21 Comments so far

1. ricg March 15th, 2007 3:50 pm

   Let’s stop talking about health insurance. We don’t need health insurance. We need health care.

   And mandating that people buy health insurance does absolutely nothing to provide health care. When the state insists you pay $200 a month for health care with a $2000 deductible and you’re struggling to keep your family afloat, you’re not going to get health care. But the goddam insurance companies are going to get richer and richer off you. That’s the Massachusetts plan. It’s a crock of shit.

2. John Freeman March 15th, 2007 4:11 pm

   I concur, the health insurance industry is bleeding our country dry. No congressman thus far has had the courage to forward a proposal that does not include us continuing to pay the ‘industry’ for what it does….which is seperate us from the care we want and sending the profits to the stockholders. The CEO’s make millions and the rest of us pay and pay. Definately a crock!

3. namvet67 March 15th, 2007 4:11 pm

   To start on the road to better health, America has to get rid of big pharma. Those guys got half of America thinking they need medicine for every little thing. Then get the government to treat doctors and nurses equally. Open up jobs for doctors worldwide. This will bring down the cost of health care very quickly. Doctors and Lawyers are the only two American workers who don’t face international competition for jobs. Then get the FDA out of bed with the food giants and give us the truth about what we are offered to eat. Then make everybody turn off their TVs and go for a walk and talk to their neighbors. We will all start to feel better and have more money in our pockets.
   Hoa Binh

4. blessthebeasts March 15th, 2007 4:41 pm

   namvet67 makes perfect sense. Our health care system doesn’t focus on health. It focuses on sickness and keeping us sick so the above-mentioned leeches can keep sucking us dry until we die and they can turn us over to the greedy funeral industry.

5. Gail March 15th, 2007 5:31 pm

   “Healthy Minnesota’s proposal is similar to the universal-health-care-by-individual-mandate plan passed in Massachusetts last year. This is somewhat surprising, since the Massachusetts plan is already failing in its promise to make “affordable” health insurance available to all.”

   Affordable health insurance is a joke when you have politicians catering to one of the largest corporate donors to political campaigns.

   Affordable health insurance isn’t going to happen until the corruption in politics is resolved. Don’t hold your breath for that to take place anytime soon!

6. ctrew March 15th, 2007 5:40 pm

   My message disappeared. I’ll try again.

   “Congressman John Conyers, co-sponsored by Dennis Kucinich and 70 + others, introduced a bill for universal health coverage.

   Universal Health Care is the first “issue” listed on the Kucinich website which is – http://kucinich.us/

   http://kucinich.us/issues/universalhealth.php

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOB0f3I1AXk

   http://kucinich.us/node/3223

7. ctrew March 15th, 2007 5:46 pm

   Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich, among other co-sponsers, introduced a bill in 2005, which would have taken out the for profit insurance companies in the middle.

   The YouTube video is of a George Stephanopoulos interview with Kucinich in 2007, discussing the war, as well as health care.

8. bildad March 15th, 2007 6:19 pm

   For the Green Party take on universal health care, have a look at this recent press release.

   http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_02_26.shtml

   Peace and health to all,
   bildad

9. eanilles March 15th, 2007 6:26 pm

   If you want to put your feet to the pedal on this one (single payer universal health care), here are helpful resources:
   Nationally – http://www.pnhp.org (Physicians for a National Health Program) and http://www.healthcare-now.org (national advocacy for Kucinich’s HR 676)
   If you live in Minnesota, please join us at http://www.muhcc.org, or contact me at lisa@muhcc.org
   Thanks for your commitment to single-payer. We need all of us. Lisa Nilles

10. gmkaake March 15th, 2007 6:28 pm

    http://kucinich.us/node/3069

    Yep – that was a good one. Link above.

11. eanilles March 15th, 2007 7:23 pm

    We (in Minnesota) ARE here! If you clicked on the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition website above (which has an errant comma), and it didn’t work, try this! http://www.muhcc.org
    Lisa Nilles

12. Nietzsche March 15th, 2007 9:52 pm

    Absolutely 100 percent correct to all of the above.

13. Ronald White March 15th, 2007 10:30 pm

    We like American beer , American baseball and American Beauty roses but when it comes to healthcare with all of its warts we think we’ll stick to our universal,single insurer system . It’s funny , for most of us we don’t even call it that ; it’s been around since the early fifties starting in the socialist Province of Saskatchewan and rolling like an anti-Joe McCarthy red tide all across Canada ( it’s still legal to be a card-carrying communist of the Communist Party of Canada ). It’s smug to say but we tend to take our socialist healthcare system for granted until we read of this report . Then most thinking citizens are hunmbly reminded of the wisdom and tenacity of the pioeers of our systems.

