After Sicko - what would it really take to put care ahead of greed?

With most of the Dems talking about universal health care, at least there is a dialog toward accessible insurance for all.

Though like many, I was left after seeing Michael Moore's most recent movie, Sicko, with a generalized feeling of anger. I love the freedoms we enjoy here in America, I also loathe the politics of greed which dominate our health care system. In that way, the good ol USA is far from the greatest.

That greed is pushed by the pharmaceutical industry, HMO's, DR.'s, and corporate bigwigs. All feed the greed. Will we see wholesale change with the next president or will it take a generation? As much as I appreciate John Edwards health care plan (even as an Obama supporter) - I see the medical and insurance industries to be so locked into a price gouging monopoly, I wonder if we can ever pry these multi-millionaire insurance industry CEO's away from their excess and arrogance?

We may beat France or Canada in baseball, but they sure kick our ass in providing real and accessible health care for their citizens!

Maybe someday, my children will live in an America that provides the same degree of affordable and accessible care...I can only hope.

but they have been around so long that they just seem important, too important to just do away with.

For example, I don't think many people can even imagine a system where their health care is handled between them and their government without some sort of company or private enterprise in between.

Hell, take Medicare Advantage plans, for example. They were set up by Repigs in Congress because, to some extent, some people couldn't imagine not having a company manage their benefits, benefits that were provided by the government. In some instances, these Advantange plans only offer very little beyond what the government provides, but get to charge for their services.

It also will take a threat to some of the companies that give money to the Republican party in the form of phone calls telling them that unless the Republican party actively supports enacting Single payer Universal Health Care that you will not do business with them!



Send this letter to the Republican Party today!

Copy and paste the letter below and email it directly to info@gop.com the Republican Party and get many others to send this letter. Thank you. Drop me a message to info@dmocrats.org with the subject Done after you have sent the email.


Hello

Get your Republican party to enact HR 676 Single payer universal health care into law and repeal Medicare Part D and place the prescription drug benefit in Medicare Part B covering 80 percent of all medication with no extra premiums, no extra deductibles, no means tests, no coverage gaps, and remove the means test for Medicare Part B and until you do, we will not buy consumer products and prescription drugs from the biggest 3 pharmacy chains and GOP contributors in the country Eckerd, CVS, and Walgreens and we will not buy health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield and Aetna, the 2 biggest health insurance companies that give money to the GOP as well, who cannot afford to lose a large sector of the publics business and money.

The WHO lists France as the world's best system. They have shorter wait times than the US on average. Maybe this is why health insurance lobbyists repeatedly don't cite France but Canada in terms of painting horror stories of wait times. France's system is not perfect, since no human-run system ever is, but if we want to be the best in health care in the future, then we should emulate the ones who are the best now: France

Vive la Sécurité Sociale!

connotations for Americans; because Canada is RIGHT NEXT DOOR.

Because Americans can easily find out the truth about Canada.

But not all, just most.

I feel guilty that I do ....but I like it!

From what I see on DU, we aren't even close to that happening.

It's up to us, folks.

The ball is in our court.

What do we want? REALLY want?

Read DU with an eye on this.... do we really reflect a commitment to "WE"?

Is there truly a sense that we ALL matter, and we're all in this together?

I don't see that.

I don't know what it would take to get us there.

A twist on run-of-the-mill self-help books. I read it and then gave it away (to a woman who works with war-affected children) on the condition that she pass it on, too.
One of my kids lives near the Free The Children headquarters in Toronto. I get a goofy smile whenever I walk by.

http://www.metowe.org/

I had not heard of it.

You know, this would make a very good thread all on it's own. I encourage you to post it, and challenge people to see how many different people/organizations they can get to read it, then start a group.

Reminds me of Alice's Restaurant...

:hi:

Thanks!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1422089

:grouphug:

The doctors would have to focus more on healing than their inherent net worth.

Doctors would need to form nonprofit cooperatives that would eschew the need for insurance companies but charge less fees so middle class patients can afford to visit a doctor (say $50 a visit).

Hospitals need to be less top-heavy with administrators.

Hospitals need to stop charging for unnecessary fees, such as patients can't make independent arrangements for medication (i.e., take their own Tylenol or have someone purchase their prescriptions from an outside pharmacy).

Don't know what to do about Big Pharma.

And with Big Pharma and BIG INSURANCE feeding in the trough and funding candidates of both major parties, we are unlikely to get it.

Maybe we need to start with changing our elections first. Clean money and get rid of paperless electronic voting.

Then maybe we can get someone elected with the spine and balls to really make some changes.

I agree the best solution is universal health care.

I'm throwing out alternatives as well.

Why, when "throwing out alternatives", does it not enter in that many of us would expire under what is being thrown out?

I see this a lot, and I'm really curious..... why, even at DU, is it not possible to think of others?

How does this happen that many of us, right here at DU, are invisible?

I'd really like to know this. It's something that many of us don't understand, and we can't seem to figure out why it is.

Your thoughts would be helpful.

