Slides on healthcare for all
Here are some informative slides on HR 676 and national, single-payer healthcare. Use it for a meeting or just for informational purposes.
Download the Power Point slides here.
Here are some informative slides on HR 676 and national, single-payer healthcare. Use it for a meeting or just for informational purposes.
Download the Power Point slides here.
Finally, the time has arrived to fix Americas Healthcare crisis, and Americas healthcare nightmare. Hundreds of thousands of you are killed needlessly every year by your healthcare delivery system in a rush to profit. And because of a rush to profit Hundreds of thousands more of you are needlessly dying from treatable illness that people in other developed and civilized countries don’t DIE! from. Rich, middle class, and poor alike. Insured, and uninsured. Men, women, children, and babies.
Additionally, thousands more of you are driven into financial ruin, and bankruptcy just because you, or one of your loved ones got sick or injured. And all of this is happening at a time when America spends twice as much of it’s GDP (Gross Domestic Productivity) on health care than any other country in the developed world. Individual Americans spend about ten times as much on health care as any other people in the developed world. This is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. AND IT MUST END!
But before we can truly fix this healthcare crisis and disgrace, everyone needs to clearly understand what the problem is. And everyone needs to clearly understand the real enormity of the problem. The problem is that HEALTHCARE AND MEDICAL DELIVERY IN AMERICA IS SEVERELY CORRUPTED AND COMPROMISED BY GREED! AND THE PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MOTIVE. And it is corrupted, and compromised IN EVERY ASPECT, AND EVERY PLACE OF HEALTHCARE AND MEDICAL DELIVERY. Unfortunately for all Americans, compromised healthcare ALWAYS results in needless suffering, injury, disability, and or death. Which is exactly what is happening now in America in shocking numbers.
Health care is NOT! a private for profit business. Healthcare is an essential public service. Like police, and fire. And healthcare is also a human right! PRIVATE FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE IS AN OXYMORON, AND AN IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL PERVERSION OF HEALTHCARE AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
So how do we fix this healthcare disgrace? I believe the fix for Americas healthcare disaster is essentially the same thing that every other developed country in the World has essentially done. “NOT FOR PROFIT, TAX PAYER SUPPORTED, SINGLE PAYER, AUTOMATIC, FREE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE FOR ALL”. Essentially HR676 (enhanced, and improved medicare for all). Just like every other CIVILIZED! country in the developed World has. There is no other way to truly fix and reform our current disastrous healthcare delivery system.
All Universal health care systems work best when everyone participates. But I know that the healthcare lobby, and some politicians will try and undermine “Not For Profit, Tax payer supported, Single payer, Automatic, Free Universal Healthcare for all” by falsely claiming that it will limit your choice, and require you to participate.
So, I propose that everyone be included in the national plan unless they choose to opt out. If you opt out and need medical care the national plan will insure your provider that they will be reimbursed under the rules for members in the national plan. But those who opted out, and their insurer will be responsible for the FULL! cost to the national plan for providing your care if you or your private insurer fails to reimburse the provider or the national plan in a timely manor to at least the standards of the national plan.
Including reporting you to credit agencies, withholding of taxes, leans, and garnishment of wages for unpaid medical bills. Just like you have now under private for profit healthcare, and private for profit health insurance.
Further, people who opted out will be required to provide proof of financial responsibility for future illness or be required to participate in the national plan. And everyone with children will be required to participate in the national plan. Or provide proof of insurance coverage on each child to the standards of the national plan. It will be against the law to report anyone in the national plan to a credit agency for unpaid medical bills.
Frankly, only a dope would want to opt out of the national plan and opt to keep our current disastrous private for profit medical, and insurance plans. But they will be free to choose. The most important thing is that the vast majority of Americans that want the protection, benefits, and higher quality of a universal national plan have that choice.
You see, one of the most important aspects of a universal healthcare system is easy access, and patient protection. This is accomplished by having a single payer without a conflict of interest in patient care. And by having a payer who has the power to enforce minimum standards of excellence in healthcare delivery for everyone in the plan. This is much of what Medicare does now for senors. “Aeger Primo” (The patient comes first). Unfortunately in our healthcare system the patient comes last. We are just a peace of meat to them. Cash cows to be slaughtered for profit.
So this is IT! my fellow Americans, My fellow human beings, My fellow World Citizens. And my fellow Cyber Warriors. :-) The time has come. D day. H hour. HEALTHCARE REFORM THIS YEAR! Let no one stand in our way. Contact your representative and tell them you want “Not For Profit, Tax Payer Supported, Single Payer, Automatic, Free Universal healthcare for all. And tell them you want that choice now. Tell them you want President Obama’s budget passed without delay. President Obama’s budget is brilliant. And exactly what is needed now.
President Obama, and his allies will need all the support you can give them. The healthcare lobby will try to take out his people if they can, like they did with Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer. And they will try to neutralize President Obama’s popularity, and political power. Or they will try to take him down someway. Don’t stand for it. If they attack him. Go after them ten times harder and remove them from office. We had an election. And you the people chose President Obama’s leadership, and change agenda. Let no one in government disrespect the will of the American people and remain in office.
