Since we all want to get health some (any?) kind of health reform" we are being told by Washington insiders to set aside our advocacy for single payer and join in with the kumbaya negotiations with enemy (AHIP) to get 'er done. Sure, as a matter of policy and economics, single payer is the best way to reduce and control costs, and also get to universal comprehensive coverage. However, as a matter of realistic power politics, I am told by the powers that be that we can't do it this year, so we should settle for what is doable.
Okay. I'll bite. Let’s get the best plan we can get with 50% plus one in each house of Congress. And as usual, that means 51 Senators, since we have a larger and more probably liberal majority there.
But can we please please stop pretending that we can or should "negotiate" with AHIP? This idea that the private insurance companies are compromising is nonsense!
Ron Brownstein provides some happy talk in the Atlantic regarding talks between SEIU Andy Stern and Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade association. Supposedly, there is a convergence around the goal of "universal" coverage with progressive calling for "guaranteed issue" while the insurance companies get "individual mandates." They are of course opposite sides of the same coin. The insurance companies would have to sell you an insurance plan product; the police power of the state would require you to buy it.
Brownstein does point out that the "only" thing left to negotiate is "affordability." Gee. Is that all?
Community rating is the term for setting the cost of a plan (your premium) based on everybody in the same insurance pool, and not basing it on your individual risk. It ends the practice of most insurers in most states charging different customers different prices (not just premium, but also deductible, copes, exclusions, etc) based on age, health status, location. This is important since even if they have to sell it to you, and even if you have to buy it, if you have a serious pre-existing condition (i.e. are actually sick and need care), they may charge you a million dollars to buy the plan. Or exclude your prior condition. Or set a million dollar deductible. Or 50% copay. Or whatever makes it so they can still make a profit, even if they have to sell you plan and you have to buy it.
Therefore, community rating helps a bit with this, though once again the devil is in the details. What is the community, that is the pool, on which your plan rate is set? Is it just the small company who is your current employer; in which case, one person getting sick increases the rate a lot for everybody? It is always better (for we the people) to have the community pool be as large and unselected as possible. Of course, the best would be a single big insurance pool covering all Americans. Hmmmm... I wonder if there is a name for something like that...?
Of course, if there were also a broadly available public option, open say to everybody, then the insurance companies would have to compete for your business.
Actually it was pretty funny reading Brownstein's Atlantic piece about Andy Stern/SEIU trying to find common ground with Karen Ignagni/AHIP, having just read the NY Times a day before reporting just the latest collapse of the phony grand coalitions, with AFSCME and SEIU pulling out when AHIP & Pharma were signaling no compromise was possible on Public Option, and silence on Community Rating.
The genius of modern marketing is pouring old material into new packaging. Over the years this has given us yogurt in tubes, prechopped salad greens in cellophane bags and, most recently, the health insurance industry's new image as a friend of reform.
In December, the industry's trade group, AHIP (for America's Health Insurance Plans) revealed that it had experienced an epiphany and decided for the first time to support the principle of universal healthcare -- insuring everyone in America, regardless of health condition.
It described its change of heart as the product of three years of sedulous soul-searching by AHIP's board of directors, who claimed to have "traveled the country and engaged in conversations about healthcare reform with people from all walks of life."
As a connoisseur of health insurance lobbying practices, however, I withheld judgment until I could scan the fine print. What I found by reading AHIP’s 16-page policy brochure was that its position hadn't changed at all. Its version of "reform" comprises the same wish list that the industry has been pushing for decades.
Briefly, the industry wants the government to assume the cost of treating the sickest, and therefore most expensive, Americans. It wants the government to clamp down hard on doctors' and hospitals' fees. And it wants permission to offer stripped-down, low-benefit policies freed from pesky state regulations limiting their premiums.
As for universal coverage, which is the goal of many reformers (if not yet the Obama administration), the industry will accept a government mandate to take on all customers, as long as all Americans are required by law to buy coverage.
[snip]
The insurers think government intervention is fine if it applies to customers they don't want. The way they put it in their reform plan is that we need a system that "spreads costs for high-risk individuals across a broader base" -- the base consisting of all taxpayers, that is.
