Letters to the Editor
-
Universal Reversal
As with everything else, Bush is stubbornly and foolishly holding his ideological ground on this, showing exactly where he's at on this: profits over patients.
If the GOP wasn't so wedded to for-profit healthcare insurance, they'd seek universal coverage and scuttle the Democrats (who're too timid to really push for it) -- the party that actually pushes for it and does it right (e.g., looks at the rest of the First World and takes the best from those systems and finally establishes health care as a human right for all Americans) -- is going to have a built-in and broad constituency of voters for generations. The Republicans really can't embrace it, and the Democrats won't -- or worse, ala Clinton, will push for compulsory private health insurance instead of universal healthcare.
But this matters...
47 million Americans uninsured (and counting)
100 million Americans without dental insurance (and counting)
...and with the Baby Boomers getting older and sicker, the demand for healthcare reform will get ever louder. The SCHIP scandal (and Bush's veto really amounts to a scandal, as well as the inability to override that noxious veto) is certainly the opening salvo.
Look for plenty more advertising by the insurance industry to defend their loot (probably earning the revenue for ads from all of their denials-of-coverage). Look for false reform as a way of diverting the public's very real desire for true reform. Look for the eventual dissolution of the political party that fights universal healthcare, or doesn't make it a cornerstone of its platform.
-
Healthcare??? Join The Boycott!
By the way, Janalu is absolutely right. The medically uninsured and underinsured represent a very large reservoir of infectious disease microbes that present a threat to everyone.
And now, my main topic...What's with this newfangled world "healthcare"? My spell checker underlines it in red, indicating that it 1) constitutes improper usage or 2) the spell checker is so 20th Century (the spell checker also underlined "spellchecker" when I typed that by mistake).
Aren't we really talking about universal medical insurance? We either take care of our own health or not, depending on diet, exercise, sleep, etc. and what we are really interested here is getting some medical attention in cases of serious disease or injury that will not result in personal bankruptcy. Aside from using it to protest the term, I'm boycotting "healthcare" and annoyingly correcting everyone who uses it in conversation.
I invite all who value precise use of language to join me.
-
It's called equity drawdown
All those boomers sitting on homeowner equity - - - all those mortgage lenders in trouble. Here's the solution. The bank takes your home, lets you live in it, and they create an annuity on the equity value of your home and pay it out to your health care and long term care providers directly. It's actually a kind of dark communism that many of you support anyway. You don't own your home, there's more or less universal coverage, and everyone spends down until it's all gone. Works for me.
-
Bush's weakening grip
I would like to read more political reporting about this case. Why is the President choosing this as a fight? The costs of this program are miniscule compared to other budgets. He could have embraced the legislation, claiming it as his own while reanimating his compassionate conservative masquerade, meanwhile giving Republican politicians something to add to their upcoming campaign brochures. From a distance it appears he is engaging in class warfare. It is not enough that the rich have become obscene, he must keep the crumbs from the urchins. Where is the anticipated political gain from this?
I think this is posturing on Bush’s part, to show he still holds claim to the throne of the Republican Party. But in reality it shows that his grip on the throne is slipping, and may be loosened entirely by this episode. History may show that this was his last great blunder.
-
Cool, More 2008 attack ads
My creative advertising dreams: One film to relate the ever descending raison d'etre of the Iraq war. WMD, Nuclear warheads send to Peoria from Bahgdad, Saddam is bad, Let's create a purple fingered democracy, damn those AL-Queda terrorists that 'slipped in' when we were not looking, terrorist insurgents, we have to protect the Sunnis, we have to protect the Shiites, we have to protect the Kurds, We have to counter the Iranian presence, We have to save the Kurds from the Turks (oops, that is next weeks diatribe). How flipping gullible are these 30% of our population?? Second film: Oh gods, thank you for the self destructive tendencies of the Repubs. Veto health care for kids?? Can we play that against the Bush clip where he is meeting his backers, "the haves and the have mores"? Since everyone loves a pie chart, can we show in film clip three the federal debt increases this idiot has accomplished. I suggest that the next frame shows the monkey in chief under his mission accomplished banner. Good work Georgie boy, you have bankrupted another 'company' your dad gave you to run. Oh and lest I forget, the lead in on ad three has to be the surplus amount that this idiot of a President started with. When we all wake up from 'binge boy' Georges'dry alkie management style, we damn well better have a high threshold for pain. It will take Hillary 8 flipping years to put us back to the solvency we had in 2000. My only hope in all that is still to come: that the conservative neo fascist wing of the republican party, along with the right wing religious zealots are pummeled into political oblivion. Is that too much to ask???
Bill
-
Quick Note On The Myth of a "Free Market" HealthCare System
Healthcare cannot be improved by the magic of the "free market" because those forces DON'T work on hospitals.
Can hospitals turn away emergency patients based on ability to pay?
No.
(Note: in order for "free market forces" to work you can't be forced to "give away" products.)
Can hospitals "mass produce health" in abundance to drive down price?
No.
(Note: whereas you can find efficeny in mass production in the free market manufacturing widgets -- you can't do that with illnesses/accidents and/or pandemics)
Quick question for those old-timers still shaking their wrinkled fists in the air and ranting about "those damn commies" ---- who actually pays the ER hospital bills of all those working poor who default?
In a "free market" if a company lost $50 million a year because people defaulted on their ER bills the company would go bankrupt.
So who pays when Mr. $8/hr gets $75,000 worth of ER services because he was shot during a mugging at the gas station he worked at --- and then defaults on his bill because he can't pay it?
What is the "free market" solution?
Who pays?
Hint: there is a reason that single tablet of aspirine you got at the hospital was billed at $145.