Historic Moment

Whoo Hoo !!!! Yes we did !!! This vote was for you, Ted.

Health Care Reform just became a probability instead of the faint possibility of a few weeks ago. I never want to read that President Obama lacks leadership again.

Nancy Pelosi is as disliked by the 'right' as Dick Cheney is by the 'left'. The reason? Because she can deliver and much credit for tonight's historic vote has to go to her.

I will write more on this later, but for now I am going to celebrate all by myself and then hit the hay (also by myself) so I will be rested for my root canal tomorrow.

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The morning after

This morning I received the following in my e-mail. I am sure many of you also got this form letter, but I am going to share it with those of you who did not. It is a copy of President Obama's speech after the vote.

Dear Darlene --

For the first time in our nation's history, Congress has passed comprehensive health care reform. America waited a hundred years and fought for decades to reach this moment. Tonight, thanks to you, we are finally here.

Consider the staggering scope of what you have just accomplished:

Because of you, every American will finally be guaranteed high quality, affordable health care coverage.

Every American will be covered under the toughest patient protections in history. Arbitrary premium hikes, insurance cancellations, and discrimination against pre-existing conditions will now be gone forever.

And we'll finally start reducing the cost of care -- creating millions of jobs, preventing families and businesses from plunging into bankruptcy, and removing over a trillion dollars of debt from the backs of our children.

But the victory that matters most tonight goes beyond the laws and far past the numbers.

It is the peace of mind enjoyed by every American, no longer one injury or illness away from catastrophe.

It is the workers and entrepreneurs who are now freed to pursue their slice of the American dream without fear of losing coverage or facing a crippling bill.

And it is the immeasurable joy of families in every part of this great nation, living happier, healthier lives together because they can finally receive the vital care they need.

This is what change looks like.

My gratitude tonight is profound. I am thankful for those in past generations whose heroic efforts brought this great goal within reach for our times. I am thankful for the members of Congress whose months of effort and brave votes made it possible to take this final step. But most of all, I am thankful for you.

This day is not the end of this journey. Much hard work remains, and we have a solemn responsibility to do it right. But we can face that work together with the confidence of those who have moved mountains.

Our journey began three years ago, driven by a shared belief that fundamental change is indeed still possible. We have worked hard together every day since to deliver on that belief.

We have shared moments of tremendous hope, and we've faced setbacks and doubt. We have all been forced to ask if our politics had simply become too polarized and too short-sighted to meet the pressing challenges of our time. This struggle became a test of whether the American people could still rally together when the cause was right -- and actually create the change we believe in.

Tonight, thanks to your mighty efforts, the answer is indisputable: Yes we can.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Myths on Health Care Reform

Paul Krugman has an editorial in this mornings New York Times that exposes the myths being told about reform. The Republicans have no conscience and are so intent on keeping Obama from having a victory that they will lie and distort the facts about reform. I have said it before and will keep on saying it with my last breath. We must have health care reform. Now please read excerpts from Krugman's Op-ed piece.

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Reform still has to run a gantlet of misinformation and outright lies. So let me address three big myths about the proposed reform, myths that are believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin.

The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.

Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.

The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?

The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.

Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.

And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.

Furthermore, there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them. What the actuary and the budget office do is a bit like looking at an oil company’s prospecting efforts, concluding that any individual test hole it drills will probably come up dry, and predicting as a consequence that the company won’t find any oil at all — when the odds are, in fact, that some of the test holes will pan out, and produce big payoffs. Realistically, health reform is likely to do much better at controlling costs than any of the official projections suggest.

Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I’ve already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what’s actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.

But this isn’t an argument against Obamacare, it’s a declaration that we can’t control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact “stuck,” rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.

So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.

For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.

This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

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Click on the link to see a protest for health care reform.

http://healthcareforamericanow.org/

Writing Your Representatives

I am always recommending that you write your representatives. It is very important that they hear from you now during this final push for passage of the health care reform bill.

