the answer to corporate power is organized people.

Bill Moyers writes: the only answer to organized money is organized people. That would be one hell of a reformation.

Read his essay on how well-heeled lobbyists for the insurance companies and banks are undermining needed reforms.

The essay is linked here.

Let Congress Go Without Insurance

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, a New York Times columnist, writes:

We accept that life is unfair, that some people will live in cramped apartments and others in sprawling mansions. But our existing insurance system is not simply inequitable but also lethal: a very recent, peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health finds that nearly 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance. That’s one needless death every 12 minutes.

When nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, we began wars and were willing to devote more than $1 trillion in additional expenses. Yet about the same number of Americans die from our failed insurance system every three weeks.

The obstacle isn’t so much money as priorities. America made it a priority to provide tax breaks, largely to the wealthy, in the Bush years, at a 10-year cost including interest of $2.4 trillion. Allocating less than half that much to assure equal access to health care isn’t deemed an equal priority.

The entire article is linked.

Stand up for health insurance CEOs-real American heros!

Health care crisis grows while Congress delays

There is a health care crisis in America.

Every day 14,000 people lose their health care coverage.

According to the latest Census Bureau report the number of people with private or employer-sponsored insurance has declined precipitously, while the number of people relying on government insurance programs including Medicare, Medicaid, the children’s insurance program and military insurance rose for the 8th straight year.

Despite all the controversy over the need for a public plan almost a third of all Americans (29%) who have health insurance are already on one!

The share of adults aged 18-64 without health insurance rose, to 20.3 percent in 2008 from 19.6 percent in 2007.

The share of children who were uninsured actually fell, to 9.9 percent from 11 percent in 2007. This was the result of the federal government’s special efforts (a public option) to insure low-income children, SCHIP which was originally vetoed by the Bush administration.

In a speech last Thursday to promote health care reform, President Obama referred to the census survey and said that things had grown significantly worse since September 2008 when this data was recorded. “Over the last 12 months, it’s estimated that the ranks of the uninsured have swelled by nearly six million people,” he said.

More Americans die every year because they don't have access to health care then die from Parkinson's, homicides and HIV/Aids. The lack of health care is literally killing people and Congress is wasting time on debating imaginary death panels!

The lack of universal health insurance is undermining American families and the economy.

Half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by the lack of health insurance or inadequate coverage. $104 billion is lost in productivity from shorter life spans and $103 billion in productivity from poor health. Put another way we lose $4500 in lost productivity for every uninsured person.

This country cannot afford to wait while Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats, all of whom have comprehensive government financed health care, dawdle in Washington DC.

The American health care system is broken. It is the most costly in the world while delivering mediocre results.

President Obama and the United States Congress need to enact healthcare reform that includes a public option so that health care costs are reduced and all Americans are insured.

We're number 37!

Former Labor Secretary explains need for Public Option

Hilarious response to attacks on health care reform

Obstructing Health Care Reform Is A Money-Maker

If you are wondering why some Democrats are not supporting President Barack Obama's health care reform initiative follow the money! It leads right from those who profit from the current bloated and bureaucratic system that leaves 50 million American uninsured right to the Blue Dog Political Action Committee which has collected $1.1 million for the 2010 election cycle.

People might voted for reform in November, but as we approach the dog days of August, its business as usual for the Blue Dog Democrats.

Monica Sanchez writes:

Blue Dogs, as ‘fiscally conservative’ Democrats are called, are falling well in line with ‘the right's delay and kill strategy’ towards health care reform. As The New York Times reported:
“Fiscally conservative House Democrats forced leaders of their party on Tuesday to slow the pace of work on major health care legislation so Congress and President Obama could address their concerns about the cost of the bill, its impact on small businesses and the shape of a proposed new government health insurance plan...

“‘The seven of us cannot support the current House bill,’ said Representative Mike Ross, Democrat of Arkansas, who is the point man on health care for the Blue Dogs. ‘Whether it requires a new bill or whether this bill can be amended, those are decisions, I guess, for the parliamentarians to help us make.’”

Congressional Quarterly also highlighted the ‘friendly fire’ threatening the Democratic health care reform bill in the House:

“Moderate ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats are starting to show their potential influence on the health care overhaul being written in the House. And top dogs in the House are taking note.
“‘There’s no doubt in my mind that if the Blue Dogs join with the Republicans they can bring this bill down,’ said Rep. Henry A. Waxman, chairman of one of the committees that’s been working on the health bill.

