former Bush speechwriter: 'we have only ourselves to blame' on HCR passing. 'it's Waterloo, all right; ours.'

This is an absolute SUPERB summary, with fantastic & concise insight on the passing of health care reform, from the perspective of an honest Republican. Dead. On. See original post at David Frum's really nice blog, Frum Forum. - sj


Waterloo
March 21st, 2010.
by David Frum

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

Follow David Frum on Twitter: @davidfrum

59% in favor of health care reform; 30% against!

from Daily Kos, last Friday...
(click here for original post, w/ hi-lighted links in post)

Digging into the Polls on HCR: Public Wants Stronger Reform
by mcjoan

Barry Sussman, editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project at Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, goes beyond the headlines screaming public opposition to healthcare reform.

Comes now (Feb. 26-28) a McClatchy/Ipsos poll of 1,076 people that on first glance offers rocks to sling at Obama. The lead question asks, “As of right now, do you favor or oppose the health care reform proposals presently being discussed?” Forty-one percent said they favored them, 47 percent said they were opposed, and the rest said they were unsure. Those are numbers the Republican leaders could work with.

But the pollsters went a step further, asking those opposed – 509 people in all – if they were against the proposals because they “don’t go far enough to reform health care” or because they go too far. Thirty-seven percent said it was because the proposals don’t go far enough. Thus – are you ready for this? – the addition of an obvious, simple follow-up question completely turns the tables. The overall numbers switch to 59 percent in favor of health care reform, 30 percent against. Putting aside those with no opinion, it becomes 66 percent in favor of health care reform, 34 percent against. Some would call that a consensus, or these days, a super majority.

Whoa, what happened here: a plurality against health care reform actually is a landslide in favor of it? In the same poll? If other surveys turn up similar data, will Republican leaders stop citing public opinion as the basis for opposing Obama’s health care legislation? Fat chance.

The poll did find resistance to key measures in the legislation. Seven of ten interviewed said they opposed putting “new taxes on the most expensive insurance policies;” six of ten opposed “a government requirement that everyone buy health insurance.”

There is still the opportunity to maximize the popularity of what ends up passing in the reconciliation package--make reform stronger with real competition for insurers, make sure the excise tax does not hit the middle class, and offset the mandate with some kind of public option, possibly Medicare buy-in. There's very strong policy and political arguments for making this bill as strong as possible--the 66 percent of Americans who want reform being no small part of that. That's a message the Blue Dogs particularly need to hear.

I suppose these folks are part of the 30% against health care reform! - sj

This is great. Posted without comment.

no room for the weak: a tough & rough day for concerned Americans...

what...a fucking...day. here are my thoughts on the good, the bad, and the ugly from today.

the Good: Obama and his team have instituted real regulation on banks to stop their corrupt practices of using taxpayer money to take unnecessary risks for their own profits.

This is a victory for all americans, and should go far to help ensure a collapse like we've seen during the end of Bush's term, doesn't happen again. as I understand it, some of these rules are not dissimilar to the controls put on baks after the great depression.


the Bad: SCOTUS struck down a DECADES-old ruling, which restricted corporations from spending money on political campaigns.

So much for there not being 'activist republican judges' on the bench! This sucks for americans, and really, is just more proof of how corrupt the republican party is: we know the overwhelming majority of large corporations favor the Republican platform of tax sheltering, steering lobbies, and putting profits ahead of working americans. It's difficult to argue, w/ unfathomable precedences liek this, that we are not "a government for the corporations, of the corporations, and by the corporations."


the Ugly: The WH, Senate Dems and many other Americans were hoping to have the Senate healthcare reform bill passed by the House of Representatives within days or weeks, and get it to Obama's desk before the end of February. There were to be guarantees by President Obama, that the government would work on partnering w/ the house, immediately after signing bill into law, to satisfy some of their demands, and changes they wanted to make to the Seante's version. Why the rush? because the new GOP Senator from MA, Scott Brown, was going to vote against it, in effect killing it, due to Senate not having enough votes, by the time the House amended the Senate's version (this was a huge blunder by the Obama administration, to not put "high - priority" status on this MA senate seat, both to find a better candidate, and ensure a dem victory. No way in a thousand years does Hillary Clinton make this mistake). Pelosi announced today, ""In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House," the speaker said. "I don't see the votes for it at this time. The members have been very clear." Moving forward, it's anyone's guess as to WHAT will happen next.

Guess what? The Senate's HCR bill sucked. I'm a Dem and deemed it week, and didn't want it to pass. Most progressives, many liberals, and hardcore Dems feel the same way. I consider this a win. Let them go back to the drawing board, and re-craft a REAL healtchare/insurance reform bill, that has a public option, no mandate, and (gasp!), perhaps even a single-payer plan! It will be better for ALL americans in the long-run!