No, this bill isn't what most of us want, but it has enough good things in it to make it worthwhile. It can be the first step in reform and sometimes we have to crawl before we can walk.

Here is a video on how to make your letter stand out, so before you write your representative please watch it. I hope you will then be motivated to write your rep. one last time. (Or more, if you are a passionate about this issue as I am.)



We should stress that this should be enacted speedily so the president can get on to the vital issue of creating jobs.

If any of you are looking for a job, and are low income, you might check with your local employment office to see if your area is beginning to put together the new job assistance program that Obama has initiated. I understand that the government will pay the employer part of the wages of every new person he/she hires. Apparently, they will match the applicant and the employer.

My daughter, who has been hunting for a job for over two years, told me about it. She was quite excited and has hopes that she will find work through this program. The minute she heard about it she rushed right down with an application and a resume. It is just getting underway in her county.

Don't give up

You didn't think I would give up posting on health care reform did you?  The pharmaceutical industry has let us down by failing to manufacture enough vaccine for both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 (Swine) flu.  Yet their profits soar.  The insurance industry is frantically spending millions daily to sabotage the weakened bills that are being considered in Congress.  Now is not the time to give up.  Please keep calling your Congressmen and demanding that a strong Public Option be included in the bill.

Following is an excerpt from a Truthout editorial:

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As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) goes on estimating the percentages of Americans that will be covered by this bill or that bill, Weiner's bill stands alone in its ethical simplicity: It will cover 100 percent of the people, no CBO guessing games needed.

For now, we call on Congress to pass a bill with a "robust public option."

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This Just In - the Vote

Ryan Grim

HuffPost Reporting

Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Care Reform 14-9

Sixty-four years ago, President Harry Truman stood before a joint session of Congress and called on the body "to assure the right to adequate medical care and protection from the economic fears of sickness."
Forty-nine years later, President Bill Clinton made the same demand.

On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Congress moved closer to achieving that goal than it ever has. The hold-out Senate Finance Committee voted by a 14-9 margin to move the fifth and final health care reform proposal through the conservative panel.

The package, coming in at under $900 billion over ten years, is the least generous in terms of subsidies for working and middle-class Americans to purchase health insurance, and it does NOT include a national public health insurance option. But the bill would dramatically reorganize the nation's system of health care and health insurance and stands as the foundation on which Democrats hope to build a strong reform package with negligible GOP support.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was the lone Republican to support the package. "My vote today is my vote today. It doesn't forecast what my vote will be tomorrow," she said, although her vote does keep her at the negotiating table and at the center of the health care reform debate. Snowe risked marginalizing herself with a no vote.

The year after both Truman and Clinton's failed efforts, the Republican Party retook control of Congress and any hope of reform faded to minority status. President Obama intends to avoid the same fate.
With the bill having officially moved through the panel, deliberations will migrate to the Capitol, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will huddle with Senate leaders to merge the finance bill with a more generous version from the health committee which passed earlier this year.

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As if we didn't already know, the Republicans will never vote for health care reform in spite of their hypocritical protestations.   The profess to be for reform, but even though the bill has been watered down to a mere shadow of what it should be and even though the most important part of reform is missing (the public option) they still didn't vote for it.  That makes it pretty obvious that we were right when we said they didn't care 'squat' for the plight of suffering Americans, but just wanted to destroy Obama's presidency. 

If I were the president now I would get them all in my office and tell them that the Democrats were going to include the public option and  they could live with the scorn of the electorate.

We shall see now how tough Obama is going to be and if the public option will be included in the final bill.  Stay tuned.

Danger Of the Status Quo

 Unless I am badly mistaken, the Republicans have nothing to offer toward bringing down the obscene unbelievable cost of health care other than a few band aids like Tort reform (see a previous post on why this is meaningless) and going after fraud and waste.  Both probably need to to done, but if those are the only reforms to health care then the cost for the country, businesses and individuals will continue to escalate. 