Thanks in advance

that I find myself only able to imagine how to try to change PARTS of the system. I agree, the existing system we have IS sustaining the lives of patients relying upon it. But I also see alternatives where they would not be imperiled if a transition to changing and hopefully improving the system (to make it more accessible to others). That's why IMO there is no quick fix. You need medical professionals (including nurses, administrators, patients, aides, etc.), economists, professors in health administration and medical schools, etc. to make a kind of "New Deal" for medical care via the federal government.

Not all ideas will be good ones I concede. However, in many cases, ideas can be salvaged and developed instead of being outright discarded.

I don't know if I addressed your concerns exactly as you wished. Please ask me to follow-up if I did not.

Maybe it's just what Michael Moore says----we're ALL, including DU----- so into ME that we've lost the ability to speak or think in terms of WE.

With me (there it is again -- "me" vs. "we"), I believe I don't have the right to speak for anyone but myself. But OTOH, I do feel a responsibility for all of us and I do have opinions about how society should change to improve the lives of many, many more forgotten (and discarded) people. It's more than trying to keep the Sixties alive. I'm talking about making the promise of this country a reality.

If individuals are ignored, I can only speculate on their ideas not being acceptable for whatever reason. I honestly don't know why. If I'm ignored, I'll come back with another idea, and another.

And just because your ideas are not recognized and/or challenged, it doesn't mean that they weren't worth it. It just means try again.

:)

Which is why so many died.

WE.

We're all in this together.

You may not go down as early as I do, but you let me go down, and sooner or later it catches up to you.

And, I'd still like to know why.

As WE turn our backs on the weakest members of our society, WE increase the probability that more will become weak/sick/crazy. Ultimately, this undermines the cohesion of the society.

Those who build their mansions on quicksand will surely sink, just as those that prosper while their fellow countrymen go sick and hungry have an unstable future.

For those who are Christians, refer to the passage in Matthew (25:31-46) about "the least of these, my brethren..." (Michael Moore has something here.) For Buddhists, mindfullness and compassion mean making sure none suffer.

Most people can't even see that it's in their own best interest, let alone care about their neighbor.

As Michael says at the end of SICKO, "Who ARE we?" !!

Heh.... do you really think Matthew 25 is heard anymore?

I know I no longer hear ppeople saying "There but for the grace of God go I".

WHO *ARE* WE?!

They rest want to believe they're only a winning lotto ticket away from being able to be that greedy.

and economic devastation that makes the great depression look like a tea party.

we'd connect with each other in meaningful ways when the appearance of affluence is stripped from many people.

we need a leveller to get a lot of people to identify with each other.

when you have middle corporate class directors and managers scrounging with the rest of us, we might identify with each other better.

as long as the appearance of difference is there, we will never identify with each other.

that is why the supremely wealthy allow an affluent class (not a wealth class).

it allows for polarization between different classes of slaves.

i compare it to house slaves and field slaves.

when the house slaves have their finer food and nice clothes stripped from them, they will know that they were still just slaves all along.

when we all pull together, we can take back the power that was ours all along.

When people become too comfortable, they seem to inevitably lose their connection and compassion for others.

It becomes all about material wealth, and protecting it.

So much fear.

So little compassion.

We're morally bankrupt.

the CEOs and the insurance companies are not going to do the right thing of their own free will for they have no conscience and there is too much profit for them under this system

there is no way an honest person can work and save enough, not to lose everything, to pay for serious illness or long term health care so at the end of the day the middle class family's small equity will end up being pocketed by the insurance companies and nursing homes and this will continue to happen again and again until there is some legal way to stop it -- removing insurance companies from this business by law, imprisoning CEOs whoo conspire to deny or cheat people of care, and so on

as i don't see the gov't taking action just because we asked nicely, i don't know what to tell you

i have never seen it get any better in my lifetime, in fact, it has only gotten worse and we are further away than ever

the time to act was in post-war era which is when england, france, etc. got their universal health plans, our gov't has only gotten more conservative since the 1930s and increasingly unwilling to assist the poor and the middle class w. the exception of temporary blips like "the war of poverty"

If that's the only thing that will do it, let's bring this frog to a boil!

There are so few things that I can't find any optimism in (being generally a positive person) --- yet currently, our very broken health care system is one thing I see very little hope in.

I share your sense of futility pitohui, like you said: i have never seen it get any better in my lifetime, in fact, it has only gotten worse and we are further away than ever

I work in education and a couple of years ago, the cost of a pretty average health care plan exceeded the state allocation for education/school employees. I ended up paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket for insurance - and that was with getting FULL insurance benefits from my employer!

With insurance premiums averaging 8-10% increases annually, it seems for many of us a ridiculous % of household income goes to simply pay insurance. Soon, more of us will simply say fuck it --- and will live without insurance or $5,000 deductibles.

It's so damn crazy and I see no end in sight --- only GREED, GREED, and GREED!!!!!!!!!!

abolishing all lobbyists, complete public financing of elections

for a start

then single-payer, universal health care

then a return to the days when drugs were actually regulated and predatory financial institutions such as insurance companies were regulated and kept out of the health care industry