My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
-Hosea 4:6
 
Ministry of Information 
Barack Obama's health reform plans are a bitter pill for his personal doctor
 
President Barack Obama's personal doctor for more than two decades is bitterly disappointed by the health care reforms being pushed through Congress at the urging of his former patient.
 
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Telegraph.co.uk

Dr David Scheiner remains a big fan of the man he treated for 22 years in Chicago. But does not believe the planned overhaul goes far enough to help the poor and uninsured, and will cost too much because of pressure from the health care industry.

The 71-year-old physician, who has treated low income patients for his entire career in the city's Hyde Park neighbourhood, believes Mr Obama favours an NHS-style "single payer" system, but backed away under pressure from the health industry.

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VIDEO: Obama On Single Payer Healthcare Program

      
In this Clinton campaign video, Barack Obama's words from 2003 are used against him. The video seems to point out a different position in 2003 than today on single payer healthcare system.

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VIDEO: Dennis Kucinich Sets Dr. David Gratzer Straight
 


 
 
As Good as It Gets? Talking points on the Democrats' health care bills and single payer

Ten talking points:

1. 10 million people will not be covered. That's not universal coverage.

2. Only 9 million people will be in public option by 2019. That's not enough to keep the insurance companies honest (if that were even possible).

3. Public option does not begin until 2013. That's not "from Day One."

4. Public option is means-tested and fire-walled, so even if you don't like your insurance, you could still be forced to keep it.

5. The bills now have HMO-style care controls, supposedly as a cost control device. These were tried in the 80s, and didn't work. Remember Helen Hunt in "As Good As It Gets"? The audiences cheered. And for good reason.

6. There is no effective appeals mechanism. The three ombudsmen in the House bill do not have conflict resolution authority, as ombudsmen typically do.

7. You could be forced to buy junk insurance. If the minimum standards for coverage are set too low (which the insurance companies will do everything they can to make happen) and the subsidies for public option are chipped away at (and since they're framed as welfare, they will be), you could end up paying for insurance and still not getting care. Right now, you pay nothing and get nothing. That's better than paying, and still getting nothing.

8. The entire plan is complex, untested, and unproven. In fact, the Democrats are performing a large experiment on the health of the American people without their informed consent. In medicine, that's unethical.

9. Contrary to the assertions of some advocates, the public option will not evolve into single payer. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has said that the legislation will be crafted to avoid this; Obama now agrees (as opposed to the Obama of 2003, of course).

10. All these factors taken together might explain why Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi calls her own plan the "next best" solution for health care reform after single payer.

Don't the American people deserve the best health care system, and not the second best one? Not only will single payer save 18,000 lives a year, it will save $350 billion a year, at least.
Source: Corrente
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Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?

 
By Bruce A. Dixon
BlackAgendaReport.com
 
The health care debate inside and outside the matrix
 
Like just about everything else, your take on the national health care debate depends on whether you're inside or outside the matrix.
 
Within the bubble of fake reality blown by corporate media and bipartisan political establishment, the health care news is that the Obama Plan is at last making its way through Congress. It's being fought by greedy private insurance companies, by chambers of commerce, by Republican and some Democratic lawmakers.
Under the Obama plan, we're told, employers will have to insure their employees or pay into a fund that does it for them. Individuals will be required under penalty of law to buy private insurance policies and for those that can't afford it or prefer not to use a private insurer there will be something called a "public option." This "public option, the story goes, is bitterly fought by the bad guys because it will make private insurers accountable by competing with them, forcing them to lower their costs. Both the president's backers and opponents agree that the whole thing will be fantastically expensive, and the president proposes to fund it with cuts in existing programs like Medicaid which pay for the care of the poorest Americans and a tax on those making more than $300,000, later raised to $1 million a year.

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Single-Payer National Health Insurance
 
Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.

Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates. Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 45.7 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered.
 

 
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