I watched one of the Baucus hearings and, to my disgust amazement, heard one of my Arizona Senators, John Kyle, actually defend the insurance companies and their right to enjoy Capitalism to the fullest.  (My words, his meaning).  Of course, this means the status quo, which is unacceptable. 

To fully comprehend what doing nothing means please read the following New York Times article citing the Kaiser study. 

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The Kaiser study, conducted jointly with the Health Research and Education Trust, an affiliate of the American Hospital Association, found that the average premium for a family policy offered at work rose above $13,300 in 2009 — up from $5,800 in 1999. The average employer paid more than $9,800 of that, while the workers contributed more than $3,500. The workers were also hit with larger co-payments and deductibles, while their policies often offered fewer benefits.

The premium increase this year was a relatively modest 5 percent, far below the 13 percent rate in two previous years. But that still far outpaced a 3.1 percent growth in wages and a small decrease in inflation. Absent meaningful reform, worse is sure to come.

Kaiser estimates that, if increases revert to the average of the last 10 years, health insurance premiums in 2019 will average a whopping $30,800, which it calls “a very scary number.” More immediately, a fifth of the employers surveyed said they are very likely to increase the amount that employees pay for premiums next year.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department’s study highlighted how vulnerable Americans are to losing their coverage.

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Folks, our country is in deep trouble and most politicians don't even understand the details of the reform they are adding amendments to.  If this continues they will spend many more years trying to undo the hash they are making of health reform and meanwhile people will continue to die and/or go bankrupt.  

Following are excerpts from an article in Rolling Stone:

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September 07, 2009 "Rolling Stone" -- Let's start with the obvious: America has not only the worst but the dumbest health care system in the developed world. It's become a black leprosy eating away at the American experiment - a bureaucracy so insipid and mean and illogical that even our darkest criminal minds wouldn't be equal to dreaming it up on purpose.

The system doesn't work for anyone. It cheats patients and leaves them to die, denies insurance to 47 million Americans, forces hospitals to spend billions haggling over claims, and systematically bleeds and harasses doctors with the specter of catastrophic litigation. Even as a mechanism for delivering bonuses to insurance-company fat cats, it's a miserable failure: Greedy insurance bosses who spent a generation denying preventive care to patients now see their profits sapped by millions of customers who enter the system only when they're sick with incurably expensive illnesses.

The cost of all of this to society, in illness and death and lost productivity and a soaring federal deficit and plain old anxiety and anger, is incalculable .


The game in health care reform has mostly come down to whether or not the final bill that is hammered out from the work of these five committees will contain a public option - i.e., an option for citizens to buy in to a government-run health care plan. Because the plan wouldn't have any profit motive - and wouldn't have to waste money on executive bonuses and corporate marketing - it would automatically cost less than private insurance. Once such a public plan is on the market, it would also drive down prices offered by for-profit insurers - a move essential to offset the added cost of covering millions of uninsured Americans. Without a public option, any effort at health care reform will be as meaningful as a manicure for a gunshot victim. "The public option is the main thing on the table," says Michael Behan, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "It's really coming down to that."

Congress has made sure to cover itself, sabotaging the bill long before it even got to Baucus' committee. To do this, they used a five-step system of subtle feints and legislative tricks to gut the measure until there was nothing left.

STEP ONE: AIM LOW

STEP TWO: GUT THE PUBLIC OPTION

STEP THREE: PACK IT WITH LOOPHOLES
. STEP FOUR: PROVIDE NO LEADERSHIP

STEP FIVE: BLOW THE MATH

All that's left of health care reform is a collection of weakling proposals that are preposterous.
It's a joke, the whole thing, a parody of Solomonic governance. By the time all the various bills are combined, health care will be a baby not split in half but in fourths and eighths and fractions of eighths. It's what happens when a government accustomed to dealing on the level of perception tries to take on a profound emergency that exists in reality. No matter how hard Congress may try, though, it simply is not possible to paper over a crisis this vast.