Who are these "high-risk" individuals, by the way? At an AHIP convention last year, I heard a prominent industry consultant describe the customers the industry is desperate to dump on taxpayers as those with multiple chronic diseases, like diabetes sufferers with asthma or cancer patients with heart problems. He called these people "clinical train wrecks." (Nice way for someone connected with the "caring professions" to talk, isn't it?)
And, then lets have a straight up and down vote... on the best plan that can get 51 senator (heck let's make it 50 + vice president Joe Biden; gotta give him something to do).
Let the Republicans (and if need be blue dog DINOs) block the best real reform we can get now. One option is to bypass the filibuster via budget or reconciliation. The other is to make them REALLY filibuster by having the Senate Majority Leader (I hear he is one of us) disallow or revoke Senate Rule 22 (which it is his power to do) and actually force them to vote.
Conceding that it has long been viewed as Republican-dominated, the industry's lobbying arm plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on an advertising blitz promoting Obama-style health coverage for every American. The first spot -- sponsored by the drug lobby, consumer and labor groups, and health providers -- will be unveiled today.
Stop buying crap from dope heads...
Nothing less than H.R. 676, single payer universal health care, will solve our problems.
While I originally wrote this in January of 2007, concerning the cost of health care to consumers and service provided, it is equally applicable to the savings for the auto industry. And that is not my opinion, that is the opinion of the successful auto industry management. The ones that aren't asking for a bailout. At the time I wrote this in 2007, each vehicle assembled in the United States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM $197. Probably more savings now since this was written nearly two years ago:
In U.S., it's pay more, get less: "A RELATIVE BARGAIN: George Mercieca, a worker at a GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, shows off his Canadian health care card. GM spends an average of $1,385 a year on medical bills for hourly workers in Canada. An American autoworker costs the company about $5,000, but studies show Americans are no healthier than their foreign counterparts."
He is smiling because he has a great job with better medical benefits than most Americans could ever hope for under our failed health care for profit system. The kind of job that Connecticut , and the USA as a whole, can never hope to attract under our current system. If you do not believe me then ask yourself "what does the manufacturing industry have to say about this?"
While training issues are less of a problem here in Connecticut, because we have a decent educational system, health care is cited as a major issue for Toyota's decision to chose Ontario as the location of a new factory for their Rav-4s slated to open in 2008:
"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.
Acknowledging it was the "worst-kept secret" throughout Ontario's automotive industry, Toyota confirmed months of speculation Thursday by announcing plans to build a 1,300-worker factory in the southwestern Ontario city.
"Welcome to Woodstock - that's something I've been waiting a long time to say," Ray Tanguay, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, told hundreds gathered at a high school gymnasium.
The plant will produce the RAV-4, dubbed by some as a "mini sport-utility vehicle" that Toyota currently makes only in Japan. It plans to build 100,000 vehicles annually.
The factory will cost $800 million to build, with the federal and provincial governments kicking in $125 million of that to help cover research, training and infrastructure costs.
Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.
He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.
"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.
In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to $5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.
"Most people don't think of our health-care system as being a competitive advantage," he said.
It is clearly an advantage for any company that wants to open up a business in any industry... A 4 to 5 dollar per hour advantage. An advantage so great that any state that passes true-single-payer Universal Health care first will be positioned to become a mecca for any company considering opening any kind of business.
We already have an educational advantage over the most of the USA, having a highly rated school system and a high rate of college graduates. Why the hold up on giving these businesses the real money savings that Universal Health Care would provide and the other best reason to set up shop in Connecticut?
Because of lobbying from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. We need to take them out of the loop in the decision making process for this issue since we know they will fight it tooth-and-nail. We need to look at what is best for the people of Connecticut and for all industries, not just those two lobbying behemoths.
And just how much more is health care costing us?
Medical bills soar
Divide the nation's medical bill evenly across the population, and each of us paid $6,102 in 2004, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's 50 percent more than the residents of the country with the next-highest health care bill, Switzerland ($4,077), and more than double the average for industrialized nations ($2,546).
...snip...
Those countries provide health care for all their residents for less money than the United State spends while it leaves an estimated 46 million without insurance.
That's contradicted by studies conducted by Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "We have about the same number of MRIs and CT scanners as Canada, the U.K. and France, and far fewer than Japan," Anderson said. "We have the same number of doctors, doctor visits, hospitals and inpatient days at hospitals.
"The difference is we pay two to 2 1/2 times more for virtually identical services."
