Doctors, the good people who fix us when we’re hurt, want a single payer type system. It really makes a lot of sense, because doctors take a Hippocratic oath to do their best to help people. Yet the current system of U.S. healthcare does not allow this. They are taking a road tour across the U.S. and will be in Washington D.C. later this week.

They are articulate, smart, and they want to do their job, yet the current U.S. healthcare (rapid-insane-profit-before-people) system does not allow it. I’ve talked to doctors who have expressed outrage at the current system as one doctor said that he was bored as he didn’t have any patients and went into the waiting room and was astounded that it was filled with people, some of whom needed urgent care. So he spent the next 5 hours in the waiting room treating patients. He said that while it was rewarding – since people were really happy to get treated, he understood that the front desk operated as a gateway – by checking insurance and also slowed down the process (sometimes stoped) of getting health care to people that needed it.

From their website https://madashelldoctorstour.com

Mad as Hell

You CAN handle the Truth

“There’s no nice way to say it. The financial cost of health care is killing our citizens, hobbling our economy, crushing small business, and threatening the solvency of our government. In the meantime, the Health Care Industry is spending almost two million dollars a day lobbying Congress and manipulating public opinion to accept “reform” legislation that leaves a vicious, for-profit system intact. The “public option” is a trap. We need real reform that finds immediate savings, controls costs, and accomplishes the moral imperative of true Universal Access. A Single Payer plan is the only real path to a Health Care System that is socially, ethically and fiscally responsible. And yet, our elected officials refuse to even discuss the possibility of a Single Payer plan!

If that doesn’t make you mad, we recommend checking your pulse.”

Call your congress person, blog, talk to people, write the editor and stay healthy!

We as People do need to talk to others about the myths and flatout lies that are being disseminated. If big insurance wins, America will loose a lot in the coming difficult economic times. Check out this link.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

Here is an interesting clip about Single Payer healthcare. A single payer system would be great! It would be really nice to join the other developed industrial democracies. Go Rep. Anthony Weiner! Thank you for taking a stand. You rock! (The federal government and local governments do a really good job at providing police services, 911 services, roads – they’re great. Medicare does a really good job at insuring the other folks. We should have a public plan to cover all Americans.)

We need a public plan in the United States. I would contribute to it, instead of my private health insurance. Private health insurance is really doing a lot of damage to the United States by putting illogical, selfish, dangerous, overly emotional aspects into the national dialog. It would leave the United States very vulnerable if we do not have a public healthcare system that does not cover everyone.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Americans had the choice to have a low cost health insurance option that would allow all people to be covered – just like all the other developed countries? Let’s hope that this administration will care for its People, as opposed to catering to insurance corporations. Start making your videos and embed and send them to others, including our dear Representatives. Talk to People! The insurance companies sure do have a lot of power. Let’s work on getting the Peoples’ voices heard.

While President Obama was elected on the mantra of “Change”, will it happen?  There was that super-secret meeting with Washington DC with our Representatives and members from the Healthcare Insurance Corporate sector.  A national, universal healthcare – type of coverage would increase America’s security and safeguard the lives of all Americans – instead of just the poor or older people currently covered.  Isn’t it weird that the people who contribute the most into Medicare – working people (taken out of paychecks) don’t get coverage, and instead (may) pay into a private coverage plan that may or may not cover services that are needed.  Take a look at what the good doctor has to say.

Epidemics inflict horrible, damaging and lasting effects on all aspects of society. In times like these, we need to think about the government’s role in society. Here’s the BBC link looking at the origins of the Swine flu http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8021947.stm
You’ll have to watch a commercial before, but the report is good.

In the interconnected world that we live in, it’s interesting how the U.S. corporate media machine remains true to its (insurance company and advertising revenue) corporate bias. Could the same be said for our policy makers and legislators?

Governments around the world are looking at how the swine flu could potentially inflict large casualties within its respective population and are moving swiftly to contain the danger and safeguard the population. There is a major difference between the U.S. and other countries. In almost all the developed countries, all citizens are covered with some type of either health insurance or healthcare. The U.S. remains one of the only first world, developed, industrial democracies that continues to deny its population healthcare. This type of policy allows insurance companies to continue to profit off the population and this type of policy can be devastating to the security and health of the United States.

The once prosperous world leader has continued its decline in healthcare, at the same time that costs have continued to rise at a much faster rate than the other developed countries. Even developing countries that have recently joined the top 30 per capita GDP nations, like Brunei and United Arab Emirates, have some type of universal healthcare to safeguard their citizens.