So...what's the 'ugly' part? Do I really need to tell you? Let me (not) count the ways. In a nutshell, Republicans will use this to drub the democratic party into submission, for failing on their #1 goal, and they will win back many seats in the House and Congress this year, and almost lassuredly, the Presidency in 2012, along with more congressional seats.

This was ANOTHER mistake Obama and his team made, boren out of inexperience, to hang his entire presidency on passing HCR. NEVER, would Hillary Clinton make that same mistake. Obama, simply couldn't imagine the size and scope the battle would be, against the greed-frenzy corporations and their gigantic lobbies-monster.

...is it time to pick up the kids from school yet?!

Top 10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Healthcare Bill

Firedoglake is a leading progressive blog and consistently represents some of the best, most honest, investigative and thoroughly-researched reporting, writing, analysis and opinions on leading issues of the day, the internet has to offer. For real, for real. I discovered them during the Patrick Fitzgerald/Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby Trial, when one of their reporters/writers ("emptywheel" perhaps?) live blogged daily, direct from the courtroom (no audio or video devices were allowed in courtroom or to be used for reporting). It. Was. Awesome. Never mind, "Survivor" and "Grey's Anatamoy," THAT trial, was ridiculously-high drama! Recently, FDL has outpaced everyone else out there, with their analysis, research and reporting on "all-things" Healthcare/Insurance Reform. Between the staff at FDL and one of my all-time favorite writers/reporters David Sirota, it's become crystal clear to me, this HCR Bill is complete bullshit, and should be struck down, in it's current form. Obama and the Senate Dems should be ashamed of themselves for trying to pass this off on the American people. I will be posting more factual, 'must-read' pieces from FDL in the future. Here is one from a few weeks ago, and if you click on original article (on HuffPo; I couldn't relocate it on FDL's site), you can view th entire story/background for EACH of the folowing 10 points. Get clued in Y'all - knowledge truly is power!-sj



Jane Hamsher
Founder, FireDogLake
Posted: Dec 21, 2009

At Firedoglake.com we've been covering the health care debate extensively for months now and have put together an incredibly knowledgeable team. So I asked our expert-in-residence Jon Walker, our health care reporter Dave Dayen, analyst Marcy Wheeler and the rest of our team to help make it simple: how do we let people know what's going to happen to them if the Senate bill passes?

Everyone put their heads together and came up with a list:

Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not.

2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.

3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can't afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.

4. Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.

5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.

6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits -- like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions -- until 2014 when the program begins.

7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.

8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.

9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.

10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year -- meaning in 10 years, your family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

Background information on each point:

1. Hardship Waiver And Restrictions On Immigrants Buying Insurance Undercut Arguments For An Individual Mandate, by Jon Walker

2. What's in the Manager's Amendment by David Dayen

click HERE to read/view all 10 of these articles for each point, as 'click-able' links (which are not displayed as links here), and also sign the very user-friendly petition (!) to kill this Seante bull. ..er, I mean bill. And here is the outro...

The Senate bill isn't a "starter home," it's a sink hole. It needs to die so something else can take its place. It doesn't matter whether people are on the right or the left -- once they understand the con job that's about to be foisted on them, they agree. That's why Harry Reid and President Obama are trying to jam it through as fast as they can, before people get wise. So email the list to your friends and family, tweet it and spread the word.

Healthcare Reform Bill is "In Da House, Boy-eeee!"

The Healthcare bill is IN Da House, as we speak. An unprecedented day for America. You can follow it throughout day on huffington post's 'almost-live' blog here, or any number of blogs on the cx3 blogroll. You can also follow, live, from various tweeter feeds, directly from reporters in the chamber, here: @oknox and probably Ana Marie Cox's twitter feed: @anamariecox

I'd call this a coin flip, this vote passing: we already know every miserable, healthcare insurance-backed republican will vote against insurance for 40 million Americans, and even some Dems. But wow, what a day/weekend if the House could pass this thing!

Alan Grayson (Dem Congressman, FL) cuts straight to the chase!

smacking down the GOP, w/ humor! - sj

Bill O'Reilly down w/ a government option for healthcare insurance?

Using only Glenn Beck's own words, Glenn beck lies.