The average U.S. physician earned $180,000 in 2004, Anderson said; in Canada, it was $100,000 (in U.S. dollars).
Even after adjusting for the higher income of U.S. residents, Americans pay on average $2,000 more per year for health care than the residents of the next-highest paying country, Anderson said.
One out of every seven dollars spent today in the United States goes for health care -- a record 15.3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2004, the latest year for which statistics are available. By comparison, Canada spends 9.9 percent of its GDP; Japan spends 8.0 percent.
By 2015, one out of every five dollars spent in the United States will go for health care, according to projections by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If those projections hold, the average American's share for medical needs alone will be a staggering $12,320.
For all that money, you would expect Americans to be healthier than their foreign friends. The opposite is true.
Whoa! They are healthier than us, and they pay less? And it is not just a monetary cost:
If you're born in the United States, chances are that you'll die younger than people born in other industrialized nations. The United States has the lowest life expectancy of 14 nations measured by the World Health Organization. U.S. life expectancy in 2001 was 77.1; Canada, 79.7; Italy, 79.8; Japan, 81.5
The infant mortality rate is higher in the United States than in other industrialized nations. In 2003, seven infants died for every 1,000 live births in the United States -- the worst rate of 19 countries measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
I am thinking that anyone that is really PRO-LIFE, and not just talking about it for political reasons, would have to be shocked by those infant mortality rates. Why aren't they screaming about this issue? If they are really honest about being pro-life than they should be our allies on true Universal Heath Care.
As for manufacturers, just how much profit margin can health care open up for them?
Those vehicles, often parked on the same dealer lot as identical vehicles produced in U.S. plants, have one notable difference: Each vehicle assembled in the United States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM $197.
The higher salaries of Canadian autoworkers offset much of the health care savings for the company, said Jim Cameron, labor relations director for GM Canada. But at the cash-strapped automaker, such a huge health care cost differential is hard to ignore. The difference is primarily a result of Canada's national health care system, in which most medical bills are paid by the government. Most countries have similar systems.
WHAT THE FUCK!!! The GM employees get higher wages up there too? And GM still racks up more profits from production up north in Canada then they can down here? How much more of this are you Nutmeggers willing to take?
Can you imagine the shockwave across the nation if a car manufacturer or some other large industry chose to locate in Connecticut over other states or countries... And it could happen.
Do you want to continue to pay more just to get less? Less healthy workers, less money, less jobs, less profit for industry as a whole.
Why not get more? More people that actually have coverage? More healthy workers that are more productive? More savings in health care for us and for industry? More manufacturers picking Connecticut as their destination of choice? More smiles on Nutmeggers' faces.
Universal Health Care is the answer to everyone getting more.
_______________
It might be the answer to save US industry.
There is an off the shelf answer sitting there getting dusty. Ask Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and the other cosigners about H.R. 676. It would be a huge step towards helping every industry in this nation become competitive.
What We Can Do to Protect US Jobs, Accomplish Universal Health Care, and Hold the New President Accountable.
Get the information about single payer health care and spread what the corporate media won't.
Be a frequent visitor at the web site of Physicians for a National Health Care Plan, http://pnhp.org. There you will find research material, talking points, frequently asked questions and answers, press releases and new information every day, enough to answer anybody's questions on single payer, and to provide answers to all the lies and propaganda spread by the insurance companies. This is the stuff to write about, to blog about, to send and forward to everyone on your email list.
Email, call and visit your member of Congress about single payer health care and saving US jobs.
Whether they already support HR 676 or not, remind your elected representative that US industries cannot compete with those in societies which offer free health care. Demand that single payer health care ought to be part of any legislative deal to save US auto companies.
Phone calls and emails are good. Letters and faxees are better. But group visits of five or more people to district offices are the most potent weapons of persuasion. Organize one. Nearly all members of congress have open hours during which constituents can make an appointment with or drop in on the Great Man or Woman to discuss issues of importance. If you video any of these visits, we will be happy to post them here, and in some cases if you organize the visit, we can arrange to shoot the video. Email us for details.
Call a public meeting or teach-in at your school or neighborhood to talk about single payer health care.
Pnhp.org and others can help you arrange authoritative and knowledgeable speakers. Video that too so others not present at the event can see it.
