Obamacare / Single Payer Heath Care

While I have been advocating for Single Payer Health Care for some time there was this bit of concern that I heard about how to keep the politics out of the system.  Since the idea of Single Payer is about a payment system not a health decision system I had not really put the emphasis on this particular question.  Well, there IS a response to this “problem” as framed by the person asking the question.

To make the system not a part of politics, repeal the separate system in place for Congress for THEIR health care.  When you look at what has been voted into place for our Representatives and Senators it looks like (if it quacks like a duck…) Single Payer Obamacare!!  Really!  Look closely and you will find that their retirement system looks a lot like Uncapped Social Security as well!!  If you take those perquisites away from them and put them into the SAME system that the rest of us have you will see the system suddenly work.  We did not vote these special treats into place… that is, “We, the People” had no say in putting this stuff in place. 

When the politicians are part of the same system then they will be consistently with us in solving any of the problems.

One of the idiotic things I had (may still have) to overcome is the misdirection from the Righties that Single Payer is about putting the government in CHARGE of your health care issues.  While it is nonsense on the surface of it to say that this is the way it works, it is hard to get past the layer of anti-SP that has been put out there.  If no one listens it is hard to have a discussion.  Currently the private health care companies (insurance companies) have a 35% expense ratio while Single Payer has been shown to have a 3% expense ratio.  The job within the private carrier that is the purse strings of the company is the functionary (a bureaucrat) who denies coverage for procedures that doctors’ show is necessary for the patient.  Additionally, the doctors’ practices pay additional people in their offices to “code” the procedures so that the insurance companies will pay for what needs to be done.  So, the wrong heads out there will fight against a bureaucrat in government helping to handle paying but ignore that profit is the incentive of the current system.  Hmmm, I wonder who would make the better decision?  In any case, in the Single Payer system it is not a “save money by denying coverage” system, it is a straightforward payment plan.

Putting the decision process back in the hands of the doctor and the patient has apparently gotten the Right up in arms against their own best interest.  The dialog of the Right is again in the echo chamber of repeating the lies about what the system would look like (how it would work) and it is difficult to get the attention of the low information voter.

The long and short of it is that putting Congress on our system would force them to create a fair system for all of us. 

Media Absense

 From Occupy Spokane

The regular media has been somewhat absent from reporting on the Occupy movement.  The internet has Occupy sites all over the place if you look but the number of sites is hard to get all the news about the movement at once.  Last night there was alive feed from a park in Boston as the police arrested and moved the group out of the park.  There was a feed from the police frequencies through an on-line scanner that kept you up with the police tactical situation.  Here in Portland, in part because the movement IS large, the main stations are reporting on some of the movement and have moved past the ridicule stage.

Why is Greed Good, Again??

First a bit of a history lesson: 

Taxes and the Creation of Greed

Hopefully you had time to take the side trip into the story about The Tea Party Gets It Wrong embedded in the above link as well.

So, here we are a few decades down the road, having had our system corrupted, I mean seriously corrupted, by the deadly sin becoming a "good" thing.  It's hard to comprehend how that happened, really it is.  Here we have a good nation of mostly concerned citizenry being controlled by a Sociopathic group who seemingly have no good direction we can now go.  There is no longer concern for those of us who can no longer keep up.  There is no room for the diversity that immigrants bring us.  There is no tolerance for women controlling their bodies.  There is only the violence that Colonialism breeds (we want your oil, we will take your oil).  

That a Sin is now a Good thing and that the message is part of the Echo Chamber from the right winged demons spewed endlessly at us has beaten many into submission.  Or, so they thought.  Reality check: the right is now fearful that freedom will break out and that the Occupy agenda will actually take hold.  Gosh, golly, geewillikers.  This coming year will be very, very difficult for all of us.  

The Republicans are not likely to stop being the door stop in Congress.

The country needs to have a jobs bill passed.  The Republicans say, "No."  The country needs single payer health care.  The Republicans say, "No."  The country needs, requires, a working political system.  The Republicans say, "No."  We need to get money out of the political system.  The Republicans say, "We want the money."  The way to change all this, given the corporate control of the system, is to demonstrate and push back hard and long.  That this will have to happen all this winter and likely explode this coming spring says that it will be a very large task this coming year. The Republicans have BECOME the John Birch Society... it happened slowly but it needs to be undone soon.

The Right Will Never Get It

The Right does not Get It... no surprise there.  If they are afraid of the 'growing mob," that is because they know they have been caught with their collective hands in the cookie jar.  Here is the simplest way to SEE what is going on:



Having said that, I am certain that they still won't Get It.