This is great folks. Even Glenn Becks followers MUST take pause after watching this. Seriously. You owe it to yourselves to stop listening to anything this birth damn fool ever says (cumbersome vid: give it a chance to buffer; totally worth it) - sj

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Glenn Beck's Operation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

Hi All, this is a fantastically informative piece, and I promise you, you will learn something. I decided to post the whole thing here (click on headline above, for original article); I know it seems long on this blog format, but it's not. Prolly take you less than 10 minutes to read it. I didn't even want to take the chance that some click on link to get rest of story (if I only posted a part of it) and got a broken link or couldn't get to whole article. - sj

the Washington Post
By T.R. Reid
August 23rd, 2009

As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:


1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.

In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.


2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.

In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.

Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.

As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"


3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.

U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.


4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.

Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)


5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.

Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.

T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post reporter, is the author of "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care," to be published Monday.

What's not to like about health-care the way it is? Everything is just fine!

What's Not to Like?
Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.
by Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Jul 31, 2009

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I'm just a regular guy and definitely deserve less.

I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition."

click here for whole piece.

Compelling facts and analysis from an expert and friend, ranting away on healthcare..

So here's a rant/a few replies to some "know-it-not," from a new, brilliant friend of mine who recently completed law school, and is now getting her PhD in cellular & molecular biology/virology; she has a clear understanding about the current state of affairs with regards to healthcare and healthcare reform, and what American needs. She's also read lots of the different currently-proposed bills out there. - sj

"...Now onto what I like about the Health Bill Proposal, in a word, everything. What I like most is the objective of the bill a socialized medicine system. I take no issue whatsoever with the implementation plan proposed. I support this plan because medical bills cause more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies.

..Furthermore, it seems to me to be a much smarter idea to have the government being a "middle man" between ourselves and our health care provider, than insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It is simply bad news to have your health care supplied, managed and paid for by someone with a fiduciary interest in your being sick. What is better about having a government official in charge? At least in a government run plan you can elect people to represent your interests. Try influencing what Aetna will cover. Go ahead, try.

...It is in the government’s best interest to keep you healthy so you can work and pay taxes. It is Aetna’s best interest to charge you the most that they can while covering the least stuff they can get away with. Also, the coverage determines the health care you can even have access to because if Aetna doesn’t cover it you are not getting it done.

...I have never heard anyone suggest that we should privatize fire companies, the post office, or the police forces. That being said, some people choose to hire private fire companies or security agents or send something via UPS. My point is that similarly there will always be private insurance companies for people who want to pay more because for whatever reason they prefer that kind of care, but if Obama’s bill passes, there will be insurance for us poor schulbs who cannot afford to pay $1200 plus a year to a company that has a financial interest in our being ill.

You can be general, I just mean don't cite blogs, or FrontPage news. Discuss the content of the bill why exactly you don't like it. Also you misquoted me and misunderstood the part you misquoted. I wrote "It is simply bad news to have your health care supplied, managed and paid for by someone with a fiduciary interest in your being sick." And them went on to note that insurance company express their financial interest by restricting and limiting often essential coverage. Hospital and Doctors certainly want us to be ill because they are for profit institutions. If we are not ill we do no need them. Unlike government which has no interest whatsoever in getting our "sick business." I find it very interesting that the US is one of the riches countries in the world and was ranked 37th out of 191 countries by the World Health Organization in the quality of their health care.

(see here for official site)

...At the top of that list? All nations with socialized health care systems. France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan. We were also beat by:
Norway, at 11th .
Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica and Cuba– 22nd, 33rd, 36th and 39th in the world, respectively.
Singapore, ranked 6th.
In the Pacific, Australia ranks 32nd overall, while New Zealand is 41st.
Let's not forget the Middle East and North Africa: Oman is in 8th place overall, Saudi Arabia is ranked 26th , United Arab Emirates 27th and Morocco, 29th."

Let's talk about great healthcare around the world

"All that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies."

The Swiss Menace
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 16, 2009

It was the blooper heard round the world. In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor’s Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” because the National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”

Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, was not amused.

Besides being vile and stupid, however, the editorial was beside the point. Investor’s Business Daily would like you to believe that Obamacare would turn America into Britain — or, rather, a dystopian fantasy version of Britain. The screamers on talk radio and Fox News would have you believe that the plan is to turn America into the Soviet Union.

But the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland — which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.