This is not the time to lay back, to wait and see what the new administration does or wants to do. Every day we wait before organizing to inform each other and publicly pressure the new president and his party to keep their promises is a day that the parasitic private health insurers enjoy unrestricted and unfettered access to the new administration behind the scenes. Elite pressure occurs behind the scenes. Pressure in the public interest is --- well --- public.
This won't be easy. Nearly every Democratic president since Harry Truman has aimed at some kind of solution to the health care mess. Producing an aroused public makes it easier for the new administration and its party to do the right thing. But if we don't get loud about the link between saving jobs and delivering health care early in an Obama administration, a precious opportunity will be lost that we may never see again.
And... Just to be clear on what the auto industry really thinks about single payer universal health care, from tiggers thotful spot at TPM:
This is from a letter that the Big Three executives SENT to the Canadian govt:
The public health care system significantly reduces total labour costs for automobile manufacturing firms, compared to the cost of equivalent private insurance services purchased by U.S.-based automakers; these health insurance savings can amount to several dollars per hour of labour worked. Publicly funded health care thus accounts for a significant portion of Canada's overall labour cost advantage in auto assembly, versus the U.S., which in turn has been a significant factor in maintaining and attracting new auto investment to Canada...
For both employers and workers in the auto industry, it is vitally important that the publicly funded health care system be preserved and renewed, on the existing principles of universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness, and public administration...
Single payer healthcare means replacing the present patchwork quilt of payment mechanisms for the cost of health care with a single point source payer. That single payer is responsible for defining the benefits package that is covered, actuarial predictions of what the cost would be for those services, collecting the money required to cover those costs, and disbursement of the money. The single payer obviously has a great amount of power and responsibility for health care. There may or may not be the addition of other payers for services that are outside of the benefits package chosen by the single payer. Some single payer systems have also allowed people to "opt-out" of being covered by a single payer system and go it alone, with or without the help of other insurance companies or plans.
Why is single payer advantageous? There are a number of ways that single payer plans (can potentially) improve care and reduce costs:
When all people are in a large common pool, the single payer has enormous leverage to negotiate prices.
When all people are in a common pool, the single payer can prospectively look at the relative values provided by different modes of treatment and decide which modalities are most cost effective for the populace at large.
The single payer can preferentially fund and reward preventive care (which may even include preventions typically not thought of as "health care" like smoking cessation), which frees up resources that may otherwise be wasted.
The single payer can reduce greatly the amount of resources required to get reimbursement for service provided, freeing those resources to be used for other health care services.
The single payer can reduce geographic maldistribution of health care resources.
The single payer has no fear that money invested in services that keep people healthy will become a reward for someone else down the line as people change health care plans.
Being involved in a single payer system raised the awareness and accountability of all of participants in the system. It quickly becomes clear that it is in your interest to make sure that your neighbors take advantage of preventive services and behaviors because everybody wins.
A single payer plan can (if properly designed) be more responsive to local needs and variations, and more locally accountable.
A single payer system can improve the use of health care technology for information use that will give us a clearer picture of how to allocate resources for the best return on investment.
A single payer system can greatly reduce the percentage of the total GNP that health care consumes, benefitting all industry.
Now, there are going to be a lot of anecdotal replies to this about this description. I admit that not all single payer implementations realize these potentials. But nonetheless these are the possible benefits in a well designed system.
I'll count Medicare (parts A and B) as continuing to exist, because they would likely form the basis of the single payer system. If the single-payer system was "built fresh" they would go away too.
(1) All private insurance companies, including all HMOs and PPOs. There might be a small number left to provide "supplemental" insurance.
(2) Medicaid. Subsumed by single-payer.
(3) S-CHIP. Subsumed by single-payer.
(4) Medicare [Dis]Advantage. This is private companies.
(5) Medicare Part D. Elimination of private companies.
(6) Health care compensation from auto insurance. (Compensation for lost wages and "quality of life" would continue, but would be much simpler to adjudicate; premiums would drop).
(7) Health care compensation for 'worker's comp'. (Compensation for lost wages and "quality of life" would continue, but would be much simpler to adjudicate; premiums would drop.)
(8) "preferred providers", doctors accepting some insurances and not others, and all similar doctors' office paperwork. Every doctor would either be "in the national system" or not, and very few would not.
(9) State and local health insurance systems for their employees. Subsumed by single-payer.
