Killing People for Fun and Profit

Stephanie Woolhandler, M.D. of Harvard Medical School testified before the President’s Council on Bioethics this past week about her experiences with [non]health care in Amerika. The council was created in 2001 to ‘advise’ the president on bioethical issues arising from advances in biomedical science and technology. 

Single-payer, “Medicare for All” type reform is drastically needed as the US falls farther and farther away from the so-called ‘Modern World’ in terms of the general health, life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality rates, and the sheer number of hard-working citizens who will die without any medical care at all because they simply have no access and cannot afford it.

“I’ve seen people die because of co-payments and deductibles.”

There are an estimated 47 million Americans with no insurance. And as more and more of them are losing their jobs and their homes as the economy descends into depression, that number will rise dramatically. An estimated 18,000 Americans Die every year because they have no health insurance or money to pay thousands of dollars’ worth of deductibles and co-pays for the junk insurance they do have. Fully one half of personal bankruptcies in this country are the result of getting sick or injured. 76% of those filers HAD insurance when they got sick or injured, but the deductibles and co-pays bankrupted them anyway.

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Health Insurers On The Warpath

As the economy continues to slip deeper into recession and the Presidential race becomes ever more one-sided in favor of real change, America’s Health Insurance Plans [AHIP] are hitting the road to defend their practice of “Murder By Spreadsheet.” Or, as one energetic activist calls the offensive, the Deceive America Tour.

AHIP is the trade and political lobbying association of DC insiders and overpaid executives for the health insurance industry. The industry that has wrecked health care delivery by bankrupting public hospitals, been targeted for racketeering suits under RICO, routinely refuses to pay claims while throwing families into bankruptcy, and continues to cripple American business competition in foreign trade with nations whose businesses do not hold primary responsibility for citizens’ health care costs.

2007 estimates of the number of uninsured Americans reached more than 75 million adults - 42% of all adults age 19 to 64 were uninsured or ‘underinsured’ - and the US has fallen to 47th in the world on life expectancy at birth. This week AHIP launched its Campaign for an American Solution tour in Columbus, Ohio, purporting to have A Plan to cure America’s health care woes without having to pay for any sick people’s actual health care or forego their profit margins, golden parachutes, luxury limousines and multi-million dollar salaries.

AHIP calls it a “listening tour” outreach, which means they’re quite likely to encounter some loud protests wherever they go in this effort to protect their bottom lines from reality. The speculative futures market in human suffering is just far too lucrative to lose, and the insurance hacks illegally practicing medicine these days have no intention of backing down.

Please check out the tour schedule for when these folks will be coming to your area, then you may wish to contact one of the single-payer activist groups listed below to lend your presence to the protests. It’s well past time for America to join the modern world.

National Organizations:

Physicians for National Health Program
Guaranteed Health Care [California Nurses Assn/Nat. Nurses Organizing Committee]
Health Care Now
Everybody In & Nobody Out

Everybody In & Nobody Out supports state organizations working at the grassroots level for universal care, and offers links to those state organizations. You can also find lists of state groups in your state at the other national organization sites.

Limbaugh Does Sit-Down Comedy

For those of us who find Rush Limbaugh more offensive than funny, who have encountered his hoards of dumbass “Ditto-heads” with double-digit IQs, and who have suspected for years that there’s some weird kind of connection between butt-boils, Oxy-induced head cheese and those 4+ hour Viagra erections (what a Rush… hahaha), his graduation into the rarified realm of genuine comedy was a little bit surprising.

I mean, it’s not like his fans are capable of getting the joke, even though it is aimed at their sub-sub-average ‘least common denominator’ and all. But there it is on the June 24th transcript in all its deliberately offensive glory. Which those of us with more than two brain cells to rub together will certainly appreciate in the midst of our grief for George Carlin’s recent death.

It’s sort of a parody of the many talking heads out there on ‘real’ TV who keep race-baiting but aren’t quite sure how to do so without ending up like Imus. About 2/3 down the transcript page you get the full act, Limbaugh and his fictional sidekick character Bo Snerdley (”Official Obama Criticizer) on whether Obama’s got any “slave blood” in his veins. My favorite clip…

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Obama Steps In It, Hillary Jumps On It

…and the Dems now look like fools.

Speaking about the people of rural Pennsylvania - site of the next primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Obama said on Friday…

“…it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Aside from the fact that this statement is 100% true of small town and rural people as a general demographic - as one sociological reason that rural dwellers so often vote against their own best interests after being swayed by propaganda fluff from so many GOP “values candidates” who don’t practice what they preach - Clinton’s smear team was poised and ready to make as much hay as possible about how “elitist” Obama has revealed himself to be.

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4,000 And Counting…

The Associated Press reported on Easter Sunday that the American Death Toll in Iraq Reaches 4,000 after a roadside bomb killed four soldiers in Baghdad.

At least 61 other people died across Iraq on Sunday, but the U.S. is not keeping any official records of how many Iraqis pay the ultimate price for the ‘freedom’ we have brought them. …and bought them, at a price so far to American taxpayers of ~$600 billion.

Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, J.P. Morgan upped its bid for the bankrupt Bear-Stearns investment bank to $10 a share, 5 times the negotiated price agreed upon last weekend just in time for the Tokyo stock market opening on St. Patrick’s Day. The unprecedented bailout of an investment bank that is not a member of the Federal Reserve system was seen as necessary to prevent a worldwide financial market meltdown. The Fed is guaranteeing Bear-Stearns’ worthless investments up to $30 billion (of American taxpayers’ money).

Speaking of American taxpayers’ money, the Bush administration assures us that the $200 - $600 in tax rebates set aside earlier this year in hopes of stimulating the economy (perhaps we’ll all go out and purchase shares of J.P. Morgan?) will be mailed in May. Perhaps this will come just in time for millions of soon-to-be homeless Americans to buy a nice three-room tent to live in during the warm summer months. If they’re very careful with their budget, some of those families might save enough to buy kerosene space heaters for their tents before winter!

The Sky is Falling! …Oops

Bear-Stearns Bailout: Billionaires 1, Taxpayers 0

Hat Tip to The Bonddad Blog

This video consists of clips of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson lying his ass off on George Stephanopolis’ Sunday talk-fest (you can tell he’s lying because his lips are moving, but pay attention to his “tell” - how he blinks, stutters and shakes his head when he tells lies, negating what he’s saying. The man just cannot defend bailing out a speculative investment bank - the fifth largest in the country - while doing precisely zip to help the citizens who are losing their homes to this mess.

Which, unfortunately, is only going to get worse as more greedy billionaires who haven’t paid any taxes since Bush exempted them get the people they’ve screwed (US citizens) to bail them out of their bad decisions. If the US taxpayers have to bail out the billionaires, shouldn’t we also make them pay some taxes? How about refinancing their homes at a flat 4% for 30 years, as if they’d gotten those loans from a fed-guaranteed lender (since that’s now who owns the paper)? How about wiping out THEIR debts?

I like this “Hillbilly Report,” thought readers would find it refreshingly truthful too. Enjoy!

The Health Care Plans: Worthless

Now that I’m over my disappointment in the sudden withdrawal of John Edwards from the nomination race, I’m back to officially “undecided.” I’ve reservations about both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, beginning on the policy side with health care.

Since both Clinton and Obama developed their plans while taking large campaign contributions from insurers, it’s not surprising that their plans are “insurer-friendly.” Both involve mandates requiring citizens to purchase health insurance from an insurance company. Both avoid highlighting problems with the way insurance works as the reason our system is in such outrageous disarray.

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Corporate Media versus John Edwards

We in the political blogosphere who have a low opinion of the various celebrity puppets, talking heads and pompous clowns of the major news organizations used to call it “Mainstream Media” - MSM for short. Not really wondering why they always echoed right-wing talking points, or make bad attempts to pass off blatant propaganda, disinformation and Britney’s latest pantyless booze-binge as real news.

Now the buzzword is “Corporate Owned Media” - COM - for short. COM is actually more accurate, given the major media’s heavy-handed attempts to control the 2008 primaries (as well as which Democrat we’ll get for President in November, since Republicans don’t have a prayer). But these last couple of weeks definitely take the cake.

I am complaining about the decision of the COM to pointedly ignore John Edwards as a viable candidate for the Democratic nomination and pretend that the only ones running are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Despite the FACT that after 1 primary and 1 caucus (of 49, Michigan doesn’t count), John Edwards BEAT Hillary Clinton in Iowa and the delegate count is very close. The split works out thusly:

Obama: 25
Clinton: 24
Edwards: 18

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John Edwards and “Dead Liver Girl”

Wow. Just… wow. Those Moonies at the New York Post have once again proven themselves to be as evil as their megalomaniacal leader (you know, that rich Korean nut case who swears he’s Jesus Christ), taking on John Edwards and the parents of Nataline Sarkisyan in a radical hit piece entitled Edwards’ Evil Insurance Scam - I kid you not. The subtitle is even more demeaning - “Twisting Tragedy of Dead Liver Girl.”

Dead Liver Girl? Oh, for pity’s sake! Nataline’s parents contacted Edwards’ campaign headquarters after their daughter died. She died because Cigna Insurance Company denied her doctors’ pleas for a liver transplant to save her life, saying that liver transplants are “experimental.” They reversed their decision when the California Nurses Union and Armenian activists demonstrated at their headquarters, but by then Nataline was already dead. The Sarkisyans appeared at a health care forum in New Hampshire with Edwards, and have come out in support of his candidacy as well as his plan to provide health care to all Americans.

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CA Court Nails Insurance Scam

There is some slight good news on the health care front , which is encouraging after the bad news last week of Nataline Sarkisyan’s unnecessary Murder by Spreadsheet. A California appeals court has ruled that insurers cannot arbitrarily cancel health insurance policies when the covered person gets hurt or ill.

Yes, that does happen, and has been happening often enough over the past decade that the judicial system is now very much involved. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana further ruled that insurers cannot cancel policies unless they can demonstrate that the policyholder willfully misrepresented his health on the application, and that the insurer had investigated that application before issuing the policy.

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