As I read in the morning paper that recent travelers to Mexico have been quarantined and monitored in other developed countries like Spain, I wonder if Americans realize that it is likely that citizens in other developed, first world democracies have their healthcare costs covered. People in these other countries still have the choice to supplement their health insurance with private company coverage, but their policy makers have realized the importance of keeping the country and population secure by insuring that all people are worthy of healthcare. (Oddly enough, in the United States, only older people and poor people, who may or may not be citizens, get healthcare. Guess which corporate lobby ‘helped’ this policy come to being.)

As our news pundits continue to ignore the importance of universal healthcare, and instead convince their viewers that they should continue to pay for high prices, and that they shouldn’t have to cover healthcare for others, remember that we shop in the same stores, walk down similar sidewalks and perhaps sit next to the uninsured in crowded theaters.

What would an epidemic do to the general population of the United States and how would it fare compared to other countries that have universal healthcare? The U.S. already does have a basic infrastructure that can deploy medicine and vaccines across the country. The federal health department has already declared a state of emergency and shipped flu medicine from its federal stockpile to the states. Which is more important: health insurance corporate profit or the health of the population?

Something to consider.

P.S. Also keep in mind that because of recent media conglomeration in the last 15 years, we have less diversity and choice within the realm of broadcast TV and radio stations. Because of this conglomeration, corporate monopolies and their ‘subsidiaries’ have grown (too large to fail?) so that in some cases, radio stations may be owned by a corporation that also sells health insurance.

Instigated by our new president, it appears that Congress recently voted to extend the broadcast digital TV transition from February 17 to June 12th.  It has been estimated that 6.5 million households are not ready for the transition.  In contrast over 45 million people do not have healthcare insurance.Isn’t it amazing how quickly some bills can be passed through office?  I found myself wowed at the speediness of our lawmaking process, finding it interesting as to how different initiatives pass with lightening speed, while others do not.  As another speedy example, the Department of Homeland Security was created within both the Executive Branch and its subsidiary committees within Congress within days, while the U.S. has been lagging behind all the other developed countries in healthcare, something that affects all Americans.  It seems that something like the well being of the country is logically and tightly intertwined with the security of the country.  It can not be denied that germ warfare has had a prominent place in U.S. history.

The U.S. is the least prepared for an airborne bacterial or viral national outbreak when compared to all the other developed and even some developing countries.  Airborne germs do not discriminate between those individuals with health insurance and people without it.  The U.S. society environment is also very different than ever before with many Americans loosing their jobs and their private healthcare coverage, while also at risk of loosing their houses.  These combined issues are putting the whole country at tremendous risk and exposing it to undue vulnerability as those who do not have health insurance will continue to shop at the same grocery stores, walk down the same sidewalks, and send their children to the same schools.  A national epidemic would be devastating to our population and to the economy.  Why haven’t we talked about these situations, and is it worth it for the sake of profit for private companies?

Perhaps we need to rethink our system, and can we deny that part of this system is supported by commercial broadcast TV?  While the insurance, media and healthcare industries have powerful lobbies, the large companies with the strongest lobbying power don’t seem to have the ability to utilize sound accounting. The nature of this particular, system is also placing an undue strain on our economic resources, as our tax dollars go to bailing these industries out.

The Commerce Committee’s Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet stated that television delay was needed to ensure that the transition would not be a failure.  While the transition has been planned for years, it seems that the numbers of people affected could be damaging to the country.  “It is unfortunate that Congress had to take additional action on this issue, but the prospect of leaving millions of consumers in the dark was simply unacceptable.” (AP, Tessler, Feb. 6, 2009)

If only the lives of 45 million Americans without healthcare would generate such rapid healthcare legislation.  The country did vote for change in the last election.  Just a few things to think about.

A large portion of the U.S. working population pays a Medicare tax, but many people have seemingly been convinced that they should not benefit from this tax, that instead it is for the poor and the old. It’s quite different from the other countries. Do you think that Americans would like to feel more secure in their healthcare system and they just don’t know about what the other countries are doing, or do you think they just like to pay a lot of money for healthcare? There’s one other time that comes to mind when Americans did not like they were paying taxes into a government that did not represent their interests. Can anyone remember what happened?

How do you think you formed your ideas on healthcare? Have you traveled outside of the United States? Have you benefited from healthcare in other countries? In what way? I heard that there are insurance companies in the U.S. that will fly an American to get healthcare in India because it’s more cost effective.

Why not have universal healthcare? It makes sense on a lot of levels if you think about it. I am puzzled by the current legislative debates on healthcare because they seem to be catering to the insurance companies, opposed to the People who live in their respective districts.

Healthcare in the United States does not seem to be efficient or cost effective, nor does it seem to be very humane. While Americans pay the most in the world for healthcare (and the U.S. dollar is falling, so we really pay a lot!) not all citizens receive quality care. What’s really odd, is that most working People have Medicare taken out of their paychecks, yet often also pay for private, for-profit health insurance. Doesn’t that seem odd for a democratic country? Just something to think about. And discuss!