(10) Self-funded insurance schemes from corporations (like GM) and universities (like Cornell). Subsumed by single-payer.
(11) Special "flu clinics" and other such schemes for getting basic preventative medicine to everyone. Everyone would have a regular doctor in the system and that doctor would offer preventative medicine for free.
(12) Health care aspect of disability insurance for business. (Compensation for lost wages would continue, but would be much simpler to adjudicate; premiums would drop.)
(13) Federal government employees insurance system. Subsumed by single-payer.
(14) Charity care budgets at emergency rooms. Subsumed by single-payer.
It would instantly save many corporations, hospitals, and individuals from bankruptcy.
Current estimates are that the tax increase needed would be very small. The administrative savings from combining Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, and the Government Employees insurance program is substantial; the savings from pricing power are large; and the government already covers all the people with the highest health care costs (children, the elderly, the poor, and the military), so adding all the "cheap" people costs a lot less proportionally. Estimates are that the government already pays 7/8 of all health care spending in the country, so that gives you a good sense of the necessary increase.
People relatively well-to-do would presumably see their taxes go up slightly, as would well-to-do businesses. However, almost anyone who is actually paying for their insurance would end up saving money. Only people who are uninsured and healthy (who benefit by getting coverage), or who have their insurance entirely paid for by employers (which is very rare these days) would have a net increase in costs.
What it would require is firing a lot of people -- the people working for the health insurance companies, or working in other offices to deal with the health insurance companies. That's where the out-of-pocket savings for most Americans would come from: the fired paper-pushers. That is the actual downside: elimination of jobs, but since they're wasteful make-work, or even make-trouble, jobs, I think it's worth it. We could come up with a job placement program for them.
While it would eliminate insurance company jobs that PRODUCE NOTHING (except for the leeching effect off of our paychecks) these jobs would be replaced by more productive jobs in the health care industry. More Doctors, Nurses, technicians and other supporting jobs for hospitals, clinics and industries that produce health care products.
Jobs that would be more beneficial to individuals, industry and to society as a whole.
While I originally wrote this in January of 2007, concerning the cost of health care to consumers and service provided, it is equally applicable to the savings for the auto industry. And that is not my opinion, that is the opinion of the successful auto industry management. The ones that aren't asking for a bailout. At the time I wrote this in 2007, each vehicle assembled in the United States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM $197. Probably more savings now since this was written nearly two years ago:
"A RELATIVE BARGAIN: George Mercieca, a worker at a GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, shows off his Canadian health care card. GM spends an average of $1,385 a year on medical bills for hourly workers in Canada. An American autoworker costs the company about $5,000, but studies show Americans are no healthier than their foreign counterparts."
He is smiling because he has a great job with better medical benefits than most Americans could ever hope for under our failed healthcare for profit system. The kind of job that Connecticut , and the USA as a whole, can never hope to attract under our current system. If you do not believe me than ask yourself "what does the manufacturing industry have to say about this?"
While training issues are less of a problem here in Connecticut, because we have a decent educational system, health care is cited as a major issue for Toyota's decision to choose Ontario as the location of a new factory for their Rav-4s slated to open in 2008:
"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.
Acknowledging it was the "worst-kept secret" throughout Ontario's automotive industry, Toyota confirmed months of speculation Thursday by announcing plans to build a 1,300-worker factory in the southwestern Ontario city.
"Welcome to Woodstock - that's something I've been waiting a long time to say," Ray Tanguay, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, told hundreds gathered at a high school gymnasium.
The plant will produce the RAV-4, dubbed by some as a "mini sport-utility vehicle" that Toyota currently makes only in Japan. It plans to build 100,000 vehicles annually.
The factory will cost $800 million to build, with the federal and provincial governments kicking in $125 million of that to help cover research, training and infrastructure costs.
Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.
He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.
"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.
In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to $5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.
"Most people don't think of our health-care system as being a competitive advantage," he said.
It is clearly an advantage for any company that wants to open up a business in any industry... A 4 to 5 dollar per hour advantage. An advantage so great that any state that passes true-single-payer Universal Health Care first will be positioned to become a mecca for any company considering opening any kind of business.
We already have an educational advantage over the most of the USA, having a highly rated school system and a high rate of college graduates. Why the hold up on giving these businesses the real money savings that Universal Health Care would provide and the other best reason to set up shop in Connecticut?