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We will probably get health care reform in some form, but it will be a mockery of what it could have been and what it should be.

An aside:  my eye surgery was most successful.  The blurred vision stopped almost as soon as I posted the previous post.   Thanks to all of you who wished me well.  I deeply appreciate your caring.

It's The Money Stupid

 I thought this article on Truthout was a funny 'tongue in cheek' rant that simplifies why we should have health care reform.  If you don't think it's funny, just look at the facts it contains. Facts are still stubborn things. 


( I have edited it a tad.  If you want to read the entire article here is the link: 

http://www.truthout.org/090909A?print   

by: John Cory, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    The media tells me that health reform is a very complicated issue, that it is hard to understand and even harder to explain to simple-minded and politically unsophisticated people like me. It is about money and costs and free-market and big government socialists versus real America, or something like that. 

    So, I ask: How can the majority of other industrialized nations manage to provide affordable health care to their citizens?

    The fabulous media roll their eyes and show me the following Organization for Economic Development (OECD) report:

    Total health care spending per person as of 2007:

    US: $7,290

    UK: $2,992
    Japan: $2,581
    Canada: $3,895
    France: $3,601
    The average OECD expenditure: $2,964


    Next question: If other countries spend less than half of what the US spends (on average) with good results, where does all our money go?

    This is where my neat-o media suddenly points across the room at the man jumping up and down about wanting his country back or the lady hollering about the Muslim socialist in the White House. Look, look they say, Jerry Springer politics is so entertaining!

    But I still want to know where all that money goes. Don't you?

    We spend twice the money on health care as most other countries and we are supposed to just accept this as the cost of a free market, the price of being American? Let's face it folks, if health care was manufacturing or Walmart, the jobs and services would already have been outsourced to the cheapest foreign competitor.

    I'm not a journalist or a particularly educated guy, but golly, gee whiz Batman, it seems to me that somebody is getting ripped off here - and that somebody is, us.

    Here's more figures I hear tossed around without examination: The administrative costs of Medicare run about 3 percent while the corporate health insurance industry administrative costs hover at 30 percent.

    How can that be? I thought the government was really bad at managing anything while private enterprise is expert at cost containment. But the businessmen require ten times as much overhead costs as big government politicians?

Whatever happened to the old adage "follow the money?" Who in our media or journalist-pundit class is willing to give up the ratings gold of raucous town hall meetings to investigate where our money is going?

How much of that $7,290 per person in the US goes to exorbitant CEO salaries? How much goes to lobbyist funding to deregulate the insurance industry? How much is waste and fraud? How much of that money is actual medical treatment?

This is America, the greatest nation with the best health care in the world. I know, because my TV tells me so. But something is not right here. Something is off.

America is the home of innovative capitalism. Europe is a bunch of socialistic democratic republics. How can they provide health care at a lower cost? How do they get lower drug prices than we do? Why can't we?

Lift one rock and you find more and more. Medical bankruptcy comprises 50 percent of all bankruptcies nationally. And 80 percent of medical bankruptcy comes from people who have insurance.

Treatment clinics set up by Remote Area Medical on American soil from California to Kentucky just to provide basic health care to those who cannot afford it. Think of that: A medical organization that specializes in Third World underdeveloped countries has to fill a need in America, the wealthiest country in the world.

Is this what we've come to? The value of a healthy life is determined by deductibles? Does the value of a life have a monetary cap? Is life itself a pre-existing condition? The corporations that sell insurance think so. They sat before Congress and justified "rescission" as a cost-effective management tool, and no matter the examples of ruined lives shown to them, when asked how many of those executives would put a halt to these practices, not one manicured hand was raised. No need to fear government death panels - they're already here in tailored suits and silk smiles that say, "Show me the money."

    US: $7,290 - the average: $2,964 - results: Quality is fairly equal. How can that be?
    It's always about the money.