SPREAD THE WORD! And talk it up with your families, friends, and coworkers. Keep ratcheting up the pressure until there is a ROAR! across America for “NOT FOR PROFIT, TAX PAYER SUPPORTED, SINGLE PAYER, AUTOMATIC, FREE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE FOR ALL”.
Let’s get this healthcare reform done now my fellow Americans. This year. Take no prisoners.
God Bless All Of You
Jack Smith — Working Class :-)
http://jacksmithworkingclass.blogspot.com/
(http://jacksmithworkingclass.blogspot.com/)
I do not want universal Health Care.!!!!! We can’t afford it as a nation and I don’t want some board or group cutting health care treatment because the cost is too expensive for the government to pay. We will not get the brightest minds entering medicine if everyone get paid the same. We will all have to stand in line for the most routinme of care. If Medicare is going bankrupt—how are we going to pay for and sustain this massive buracratic program????
Brenda,
The “brightest minds” already in health care are drowning in paperwork from the multitude of private insurers, and rather than being able to make their own decisions about treatment, they are restricted by what those insurers will cover. Look at what the doctors themselves have to say about the sickness of our current system at http://www.pnhp.org, and see that once free of strictures of medicine based on profit, more of those brightest minds will want to enter a field in which they are assured of good salaries and the ability to practice medicine.
Illnesses are not arrested or cured, the sick can no longer work, they lose their jobs and their homes, and they have to somehow fold into the Medicare or Medicaid systems, at which point the costs for treatment are far more than they would have been in the first place. Are you aware that medical issues cause the majority of bankruptcies—many of which would have been avoided if the high cost of medical insurance (that covers less than we realize) and restrictions on treatment weren’t the norm in this country [http://public-healthcare-issues.suite101.com/article.cfm/medical_bankruptcy_epidemic].
If you think the nation can’t afford universal health care, take a look at what private insurance costs us in taxes to reimburse those companies for Medicare Advantage programs and unregulated drug costs. Long lines for routine care are urban myths of the free-market fearmongers [http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/canada.asp].
This “massive bureaucracy” you’re worried about is much more efficient and cost effective than private insurance administration. Even those against single-payer health coverage (which is what is really at issue here, not the mis-named “universal” health coverage) make arguments against Medicare that actually show its lower costs: “This study, based in part on a technical paper by Mark Litow of Milliman, Inc., finds that Medicare’s actual administrative costs are 5.2 percent, when the hidden costs are included. In addition, the technical paper shows that average private sector administrative costs, about 8.9 percent – and 16.7 percent when commission, premium tax, and profit are included – are significantly lower than the numbers frequently cited” (from Medicare’s Hidden Administrative Costs: A Comparison of Medicare and the Private Sector, January 2006). Please note those costs for “commission, premium tax, and profit.”
Ultimately, Brenda, health care shouldn’t be a for-profit business. These aren’t televisions and curling irons we’re talking about here; it’s people’s health and lives.
Brenda,
The latest Congressional Budget Office numbers are that universal, single payer health care would actually save $350 Billion dollars a year. This is in comparison to the Obama/Baucus/Kennedy plan that would keep the insurance companies but would cost $1.5 Trillion dollars over 10 years.
As an example, I’m on the board of a non-profit that offers insurance, but prays that no more of our employees will elect to enter our plan. It costs us $1000/month per employee and right now only about 10% of our employees are covered. With single payer everyone would be covered, but we’d save about $20-30,000 a year. Think about all the tax money you’d save if your city, school board and state government were in a single payer system. Vashti Winterburg, Lawrence, Kansas
i have lived in Canada and the system was okay. I have been in France and their health care is good. I just do not think that people need to be required to buy this health care. If they don’t want to do not make them. If they don’t want to they most likely are ready to pay cash or go to another country or state to get care. Also if people dont want this I am okay with that, just let the indians set up private funded through their rez clinics. Without corperate insurance in the way. It would be another good thing for the indians besides having the casinos.
I’m wholeheartedly in favor of Single Payer, and have been for many years.In Calif. a Single Payer Plan got on the ballot, passed through all the departments in the legislature, but was vetoed by Gov. Schwartzneger. The Presl. has said he favored such a plan, but the Corporate Powers of Insurance Companies, Pharmaceutical Companies and other “Corporate interest groups who own the Corporate Media, and have put money in the Congress Members pocket won out. Now, these interest groups are tearing Obama apart on the Media and no one knows the difference, because that’s the only news they get. It looks like we’re not even getting the Democratic administrations watered down version. So, how in the world could we ever come close to getting a Single Payer Plan when all these big monied Corporate Interest Groups own the media? I’m all for it, but how can we do it? Jeanne F.
We need to encourage President Obama to go down swinging for Single Payer and then start over. At the moment, he looks like the smartest kid on the playground trying to negotiate with the school yard bully. We all know the bully does not respond unless he is punched in the nose and embarrassed.
We now know which Democrats are not supportive of his progressive politics and we go after them in the next election. We use the FCC to require media companies, as part of their license to use our public airwaves, to provide free TV ads during all congressional and Presidential elections. Free from the need to kiss up for the big money, we can elect Democrats who place people before profit.