Health Care Jigsaw Puzzle

As the circular clusterboink over health care in D.C. undulates and froths with opinions, here-say, argument and polemic congresscritters look for pieces of the jigsaw puzzle on the floor of history. They struggle in vain to avoid the glaringly obvious conclusion that the American people have been sold a real stinker with the label "best medical care in the world" pinned to its shirtfront.

We used to believe it, until we began to notice the abysmal statistics. If our health care system is so great, why are we 17th in the world for infant mortality (and one of the worst for developed countries) and 45th in the world for life expectancy?

If you oppose single-payer universal health care, I challenge you to go through the list of common objections and see them all rebutted, at this site. Go ahead, you know you want to. Sooner or later the opponents are going to realize that it is just plain better for American, better for business overall, better for economy in general and specifically, to insure all our citizens. I believe America should join the rest of the developed world and provide a single-payer system.

Health, Money and Fear

A film about our health care system

Dr. Paul Hochfeld, Producer - Director - Editor

Dr. Hochfield is an emergency room physician who trained at M.I.T.

And don't forget this must-see backgrounder:

Say It Isn't So, Ben

If you go to bed with Big Insurance, who knows what social diseases you will catch? Money talks and Nebraska's Bennie Nelson, like a good little yes man, listens to the siren song of de almighty dollah. Sad, sad, sad.

From The Seminal. QUOTE Sen. Ben Nelson said Thursday that he will oppose the creation of a government-run health insurance plan as part of a health care overhaul, contrary to the position held by many of his fellow Democrats.
Nelson, D-Neb., said he may try to assemble a coalition of like-minded centrists opposed to the creation of a public plan, as a counterweight to Democrats pushing for it. He said he does not believe a majority of the Senate supports the idea. UNQUOTE

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The Money Was There All Along

Downsize our military, keep our troops home, start making cool useful stuff locally, and redirect those trillions to schools, healthcare, and alternate energy and we wouldn't have to raise a dime of new taxes.

Please read and distribute this article The God That Failed widely.

From Counterpunch

QUOTE This was the cult that captured the governments of the United States and Britain (among others), as well as the Republican and Democratic parties, and the Conservative and Labour parties as well. And for almost thirty years, its ruthless doctrines have been put into practice. Regulation and oversight of financial markets were systematically stripped away or rendered toothless. Essential public services were sold off, for chump change, to corporate interests. Public spending on anything other than making war, threatening war and profiting from war was pared back or eliminated. Such public spending that did remain was forever under threat and derided, like the remnants of some pagan faith surviving in isolated backwaters.

Year after year, the ordinary citizens were told by their governments: we have no money to spend on your needs, on your communities, on your infrastructure, on your health, on your children, on your environment, on your quality of life. We can't do those kinds of things any more.

Of course, when talking amongst themselves, or with the believers in the think tanks, boardrooms -- and editorial offices -- the cultists would speak more plainly: we don't do those things anymore because we shouldn't do them, we don't want to do them, they are wrong, they are evil, they are outside the faith. But for the hoi polloi, the line was usually something like this: Budgets are tight, we must balance them (for a "balanced budget" is a core doctrine of the cult), we just can't afford all these luxuries.

But now, as the emptiness and falsity of the Chicago cargo cult stands nakedly revealed, even to some of its most faithful and fanatical adherents, we can see that this 30-year mantra by our governments has been a deliberate and outright lie. The money was there -- billions and billions and billions of dollars of it, trillions of dollars of it. We can see it before our very eyes today -- being whisked away from our public treasuries and showered upon the banks and the brokerages.

Let's say it again: The money was there all along.

Money to build and generously equip thousands and thousands of new schools, with well-paid, exquisitely trained teachers, small teacher-pupil ratios, a full range of enriching and inspiring programs.

Money to revitalize the nation's crumbling inner cities, making them safe and vibrant places for businesses and families and communities to grow.

Money to provide decent, affordable and accessible health care to every citizen, to provide dignity and comfort to the elderly, and protection and humane treatment for the mentally ill.

Money to provide affordable higher education to everyone who wanted it and could qualify for it. Money to help establish and sustain local businesses and family farms, centered in and on the local community, driven by the needs and knowledge of the people in the area, and not by the dictates of distant corporations.

Money to strengthen crumbling infrastructure, to repair bridges, shore up levies, maintain roads and electric grids and sewage systems.

Money for affordable, workable public transport systems, for the pursuit of alternative sources of energy, for sustainable, sensible development, for environmental restoration.

Money to support free inquiry in science, technology, health and other areas -- research unfettered from the war machine and the drive for corporate profit, and instead devoted to the betterment of human life.

Money to support culture, learning, continuing education, libraries, theater, music and the endless manifestations of the human quest to gain more meaning, more understanding, more enlightenment, a deeper, spiritually richer life.

The money for all of this -- and much, much more -- was there, all along. When they said we couldn't have these things, they were lying -- or else allowing themselves to be profitably duped by the high priests of the market cult. When they wanted a trillion dollars -- or three trillion dollars -- to wage a war of aggression in Iraq, they found it. Now, when they want trillions of dollars to save the speculators, fraudsters and profiteers of greed in the global market, they suddenly have it. UNQUOTE
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