All the President's Men and Health Care Reform

I am providing a link to an article and video published before the President's address last night.   Bill Moyers said all I have wanted to say about the nuttiness that has invaded the health care debate, so instead of repeating what he said, here is a link to read it.  It won't take long and it might make you feel better.  It did me.

http://www.truthout.org/090609Z?n

Did you hear the president's speech to Congress and the Nation last night?  I thought it was one of his best yet.  He certainly put the whacko's in their place.  I loved it when he said that if they continue to lie, "we will call you out."  

Here are a few things that have not been stressed before.   Some of them I learned from a doctor on C-Span.

• We spend 1 1/2 times as much on health care as other industrialized countries.
• Only 2% of students studying to be doctors are now becoming primary care physicians because the way the current system works the specialists are paid much more.
• Universal care in other countries is based on Primary Care physicians.
• Doctor's are unable to negotiate with the insurance companies.
  
• There are four different amounts doctors are paid for the same procedure.

Our system is very broken and anyone who wants to keep it this way is making money from it in some fashion or a very uninformed idiot.  (Yeah - I can be nasty  too.)

 

The Republicans looked so small and petty as they sat on their hands and glared.  The ones that actually were texting instead of paying attention made it obvious that they were not about to listen.  They have already decided they will do everything in their power to sabotage the President's agenda, even if it means that the country goes down the tubes.  The shameful outburst by Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, was the most disgraceful thing I have ever witnessed in all my years of hearing presidential addresses.  Talk about  having no class.  When uncivil discourse has fallen to this new low I think Americans had better look at the image we are projecting around the world.  Freedom of speech should not cover boorishness.

Not only did Joe Wilson look rude, he showed his lack of knowledge.  The President did not lie.  Coverage of illegal aliens is NOT in any of the five bills floating around Congress.  One thing Joe (not the plumber)  should have considered is that we are now paying for their care when they show up in emergency rooms.  Personally, I think coverage should be provided for them in some form.  If they have an infectious disease, wouldn't it be better to have medical attention available to them so they wouldn't spread it around?  Maybe we could work with Mexico to be reimbursed for their care, but even undocumented workers deserve to have medical attention; especially innocent children.

The president showed leadership. Now it's up to his men, the Democrats, to help him.  He laid it out and they must see that his agenda passes with the stipulations that he outlined.  He was not firm on the Public Option, but did say that if someone had a better plan to bring costs down he would listen.  I think it's pretty obvious that there is no better plan.  The Repubs claim just cutting waste and fraud and doing away with tort reform is enough.  Baloney!  Those savings would do nothing about covering all the people who do not have insurance. 

If there isn't some way to eliminate the profit - I might say obscene profit - in health care the problem will be with us forever.  The trigger is not a solution; it is only a delaying tactic.  The cooperatives are still handled by insurance companies with all of the pitfalls involved.  Nothing except Medicare for all will really solve the current cost.

After analyzing the objections to reform it really boils down to this:  ideology.  The belief that less government is better.  Well there are many things that government does better than private industry.  However, that argument is for another day.  No one will every change the minds of the people who believe that.  But for the rest of us, we demand that, after fifty years of talking about this, we will now get reform.

Living Wills

Wow! Wasn't Ronni Bennett's idea on having all of us post on health care reform on the same day a great one? It took me two days to read all of the posts and they were all excellent. I was especially excited to read blogs from people in other countries telling how happy they were with their health care systems validating my belief that they were to be envied. They also refuted the lies being told about their medical care.

The more I read, the more I became aware of just how lousy our system is. It is mind boggling to me that there are still those who think it's the best in the world. 'Taint necessarily so' just because Rush or a Republican Senator says it is.

Some of the comments told sad stories about the horrible decisions they had to make when an elderly relative died. I think it's now time to tell my story.

My husband was 62 at the time he had a massive stroke. He didn't have any health insurance and I had to sign a waiver that I would be responsible for his bills before the hospital would admit him. Of course, I did so, and in my distraught condition I couldn't worry about that at the time. A friend advised me to get him in the state medical program for low income (ACCESS), which saved me from becoming impoverished.