Because of lobbying from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. We need to take them out of the loop in the decision making process for this issue since we know they will fight it tooth-and-nail. We need to look at what is best for the people of Connecticut and for all industries, not just those two lobbying behemoths.
And just how much more is health care costing us?
Medical bills soar
Divide the nation's medical bill evenly across the population, and each of us paid $6,102 in 2004, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's 50 percent more than the residents of the country with the next-highest health care bill, Switzerland ($4,077), and more than double the average for industrialized nations ($2,546).
...snip...
Those countries provide health care for all their residents for less money than the United State spends while it leaves an estimated 46 million without insurance.
That's contradicted by studies conducted by Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "We have about the same number of MRIs and CT scanners as Canada, the U.K. and France, and far fewer than Japan," Anderson said. "We have the same number of doctors, doctor visits, hospitals and inpatient days at hospitals.
"The difference is we pay two to 2 1/2 times more for virtually identical services."
The average U.S. physician earned $180,000 in 2004, Anderson said; in Canada, it was $100,000 (in U.S. dollars).
Even after adjusting for the higher income of U.S. residents, Americans pay on average $2,000 more per year for health care than the residents of the next-highest paying country, Anderson said.
One out of every seven dollars spent today in the United States goes for health care -- a record 15.3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2004, the latest year for which statistics are available. By comparison, Canada spends 9.9 percent of its GDP; Japan spends 8.0 percent.
By 2015, one out of every five dollars spent in the United States will go for health care, according to projections by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If those projections hold, the average American's share for medical needs alone will be a staggering $12,320.
For all that money, you would expect Americans to be healthier than their foreign friends. The opposite is true.
Whoa! They are healthier than us, and they pay less? And it is not just a monetary cost:
# If you're born in the United States, chances are that you'll die younger than people born in other industrialized nations. The United States has the lowest life expectancy of 14 nations measured by the World Health Organization. U.S. life expectancy in 2001 was 77.1; Canada, 79.7; Italy, 79.8; Japan, 81.5
# The infant mortality rate is higher in the United States than in other industrialized nations. In 2003, seven infants died for every 1,000 live births in the United States -- the worst rate of 19 countries measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
I am thinking that anyone that is really PRO-LIFE, and not just talking about it for political reasons, would have to be shocked by those infant mortality rates. Why aren't they screaming about this issue? If they are really honest about being pro-life than they should be our allies on true Universal Heathcare.
A s for manufacturers, just how much profit margin can health care open up for them?
Those vehicles, often parked on the same dealer lot as identical vehicles produced in U.S. plants, have one notable difference: Each vehicle assembled in the United States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM $197.
The higher salaries of Canadian autoworkers offset much of the health care savings for the company, said Jim Cameron, labor relations director for GM Canada. But at the cash-strapped automaker, such a huge health care cost differential is hard to ignore. The difference is primarily a result of Canada's national health care system, in which most medical bills are paid by the government. Most countries have similar systems.
WHAT THE FUCK!!! They get higher wages up there too? And GM still racks up more profits from production up north in Canada then they can down here? How much more of this are you Nutmeggers willing to take?
Can you imagine the shock wave across the nation if a car manufacturer or some other large industry chose to locate in Connecticut over other states or countries... And it could happen.
Do you want to continue to pay more just to get less? Less healthy workers, less money, less jobs, less profit for industry as a whole.
Why not get more? More people that actually have coverage? More healthy workers that are more productive? More savings in health care for us and for industry? More manufacturers picking Connecticut as their destination of choice? More smiles on Nutmeggers' faces.
Universal Health Care is the answer to everyone getting more.
_________________
It might be the answer to save US industry.
There is an off the shelf answer sitting there getting dusty. Ask Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and the other cosigners about H.R. 676. It would be a huge step towards helping every industry in this nation become competitive.
An unidentified government official of a U.S. ally wants to participate if and when Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich makes his case to impeach President Bush before the House Judiciary Committee, according to the Ohio Democrat.
The House voted, 238-180, on Tuesday to send Kucinich’s latest impeachment effort (H Res 1345) to the Judiciary Committee.
Chairman John Conyers Jr. said he will hold a broad hearing on the general topic of abuses of power by the Bush administration.
