the Rx? Easy: Kill the pigs and call the fire department.

The only solution to Loss Ratio piggery is to kill the pigs: eliminate health insurers from the health industry entirely.

We can't cure our ills, as our president has attempted, by attacking the problem ass-backwards. No, Mr. Obama, we don't need HEALTH INSURANCE for everyone, we need HEALTH CARE for everyone. There's a giant difference. Instead of concentrating on PAYMENT, we need to focus solely on providing the health SERVICE.

From my London days writing for The Guardian, I can tell you the British do NOT have national health insurance. They have a National Health Service.

The government builds hospitals, hires doctors and, when you need the service, you just go and get it. It's kind of like the fire department. When your house is on fire, you don't call your fire insurance company, you call THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. We care first about the service, not the payment.

The British government hires the doctors, like firemen, and Brits use them, like firemen, as they need them.

It works. My mother-in-law, a nurse, on a visit to England, was stunned at the speed, quality and absence of mad paperwork to fix her broken arm.

But, you might say, that's, that's SOCIALISM! Well, yes, it is. And I'm not afraid to use the S-word: Socialized Medicine. Just like America's Socialized Fire Departments. (Fun fact: socialized, i.e. publicly funded, fire departments were 'invented' by the revolutionary Ben Franklin.)

And Yes We Can get socialized medicine passed into law.

Really. It's simple: we sneak it in with the kids.

We can learn from Lyndon Johnson's sale of Socialist Medicare. Johnson knew that no one could argue that Granny do without a doctor. Can the "Pro-Life" Republicans now tell us that pregnant moms and children ages 0 to 3 should be denied care? Therefore, to the Medicare program for those 65-or-older, we simply add "Kiddie Care," for those from Negative 9 months through age 3.

But instead of the wallet-busting Medicare system, in which doctors and hospitals are paid for each suture, bag of blood and pat on the head, Kiddie Care will be provided by Kiddie Care Service salaried doctors.

How do we get doctors (who now AVERAGE $240,575 a year) to take well-paid, but not pig-paid, posts? We grab'm while they're young. We pay doctors the full cost of their medical education; and we treat them as humans during internship, not as in the current system where interns are treated as medi-slaves. In return for the public paying for their medical education, the public gets the young doctors' ten-year commitment to work for the health service at a reasonable salary.

That's not my invention. The free-education idea for staffing a national health service had long ago been proposed by that wily old dog Ted Kennedy. (Damn, we miss him.)

Once the first wave of three-year-olds are about to turn four and their families face having to buy them health insurance, these millions of parents will become an unstoppable army of lobbyists screaming for the extension of Kiddie Care to age four, then to age five, then to age six and so on. Get it?

Yes, Mr. Limbaugh, I am another bleeding heart trying to sneak socialized medicine into America. Yes, I am trying to rid us of the "free-market" insurers who are causing the bleeding. Health insurers are as useful to our health care system as a bicycle is useful to a goldfish.

Free-Market Fantasia

There ain't no such thing as a "free market" in medical care, as there is a free market in food. You can eat peanut butter instead of dining at Maxime's. But you can't tell the surgeon, "No thanks, I can't afford a new kidney this week - I'll just have a broken arm."

A free-market for-profit insurance system means that, when you need a new pancreas, your fate is left to an insurance company computer programmed by Franz Kafka, Dr. Kevorkian and his accountant. It's you versus the Medical Loss Ratio. Good luck.

In olden days, doctors would attach leeches to suck a patient's blood. Today, we have insurance companies' Medical Loss Ratio. Both can kill you. If Obama and America want to end this sickness in the body politic, start with Dr. Kennedy's sure-fire cure: a national health service for kids - and get rid of the bloodsuckers.

* * *

I Quit: A Personal Note

I learned of the Kiddie Care solution during my brief and ill-starred tenure at the Center for Hospital Administration Studies at the University of Chicago "Billings" Hospital. I couldn't make up that name. Years later, they hired Michelle Obama as their vice president for community affairs.

In my time, three decades ago, "Billings" handled the affairs of that poor community by shipping the uninsured, sometimes bleeding, to poor-folks hospitals. One wounded patient died on the poverty shuttle.

I quit, and swore that one day I'd write about it. I just did."

Thursday October 15, 2009, 4:03 pm
One comment said it all....the People don't need Health Insurance....they Need Health CARE! Requirements with fines to purchase health care premiums in everyones hands only give the Insurers more monies so they can buy bigger homes, certainly doesn't stop them from denying health care and medical procedures needed.
I'm thankful, so very thankful, for those who are standing up and trying to be heard....now where is the rest of the people? Why isn't everyone in the streets with the torches and pitchforks yet?
Thank Carole, hope more can at least add an opionion.