The Banksters reach into Your Pocket

 From NPR Cartoon site

11 Facts About Banks

Starting with the above link this is part of the picture of what the Occupy folks are looking at.  That your pocket has been methodically raided for the last 15 plus years and that we no longer have the regulations we need to protect ourselves is directly due to the Republican agenda.  Since Ronald Reagan, the dismantling of necessary regulation has taken our rights and protections from us.  Any and every time we relent and allow these thugs into our law making process they unvail yet another assault.

The discussion has been skewed considerably too.  A recent exchange I had with a Righty said that she was for the free market.  Well, so am I but that does not mean a free and uninterrupted assault without regulation.  If we are a country of laws, as I have often heard said, then we are a land of regulations.  That is, every aspect of our lives has some juxtaposition to the laws of the land.  Saying that you are for a free market has become code for, "I don't want to be subject to any laws."  This is just wrong headed.  As a nation of laws we need police powers to hold in check the forces of evil... the banks in an increasingly unregulated environment have become that evil.  There is no mistaking the extent of this fact.  Look at what they have done.  Crashing the economy has worked to their benefit.

We live in, or want to live in, a free society.  Do we not need laws to protect us from murders and criminals in general?  I mean, if we have laws are we free?  Of course we are.  Regulations for industry are the laws that likewise protect us from polluters, or corporate greed or any number of problems business can generate if left to its own devices.  It is just a little over the line to say that we need a country of fewer regulations; to the contrary, we need to reinstate many of the regulations that we have killed off during the last several years.  A government without regulations is not a government at all.  Consider this, the Constitution is a set of laws and we do not want to live in a place without this minimum level of protection.

In the end, laws are protections that WE have put in place for our benefit.  The Right has become the John Birch Society of 50 years ago... they wanted no laws.  This is just code for, "We want to be unfettered in our quest to fleece the public," because it is the corporate Right that is promoting this idea not WE the people.  

What, Me Organized?

One of the greatest things about the Occupy Wall Street and spin off movements is that it is constantly being called unorganized.  During the Occupy Portland rally I went to I saw clearly that it is very, very organized.  In so many ways, from the second I got within 100 feet of the group assembling I noticed instruction on a variety of fronts all over the event.  The "Mic Check" scheme made it clear that this is a very democratic way of getting all the feedback needed to get the participants to participate!!

Here is a feed from the Huffington Post that says a lot about how this works:

"Last night, I was part of a nearly 3hr meeting that involved coordination of direct action trainings, legal strategy education, political education, historical education, support strategies for teachers of color in NYC, skillshares & theater to combat patriarchal behavior in organizing, support for indigenous remembrance in opposition to Columbus Day, and means of putting the struggles of marginalized communities in NYC at the center of it all. This involved management of TWO google groups, multiple schedule tracks of classes, 3-4 web calendars integrated into one web platform, and fuck knows how many twitter feeds. It also involved liaising, federation, and mutual support between no fewer than five thematic working groups and adherence to principles laid out by a directly-democratic general assembly.The next time you hear someone say Occupy Wall Street is disorganized, please slap them." - Jason Cherkis

This is probably confusing to the media because they don't "Get" the structure.  They want a single individual to interview.  The media doesn't Get democracy and transparency.  Too, too funny really.

The Clueless Chime In

So, it was Eric Cantor, a (truly clueless) Representative from Virginia said, back in the days of the Tea Party organizing demonstrations, ”… fighting on the fighting lines of what we know is a battle for our democracy.”

Now Cantor is concerned that the “growing mobs” are a danger to democracy.  Can you believe how thoroughly scripted his mindset is?  How clueless?  He goes along with the right wing organized collection of people (who were NEVER shown the amount of support the Occupy Wall Street movement has now) who became the Tea Party but now is “concerned” (maybe read as terrified) over an independent movement.  Yes, he is very much the epitome poster boy for idiot.

One commenter on the story of Cantor’s whining in rawstory.com said:

“When the teabaggers, armed to the teeth are in the streets, the Rethugs not only praise them as "patriotic Americans exercising their 'freedom of speech/assembly", but actively encourage them.

BUT, when the shoe is on the other foot, those unarmed, nonviolent 99%ers are in the streets, they are denounced as "Un American mobs'.

Hypocrisy much scumbag Cantor?“  - FcukTheArmy

This is a reflective statement of the feeling of the country at large toward the clueless, whinny 1%ers.  During my time at Occupy Portland it was clear that the narrative has been taken away from the Right and given over to a less organized group whose strength is in that “leaderless” approach to civil disobedience.

The story started here...