Seven months later a tissue biopsy revealed multiple inoperable malignent brain tumors. After the biopsy, my husband could no longer speak and the stroke symptoms worsened. He was a large man and I could not care for him at home. I was working and I didn't have the choice of quitting. I had no option but to leave him in a nursing home that the doctor had placed him in. (Reform should include home care givers so the patient can die at home. It would be cheaper and more humane.)

He was a prisoner in his own body unable to make his wishes known, talk of his fears, or even feed himself. He had been a vital fun loving man and I knew how terrible this must have been for him. He used to joke that he knew how he was going to die - he was going to be shot by a jealous lover at the age of 99.

Not only did Wayne not have health insurance, he did not have a living will.

In October I got a telephone call from his doctor telling me that my husband had managed to pull his catheter out and had an infection. He asked me if I wanted him to treat the infection. I knew that without treatment Wayne would die. I also knew that he would want to. But I had to make the decision alone and immediately . It was one of the hardest things I ever did, because, no matter how you rationalize it, you have the power of life and death in your hands. I asked the doctor if he could keep him comfortable if the infection wasn't treated. When he assured me that he could, I told him, "Do not treat it." I would not wish having to make that decision on anyone. I know its illogical, but there remains a feeling of guilt. If Wayne had signed a living will the decision would have been his.

I am sure that everyone who is remotely interested in this subject has heard about Sarah Palin's vicious statement about 'Obama's death panels' and about Charles Grassley 's disingenuous statement about pulling the plug on grandma. This is one of the more despicable lies being spread and I will tell you what is really at stake. (Orrin Hatch failed to denounce Sarah and Charles statements to his shame.)

The right wing won that round. The clause was pulled from the bill.

What they were mis-characterizing was a clause that would have included payment for a consultation between a doctor and the patient on 'end of life' care. A consultation would surely include information and help on drawing up a living will. Having one would spare relatives from having to make the kind of decision that I and others have had to make. That is why I am hoping they will reinstate the clause.

My children will never have to make a decision like I did if I should end my days in a lingering death. I have an iron clad living will and medical power of attorney. I have also discussed my wishes with my children and informed my sister of my wishes. There will be no arguing on what to do between relatives as so often happens in cases like this. I have taken control of my ability to die without machines, as nature intended.

Questions and Answers on Health Care Reform

Sometimes our government makes things so complicated that no one can understand what they are doing. I doubt that they understand it either. I am certainly no Einstein, but on the Health Care Reform I hope to simplify some of the issues for you.

Questions and Answers:

• What is it going to cost?

• That is the wrong question. The question should be: "What will it cost if we don't reform health care now. The answer is, every individual will pay more for their health care until it is unsustainable.

  Nationwide, insurance premiums have doubled in the last nine years, increasing three times faster than real wages. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, last year the U.S. spent approximately $2.2 trillion, or $7,421 per person, on health care. This equals 16.2 percent of our GDP, nearly twice the amount of the next most costly nation. It is estimated that by 2040, one in every three dollars will be spent on health care.

  The price of health care keeps rising and will continue to do so unless it is reformed. Individuals, businesses, states, and the Federal Government are all going bankrupt due to the costly burden of health care. This is helping to bring down our economy in many ways. (Trust me on this.)

• What is the rush? Why not take time to do it right?

• First, to say there is a rush is just plain silly. We have been studying the need for reform for 40 years and attempts at reform have always been defeated. There is no better time than now to succeed. If it isn't done now it won't happen again in decades. And if nothing is done, you probably won't be able to afford your health care in a very few years. Even if you are able to get insurance, or are on Medicare, you will no longer get the quality of care you now enjoy. Those who are frightened by the lies being put out by the insurance industry should really be frightened if nothing is done.
  

• How are we going to pay for it?