“There’s never been one [hearing] that accumulated all the things that constitute an imperial presidency,” Conyers said, explaining that the anticipated hearing would review more than a year of committee inquiry into such matters as the firing of U.S. attorneys, the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame and the information provided to Congress in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Read on... But before you go to read that, why is torture not on that list?It should be.
The Senate will soon consider legislation addressing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). I emailed you about this issue recently responding to inaccuracies in the press about Democratic efforts to improve protection of civil liberties. I am writing you today to update you on the current state of the bill and to ask for your help.
One critical question being considered in the Senate's FISA bill is whether to offer telecom companies retroactive immunity for any actions they undertook in the wireless surveillance program. The Bush Administration has claimed that this is necessary for national security reasons, but I am skeptical.
If the Administration was serious about arguing for this immunity, I suspect they would take steps to demonstrate to Congress the extent of this surveillance program and what role the phone companies played. Yet they have refused to share even this information with the House. Clearly, it is a bit much to ask for immunity from prosecution without explaining why it is necessary.
Because of these reservations, the House-passed FISA bill did not include the immunity the president sought. In the Senate, however, it is becoming clear that a tough battle will now ensue over this provision. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut has been a vocal opponent of telecom immunity and has promised to filibuster any FISA legislation that includes this provision.
Senator Dodd needs your help right now. Please visit his site and lend your support to the filibuster now. Your help can make a difference at this important juncture.
Thank you again for your continued support for a better democracy.
Connecticut's own Politics in the Zeros Blog catches Google going against their "Don't be evil." motto:
They say this right on their Health Care blog in a post with the cutesy title, “Does negative press make you Sicko?“. Google is pitching that the health care industry buy ads from them whenever someone searches for “Sicko” or “Michael Moore, ” ads which will counter the message of Sicko.
Just so there’s no misunderstanding about which side Google is on
Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.
So all you health care advertisers, go spend your money at Google, combating the evil Michael Moore. We’ll have no criticizing of American health care.
This reminds of radical organizer Saul Alinsky’s dictum. “Pick a target and freeze it. The rats will crawl out to defend them, then you’ll know who your real enemy is.”
I wonder how well this diary (and Politics in the Zeros') will fare on a Google search for Sicko now? Google must hate the fact that they can't slip in any of their anti-citizen corporate addys here. heh
There is also an UPDATE over there worthy of all things bushy in the media these days...
Today an update from Boing Boing (Via Crooks and Liars) on just how low they will go in their "anti-citizen corporate addys":
Mike sez, "I thought you might want to know that Google doesn't even allow individuals to purchase ads critical of large companies. In May 2004, I set up a website to criticize the large medical-testing firm Covance. I bought -- and was willing to pay, out of my own pocket -- a Google AdWord so people searching for Covance would find my site. After a few days, Google told me that their 'policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'language that advocates against an individual, group, or organization'.' So, apparently HMOs criticizing Michael Moore is okay, but random-guy-with-a-website criticizing a large corporation is not okay. 'Democratic,' indeed. (The full text of Google's email to me is here).
It is pretty clear when Google says "Don't be evil." they mean towards their corporate friends and not the American citizen. If you haven't figured it out already, Corporate America will do anything they can to stop Single Payer Universal Healthcare, and they have no problems working together to discredit Michael Moore and his movie Sicko even though it is only telling you the truth about the failures of the Privatized American Healthcare system. If Google truly believed in its "Don't be evil." statement they would be running addys like this for free:
And this one as well:
If you haven't seen Sicko yet... Go Now! And make sure to take some of your friends. It is the must see movie of the year. And if you need to know about a healthcare plan that can fix many of the problems with our privatized ripoff:
Greg Palast exposes true intent, cover up and criminal acts of Bush administration's US Attorney scandal. In summary, it's about wrongfully charging Democrats with made up crimes in order to influence the outcome of elections. In other words, it's about stealing elections or subverting our democracy. Just more evidence of the Bush administration's stated goal of turning America into a one-party state. Which comes pretty close to meeting the definition of treason.
Did he say treason? SNAP! I thought he said that...
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
It should get interesting as Palast will now turn over to Conyers the many RNC Emails that they accidentally sent to him.
As a side note: Who knew that Tom Cruise was playing David Iglesius in the movie A Few Good Men? News to me... I guess the bush administration can't handle the truth.