    We heartily cheer for all of your efforts to join the brother/sisterhood of socialized healthcare

14. ctrew March 15th, 2007 10:59 pm

    Thank you for speaking up Mr. White. People here usually point to the British system and all of it’s problems as a reason to avoid the necessary changes. It is nice to be reminded of such success close to home.

15. ctrew March 15th, 2007 11:01 pm

    Any Brits listening? Is the English system as problematic as it is made out to be? or is that conservative propaganda?

16. Brigitte March 16th, 2007 10:21 am

    No Brit here, but the English system has been famously starved by Thatcher. In order to provide private health care as a panacea (the same happened to British schools).

    Generally, I don’t think it’s a bright idea to reinvent the wheel in health care. Americans could have a good look at all the countries with functioning universal health care systems around the world – the WHO is a good body to look for studies on the subject – and then decide whether to rely on a tax-financed system (Scandinavia) or a contributions-based system.

    One thing is for sure, though: Watching TV commercials in America, with that myriad of ads for drugs and non-stop “this could kill you” health warnings, is bad for your health. It takes only a couple of days to turn any normal human being into an obsessed hypochondriac..

17. Alan8 March 16th, 2007 9:44 pm

    It’s “politically impossible” for me to vote for any politician who says a single-payer health care system is “politically impossible”.

    That just leaves Democrat Dennis Kucinich and the Green Party.

    Looks like in 2008 I’ll do the same thing I did in 2004: Vote for Kucinich in the primary, and after a corporate shill wins the Democratic primary, I’ll vote for the Green Party.

18. jsc March 17th, 2007 3:34 pm

    Gail March gets it. End political corruption, and “don’t hold your breath”.

    Taking out insurance company profits, health insurance payments are still a subsidy to the greedy, the arrogant and the semi-competent. There are relatively simple answers which won’t be used until the differential diagnosis includes clinical and subclinical malnutrition. Then some folks, you know who you are, are going to have to get off the couch and start eating your veggies (7-10 fruits and veggies a day) and real whole grains.

    With these two changes, the rest of “real” care could be provided by low cost insurance.

    As Deming said, it’s the system stupid!

19. MLRiamapilgrim March 18th, 2007 9:39 pm

    Ms. Lisa Nilles is 100% correct!

    It will NEVER happen!

    Come on folks…it’s all about the money. The insurance companies are sucking the life’s blood out of our health delivery system. I know what I speak of, I was at one time: 1) a life, accident and health insurance sales agent, 2) a hospital claims administrator, and 3) a health claims analyst. These companies are in the business because it is profitable. They have no higher god than the almighty dollar.

    The insurance companies and their immense and powerful lobby are not going to allow the establishment of a Single Plan/Single Payer system in the United States. They are just too powerful and our government is just too corrupt for this to become a reality.

    The powers arrayed against the Single Plan/Single Payer idea include (among others):

    Insurance companies
    American Medical Association
    Hospitals
    Laboratories
    Medical Technology firms
    etcetera

    They all have a vested interest in the status quo that has served to make all of them wealthy. They do not possess the integrity to admit that our health care system is meaningless and becoming more meaningless day by day as fewer and fewer Americans have any meaningful access to the system as it is. The government, which lies constantly as you know, admits to almost 50 million Americans who have no health insurance. They don’t have it because duh… they CANNOT AFFORD it!

    The idiotic legislature of Massachussetts has already MANDATED ‘universal’ coverage by legislating that everyone in the state must purchase health insurance. This plan was backed up by the empty promise that the government of MA would see to it that there would health plans offered that anyone could afford…YEAH RIGHT. Talk about your unfunded mandates. Since this stupid plan was working so darned well Minnesota’s bunch of legislative geniuses decided to do pretty much the same thing in their state.

    There is no will and very little actual effort being expended in seeing that every American has access to health coverage. In a nation that spends $493 billion on our national ‘defense’ we spend $2.1 BILLION on medical care. That’s an amount of money that those who have the power and who profit from it are not going to let the fact that our health care system is NOT working convince them to do the right thing.

    This situation will only get worse. On that you have my personal guarantee.

20. MLRiamapilgrim March 18th, 2007 9:48 pm

    Oh yeah…another thought!

    Did you catch the Bush plan for health coverage for less fortunate Americans in his amazing State of the Union address to the Congress?

    If not, it was that he proposed that these folks be given a tax credit to help pay for medical insurance. Well George, you malignant idiot, these people are in most cases paying very little of no Federal taxes. They ARE POOR George…POOR, do you get it?

    With this buffoon calling the tune and setting the agenda how likely do you think that a Single Plan/Single Player outcome is? The same person who deploys wounded Americans back to Iraq and sends them without proper equipment is going to solve the health care problem. You are course pulling our legs, right?

21. bntitesenici December 12th, 2007 10:28 am

    titsuxicewuxa…

    exwynanawiwi…

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