Thursday October 15, 2009, 4:05 pm

Thank you, Sheryl!

The American citizenry deserves as much as they DEMAND!

Thursday October 15, 2009, 4:28 pm

A "leader" of this country, who does not care about the fact that (every 12 minutes) a citizen is dying from lack of medical insurance, is NOT a leader . . . he is an ADHERENT.

Face it, and demand better!

Thursday October 15, 2009, 5:03 pm
Kucinich & a few others have said time & again that Healthcare HAS to be single-payer-Medicare-for-all to Really be effective & Economical! Doctors would Have to take those Medicare/Medicaid patients that they can Legally turn away today! And Health "Insurers" would have to go into another line of work - maybe they could hold Wall $treet Baron$ hostage instead? The Ins. Agencies could Gamble, I mean "insure" that the Dow Jones will go up Forever, even without Jobs?;)

Thursday October 15, 2009, 5:13 pm

Any representative of any value, who truly cares about American well-being, has advocated single-payer!

Kucinich (above all others) is a man I respect. He has sacrificed a higher position to adhere to his standards. Please listen to reason, folks.

The rest is propaganda. Our country is the ONLY developed country that does NOT recognize the right to healthcare as a human right.

Doesn't THAT tell you something?

Thursday October 15, 2009, 6:53 pm
Kucinich is going to be on Jay Leno tonight. Noted

Friday October 16, 2009, 1:01 am
Why is it so hard to get universal health care?? Noted, thanx Just C.

Friday October 16, 2009, 8:03 am
Thannxx... time the big health insurance companies got thrown under the bus... so that we can have the short route to better care... and a system that suits all.. Thannxxx to those that stood up and got counted in the war against words regarding the health debarcle..

Friday October 16, 2009, 9:33 am
Make that a LARGE BUS.....better still a train loaded with ALL the BS the lobbyist have spread around the air waves and internet.May we can put the birthers,Climate change nay sayers on board to really give it some weight.GIVE ME SINGLE PAYER OR GIVE ME WHAT I HAVE NOW! Death with a Large Bill attached.Time for the left to find its spine that Dear Old Ronnie pulled out many years ago.We need to stand up for not a little part of the truth but all of it.Standing up for a little civil rights did not work after the civil war.Getting a little heath care will not work now.We are one nuke in an American harbor from going back to the Bush years. We better grab it now.

Friday October 16, 2009, 12:08 pm
I just don't get why people are buying into the Republican scare tactics. Canada has a decent (not perfect) healthcare system and we are ANYTHING BUT Socialist. Insurance is paid to the government and is based on what each family can afford. Sure, the cost of healthcare nationally can be pretty staggering, but at least access is needs-based and not based on ability to pay. The insurance companies and pharmas are still gouging us and poisoning us and thriving quite well in spite of it; and as shown, recently during the economic decline, there have been no catastrophic failures in those sectors.

Why is it so hard to decide this one? In simple terms, I think if we were asked to pitch in 5% of our incomes to ensure no one had to go without basic medical treatment most of us would gladly contribute. Why do we need to complicate this by adding in corporate interests. It's not about them......

Friday October 16, 2009, 12:22 pm

I don't get it either, Karen.

I watch CSPAN coverage of the House and Senate proceedings on a regular basis. This week, they are concentrating on healthcare reform.

How ANYONE can hear the individual stories about how taxpayers flock to last-minute "free clinics," because they cannot afford to pay the exorbitant rates of insurance companies; and many of them are found to be afflicted with problems that, if they'd been afforded early detection, could have been averted -- and can STILL believe that healthcare shouldn't be regulated is BEYOND ME!

I can't help but consider that type of thinking to be "ignorant" (at my most considerate).

Friday October 16, 2009, 1:57 pm
Gotta love Wendell Potter

Saturday October 17, 2009, 1:30 pm
As a fellow Canadian I do whole heartedly disagree with your assessment of our country Karin .... We are indeed socialist and it has quietly seeped its way in over years of government controls and decision making on behalf of the Canadian people. We are a Democratic Socialist country but we are a socialist nation. All of our programs are government run and all decisions that may be important to Canadians are made by the government and our courts .... We have lost many freedoms over the years because they were taken from us with out a fight and most of the time we never even noticed them gone - they just were ....

Saturday October 17, 2009, 1:39 pm
In canada health care is paid by property taxes if Im correct and it takes at least awhile to go see doc...is that correct also???? Norhtern Im sure you can awnser this one for me. My hubbys family is or are newfi's from St. Johns and I think that is what one auntie told me...but she lives on the Big isle now...

Big Gorilly Hugs

B

Sunday October 18, 2009, 11:02 pm
"Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed. " Albert Einstein