“The Blue Dogs, a 52-member coalition, are a closely watched group, as they have threatened to block approval of the House bill (HR 3200) unless it is modified to meet their concerns about its policies and cost. House leaders have been struggling to woo enough of them to assure passage once the bill goes to the floor.”

But putting a wrench in the works may not be just about differing values. It has proven very lucrative, according to Congressional Quarterly Today: “Democrats in the Blue Dog Coalition might have drawn the ire of party liberals for putting the brakes on the fast-moving health care overhaul, but their political action committee has been raking in contributions from business interests with an eye on reshaping President Obama’s signature initiative.

“The Blue Dog Political Action Committee has collected $1.1 million for the 2010 election cycle, more than any other leadership political action committee on Capitol Hill, according to CQ MoneyLine.

“The total includes about $300,000 from health care interests, including $158,000 from doctors and other provider groups; $87,000 from makers of drugs and medical devices; and $50,000 from health insurance interests.”

Which begs the question, just whose interests are these ‘Blue Dogs’ representing? If you are one of their constituents, let them know you expect them to stand up for your need for affordable health care now by supporting the House health care reform bill as introduced.

Ryan health plan raises taxes and protects insurance and drug companies

On May 21, Congressman Paul Ryan released his “Roadmap for America’s Future”, which includes a health insurance reform proposal that is nearly identical to the one proposed by Senator John McCain.

The proposal has been widely praised by Republican commentators and has elevated Ryan's status among the party's elite. Local talk show radio hosts have used the proposal to promote Ryan's long shot vice presidential candidacy.

Ryan's health care proposal is neither new or courageous. If adopted, it would move the country further away from quality, affordable health care for everyone.

It starts by adopting McCain’s proposal to count the value of any employer-provided health insurance as taxable income. The average comprehensive family health insurance policies cost at least $10,000 a year. So families would have to pay taxes on this amount added to their regular wages.

What will they get in return? A tax credit or payment of $5000 for a family so they can buy their own insurance. What a deal! You pay more taxes and get a credit that buys at best half the cost of a good family health insurance policy. This is health care reform?

Ryan adds other measures as well: the virtual elimination of state standards for health insurance policies, promotion of Health Savings Accounts (which means high yearly deductibles with pre-tax income—if you have enough), and totally inadequate access for those with pre-existing conditions to get the health insurance they need in the private “market”.

Remarkably, Ryan has little to say about controlling spiraling health care costs which are at the root of the nation's health care crisis.

Ryan only real proposal aimed at controlling health care inflation is to provide the public with more information about doctor and hospital pricing. Economists call this increased transparency. And who could argue with that?

But this is not a new idea and it won't reduce rising health care costs because it does not address the primary cause-the market dominance of the for profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies and the profit maximizing behavior of non profit health care providers that raise costs and distort resource allocation.

Economist Robert Kuttner who studies the inefficient U.S. health care system has observed:

"The extreme failure of the United States to contain medical costs results primarily from our unique, pervasive commercialization... Profits, billing, marketing, and the gratuitous costs of private bureaucracies siphon off $400 billion to $500 billion of the $2.1 trillion spent, but the more serious and less appreciated syndrome is the set of perverse incentives produced by commercial dominance of the system."

Ryan's proposal leaves this entirely dysfunctional and inefficient structure that is dominated by insurance, pharmaceutical and large oligopolistic health care providers intact.

The Ryan-McCain approach to health care “reform” is topsy-turvy. It does not improve the current unfair, inefficient, and unsustainable health care system. Instead, it proposes to subject even more people to the tyranny and capriciousness of insurance industry dominated health care. It leaves families dependent on the mercy of insurance companies and their insatiable appetite for profit. It presumes that quality of health care will improve, but leaves that to the magical workings of the “market”. It shifts even more costs to health care consumers without a real mechanism for reducing health care costs.

"I suppose this is a good proposal if you want John McCain to choose you as his Vice Presidential running mate,” said David Newby, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “But if you want health care reform which guarantees that everyone will have affordable access to the quality health care they need, you’d better look elsewhere. We don’t need Ryan/McCain tinkering with our broken health care system: we need broad reform which guarantees that everyone in America gets the health care they need, regardless of income or health status.”