Steny Hoyer and John Conyers just pulled a fast one on the GOP. The GOP has been refusing to support the hate crimes bill because it doesn't include members of the US Armed Forces and senior citizens. Conyers just rose and basically said, okay, I'll add them. The Republicans' response? Uh, no.
The Republicans have been railing for days about how this legislation doesn't cover our Armed Forces and senior citizens, and now that the Dems offer to put our Armed Forces and seniors in this legislation, the Republicans said no and affirmatively stopped the Democrats from doing it anyway.
That means the Republicans had no intent on helping our Armed Forces and seniors, on protecting them. It was just a stunt. The GOP leaders in Congress just got up and used our Armed Forces and seniors as political fodder when they had no intent on actually doing anything to help our Armed Forces and seniors.
A litlle bit of humiliation for the GOPeeons that play politics with the soldiers lives (and seniors too...)
Props go out to Conyers and Hoyer for pointing out how the GOP constantly uses the soldiers as political props in their propaganda.
The health care crisis we face today affects everyone, overwhelming America's workers and businesses. Many low-wage earners do not receive health benefits and cannot afford insurance. Higher salaried workers know that the cost of their health insurance may lead to the next round of layoffs.
More than 46 million Americans lack basic health care coverage. Millions more face high deductibles and staggering costs leaving essential care out of reach.
We can no longer seek gradual reforms or provide insurance companies with financial incentives to solve the problem. The time has come for a single payer national health care system that provides complete care to all Americans.
Since the 2006 elections, we have heard plenty of new voices calling for universal health care. Unfortunately, many of these claim to be universal health care, but are merely bandaids to the problem.
One proposal has the federal government giving billions of dollars to insurance companies to cover the uninsured.Other proposals only cover children or shift the entire burden of healthcare to employees in the form of health savings accounts.
Unfortunately, patchwork fixes like these will not work. The only way to provide a lasting solution to our health care crisis is through single payer universal health care.We must not let the movement toward universal health care be co-opted by proposals that serve to enrich those seeking to extend the status quo at the expense of true reform.
To address this need, I have introduced H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. My bill would create a single payer universal health care system by strengthening and extending the Medicare program to cover all Americans.
Please help me enact this important legislation by signing this statement of support. We must have real reform through a single payer universal health care program if we are to solve our nation's health care crisis.
I signed it... This goes above and beyond the bandaid solutions offered by Connecticut politicians who seem to think that they can fix the "healthcare for profit" system that needs to be eliminated before anything will get better.
If you have any doubts about this fact, Maura at MLN will give you the scoop:
The creative and scrappy Working Families Party of CT is headlining another great visibility event to raise awareness about how badly broken our current health care system is.
No one is sure yet how high their 2007 profits will be, but in 2006 Aetna had profits of $1.6 billion. Billion. And Aetna's CEO earned $30 million last year, while health care expenses went way up for average consumers and small business.
A significant portion of our health care dollars are not going toward actually keeping people healthy or taking care of sick people -- they're going toward huge profits and obscenely high executive compensation packages like this. That should make us all sick.
Hope some MLNers will be able to attend this fun and important event - spread the word! Read more from Joe at the CT Working Families Blog.
If you want to read the bill, H.R. 676, just go to Thomas.gov, click in Conyers' name and scroll down to 676 - right now it says that the bill has not yet been received from the GPO.
NEW CO-SPONSORS LIST:
(Three are not yet listed yet, so I am not sure who they are).
Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Carson, Julia [IN-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Christensen, Donna M. [VI] - 1/24/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [MD-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Ellison, Keith [MN-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 1/24/2007
Rep Green, Al [TX-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] - 1/24/2007
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] - 1/24/2007
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX-30] - 1/24/2007
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. [MI-13] - 1/24/2007
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Loebsack, David [IA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21] - 1/24/2007
Rep Meehan, Martin T. [MA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Moore, Gwen [WI-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Pastor, Ed [AZ-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Roybal-Allard, Lucille [CA-34] - 1/24/2007
Rep Scott, Robert C. [VA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Watson, Diane E. [CA-33] - 1/24/2007
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 1/24/2007
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 1/24/2007
Rep Wynn, Albert Russell [MD-4] - 1/24/2007
HMMM? I believe that there may be some CT Reps missing from that list...