Let’s talk about health care around the advanced world. Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens.

click here for the rest

CBO expert states preventive care will rise - not cut - healthcare costs

I've stated this many times, and I will again: during Bush's 8 years of destroying America, no one's numbers, analysis and measured foresight was more accurate than the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO), with regards to spending on wars, bailouts, defense, infrastructure, economy, security, and on and on. The CBO did an amazing job of impartially stating things how they saw it, and informed all of us what things would cost, and how those costs - or cuts - would shape the years, and decades ahead. I trusted them then, I trust them now. And as much as I want universal healthcare for every american, a public option, competition for the corrupt healthcare insurance industry, etc, now might just not be the time. The CBO won't be going away any time soon (it's their job to shed independent light on congress's machinations), and seriously, the bottom bottom bottom line is this: there is only so much fucking money. It would behoove Obama and the Dems to listen to the CBO. As a liberal dem, I WANT them to listen. The stakes are extremely high for this healthcare reform fight; and Americans, the Democratic party, and the status quo, can't afford the dems screwing this up; not now, or for the years to come. - sj

Congressional Budget Expert Says Preventive Care Will Raise -- Not Cut -- Costs
from ABC News
by Jake Trapper, ABC News Sr. WH Correspondent and the ABC News WH Team
August 09, 2009 9:27 AM

In yet more disappointing news for Democrats pushing for health care reform, Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, offered a skeptical view Friday of the cost savings that could result from preventive care -- an area that President Obama and congressional Democrats repeatedly had emphasized as a way health care reform would be less expensive in the long term.

Obviously successful preventive care can make Americans healthier and save lives. But, Elmendorf wrote, it may not save money as Democrats had been arguing.

"Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall," Elmendorf wrote. "That result may seem counterintuitive.

click here for the rest

Sick for Profit

Check out this preview of Sick for Profit. If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention.

The Real Problem with The Senate's Small-State Bias

The Real Problem with The Senate
(click on above link for awesome piece)

This is an analytical report/study/article (complete w/ awesome graphs!) detailing just how campaign contributions from corporations influence policy-making, w/ special detail on the current healtchcare reform initiative, and committees writing legislation, and why certain house/senate members - by name - are "in the way." Also included: a complete list of the source of campaign funds for all 100 senators follows below. - sj

here's an excerpt:
"As you all surely know, the Senate is not a terribly democratic institution. A voter in Wyoming -- population 533,000 -- has about 70 times more ability to influence the Senate's direction than one in California -- population 36.8 million. And the lack of representativeness can be particularly acute when the Senate is conducting business at the committee level. Max Baucus's Table for Six, for instance, which may very well determine the fate of efforts to reform health care, is made up of members who collectively represent about 6.5 million people, or around one-fiftieth of the country's population.

This in and of itself is problematic for Democrats, since there is a correlation between the size of a state and how Democratic it tends to vote in elections for national office, although the relationship is not as strong as you might posit (Rhode Island, Delaware and Hawaii are small states too). The bigger and more structural problem, however, may have to do with the ways that small-state senators raise funds, and in turn, whose interests they are beholden to."

"...This goes a long way toward explaining, however, why the Senate tends to be more protective than the House of corporate interests -- be they in the form of bank bailouts, tax breaks, or whatever else (consider, for instance, that H.R. 1424 -- the second take on the bank bailout -- was approved with the votes of 74 percent of the Senate but just 60 percent of the House). We don't need vague notions about the "cultural" differences between the two chambers to explain this -- they have mostly to do with where the money is flowing in from."

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Health bill inches forward in House

an informative, quick read, on where we are right now. click on title of post for complete report - sj

Health bill inches forward in House
Erica Werner
July 30th, 2009

House Democrats pushed ahead with a compromise health overhaul Thursday over liberals' complaints, intent on achieving tangible – if modest – success on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority ahead of a monthlong summer recess.

"We've got to pass the bill. Not only do we have to, but we're going to," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the last of three House committees to act on the sweeping legislation.

There was late-night drama in Waxman's committee as an anti-abortion amendment passed when conservative Democrats joined Republicans to support it – then failed less than two hours later when Waxman used a procedural maneuver to bring it up for a second vote.

In the intervening time one conservative Democrat – Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee – changed his vote from "yes" to "no." And a second conservative Democrat who hadn't voted the first time – Rep. Zack Space of Ohio – voted "no." It was enough to take the amendment down on a vote of 29 to 30.

The measure would have specified that health care legislation moving through Congress may not impose requirements for coverage of abortion, except in limited cases.

click here for the rest

Krugman: Govt. involvement is only reason health care system works at all

Paul Krugman does it again, keeping it simple, stupid. click title of this post for whole story. - sj

Health Care Realities
by Paul Krugman
NY Times
July 30th, 2009

At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”

It’s a funny story — but it illustrates the extent to which health reform must climb a wall of misinformation. It’s not just that many Americans don’t understand what President Obama is proposing; many people don’t understand the way American health care works right now. They don’t understand, in particular, that getting the government involved in health care wouldn’t be a radical step: the government is already deeply involved, even in private insurance.

And that government involvement is the only reason our system works at all.

The key thing you need to know about health care is that it depends crucially on insurance. You don’t know when or whether you’ll need treatment — but if you do

click here for rest of story