• If we used the common sense that other countries have used we would have no trouble paying for it. The single-payer system costs far less than we are spending right now on health care. When they put out scare tactics about a trillion dollars cost they are ignoring, and not subtracting, the amount we are already paying and are not taking into account the savings that will be built in to real reform. (Note: I emphasized REAL because we will save nothing unless this is done right.) But even without the single-payer system the cost saved by reducing fraud, waste and duplication in our current system and, along with a Public Option, will go a long way to pay for those who are now uninsured. True, the savings won't happen over night, but eventually we will recover the cost of insuring the uninsured or under-insured with future savings.
  

• How will it change my insurance that I have now; especially if I am on Medicare?

• The current reform plan will not affect you at all. It will, however, give everyone more benefits in the form of free gym membership and free counseling for living a healthier life. In other words, preventative medicine. If this is put back in the final bill (as it should be) it will also pay for assistance on making a Living Will and a Medical Power of Attorney IF YOU WANT ONE. This is not a mandate.

• Is this socialized medicine?

• No, no, no. The government will not be the employers of the doctors and will not own the pharmaceutical companies. The government will play the same roll for everyone who want to join the Public Option that they now do for the Veterans and Federal Employees. (Your Congressmen and Senators among others.)
  

• What will happen to the Insurance Companies under the Obama plan?
  

• The only thing the government will do is mandate that the insurance companies can no longer kick people off the rolls when they get sick and will no longer be able to refuse to insure people that have pre-existing conditions. Their obscene profits will probably drop.
  

• Will the government ration health care?

• Absolutely not. There is NOTHING in the bill about rationing health care. Health care is being rationed now by the insurance companies. They decide what doctor you can see, what procedures they will cover, what medications you may use, etc.
  

• Will Elders be euthanized?

• This is such a ridiculous charge I shouldn't even have to answer it, but since some people are gullible enough to believe this, I will. the answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOT. The big lie about this is just that - a big lie!

• Will I be forced into a government plan?

• No. You can keep your current plan and your current doctor. All it will do is give you more choices.

The reality is that a single payer option is still the best reform plan that would save the most money. Perhaps it's the only one that would. For those who say they don't trust their government, I ask them why they trust the private sector (aka the insurance and pharmaceutical industries)? It's damned obvious that those industries do not have your interests at heart. Believe me, the bottom line is their goal.

And for those who believe all the lies about the terrible things that happen to patients in other countries I say "Hogwash!" I have heard from many individuals from France, Canada, England and Switzerland who are very happy with their health care system. I have also heard of many in our country who are not. Many more, I might add. Please follow the link to an article from the BBC on what their plan is really like. The lies being told by the likes of Michelle Malkin, et al, are absurd .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8198084.stm

For a look at how much power is being amassed against reform, the following link provides an eye opener.

http://www.truthout.org/081509Z?n

I hope I have answered some of your questions. Remember, there really isn't a bill yet. Here is a link to the proposed bill as it stands now:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

Here is a link to a reality check:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq

And just for fun, here is a link to one of my favorite blogs, Margaret and Helen. It is written by two friends, but Margaret does most of the writing. Her style reminds me of the late great Molly Ivins. Margaret is also a Texan and is a salty old elder in her 80's who writes with a delicious sense of humor. I am sure you will enjoy her blog. This post is linked to the subject of the uninformed screamers at the Town Hall meetings.

http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/i-remember-an-america-where-black-men-didn/#comment-30852

I try very hard to be realistic when I analyze something. So to make this whole things easy to understand I will simply say, "If you sell a product and make a profit, isn't it logical that you can sell it for less if you omit the profit?" Why is it any different with the cost of health care? I would love to eliminate the insurance industry from our system of health care, but with the current bunch of Yahoos beholden to the Insurance Industry in Congress that will never happen.

Finally, let Obama and your representatives know that you prefer a single payer system but will settle for nothing less than the Public Option. Without that, the rest is just band aids and window dressing.