Krugman: Obama Should Push for Health Care Now
By Susie Madrak Friday Jan 30, 2009 5:00pmKrugman's right - the time is right to push for universal health care. I mean, I've been unemployed since July, have several pressing medical problems, and have been paying through the nose for COBRA. (The money's about to run out.) There's a new COBRA subsidy - but I got laid off one month too early to be eligible. Oh well!
Sure would be nice if President Obama saw this as a priority!'
Krugman says:
Let’s talk about the magnitude of the looming health care disaster.
Just about all economic forecasts, including those of the Obama administration’s own economists, say that we’re in for a prolonged period of very high unemployment. And high unemployment means a sharp rise in the number of Americans without health insurance.
After the economy slumped at the beginning of this decade, five million people joined the ranks of the uninsured — and that was with the unemployment rate peaking at only 6.3 percent. This time the Obama administration says that even with its stimulus plan, unemployment will reach 8 percent, and that it will stay above 6 percent until 2012. Many independent forecasts are even more pessimistic.
Why, then, aren’t we hearing more about ensuring health care access?
Now, it’s possible that those of us who care about this issue are reading too much into the administration’s silence. But let me address three arguments that I suspect Mr. Obama is hearing against moving on health care, and explain why they’re wrong.
First, some people are arguing that a major expansion of health care access would just be too expensive right now, given the vast sums we’re about to spend trying to rescue the economy.
But research sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund shows that achieving universal coverage with a plan similar to Mr. Obama’s campaign proposals would add “only” about $104 billion to federal spending in 2010 — not a small sum, of course, but not large compared with, say, the tax cuts in the Obama stimulus plan.
It’s true that the cost of universal health care will be a continuing expense, reaching far into the future. But that has always been true, and Mr. Obama has always claimed that his health care plan was affordable. The temporary expenses of his stimulus plan shouldn’t change that calculation.
Second, some people in Mr. Obama’s circle may be arguing that health care reform isn’t a priority right now, in the face of economic crisis.
But helping families purchase health insurance as part of a universal coverage plan would be at least as effective a way of boosting the economy as the tax breaks that make up roughly a third of the stimulus plan — and it would have the added benefit of directly helping families get through the crisis, ending one of the major sources of Americans’ current anxiety.
Finally — and this is, I suspect, the real reason for the administration’s health care silence — there’s the political argument that this is a bad time to be pushing fundamental health care reform, because the nation’s attention is focused on the economic crisis. But if history is any guide, this argument is precisely wrong.
[...] One more thing. There’s a populist rage building in this country, as Americans see bankers getting huge bailouts while ordinary citizens suffer.
I agree with administration officials who argue that these financial bailouts are necessary (though I have problems with the specifics). But I also agree with Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who argues that — as a matter of political necessity as well as social justice — aid to bankers has to be linked to a strengthening of the social safety net, so that Americans can see that the government is ready to help everyone, not just the rich and powerful.
The bottom line, then, is that this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!
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the piggy bank is empty. But if you really would like healthcare, I'm taking in boarders at my place!!
On the “tax cut” mantra we are subjected to ad nauseum, how come we never hear the obvious? To wit:
1. Somebody without a home cannot pay property taxes.
2. Somebody without any money cannot buy things that charge sales or excise taxes.
3. Somebody with no job cannot generate income taxes.
So…tax cut what, exactly? Why is the MSM letting the retardates who espouse this crap get away with it? For starters, how about asking that simple question?
Let’s stop putting the cart before the horse. When people have jobs, then we can start thinking about all this “tax cut” bullshit. Until then, it’s just that, bullshit.
is the taxcuts. Even Dems aren't amused with the pork, considering there was supposed to be no pork. What happens when it gets to Obama with pork included? Will he veto it?
McCaskill called for compensation for employees of bailout recipients to be capped at $400,000 a year.
Seems to me "pork" is just what this country needs right now. Pork is jobs laying sod, pork is printing birth control pamphlets and pork is doing stupid shit just to keep people working. Yeah, it's a government handout but right now government is the only one that can spend money.
Because the MSM is owned by the same folks who destroyed this country. It's their official propaganda organ.
Call me the Phantom, because I'm always playing my organ.
Too much information.
http://www.deepwoods.org/usa/dc_m01.jpg
Organless?!?!
More my kind:
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n4/RobertO...
Lee Falk's Phantom played a minor part in comics history, in 1936 he took the musculature and something of the costume of Flash Gordon, with the African Jungle stories of Tarzan. However, it gave a break to a couple of Jewish teenagers who even three years earlier in 1933 created an even more outre character, that couldn't find a publisher. Finally in 1938 the found a buyer:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/superman/ima...
Interesting thing, Gaston Leroux Phantom of the Opera did seem to set the pattern for super villains to come in the serials. He was always laying booby traps, and ultimate weapons in riddling puzzles for the heroes, one of whom was an Iranian Secret Policeman (usually called "The Persian.") At one point if the wrong knob was turned the Opera House, if not all of Paris, was to be flooded.
I poked a hornet's nest of old comics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIwsqFjfKPs
Did you know that Johann Sebastian Bach had 29 children?
Apparently it's because his organ didn't have any stops.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk...
.
http://heavethehawk.com/blogImages/1107charli...
Thank you, thank you. My what a great audience! I'll be here until Thursday. Try the veal, and be sure to tip your waitron.
(Ah, they love me...they really love me!!)
"Why, then, aren’t we hearing more about ensuring health care access?"
Just tally up the health industry campaign contributions. The question makes the common mistake of thinking that D.C. represents the people. They represent the corporations for whom they stand. New election. Same politics.
universal basic health care for all, including illegals, no questions asked! It will save us all money in the end.
Keep the profit makers out of basic health care.
as it is, cost much more to employers and the citizens than it would cost under a universal plan.
HR-676 is the way to go.
All you folks out there keep pushing for this. I'm a Canadian who saw "Sicko" and the stories broke my heart. Americans are the most savvy consumers in the world, and I can't believe they put with all that crap from the private health insurers.
My favorite political motto is "What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all." I really hope Americans get universal health care soon.
Krugman is right. That's healthcare, not corporate welfare for an industry of criminal insurance companies. Great Btritain adopted universal healthcare, immediately following WWII, when they wer in worse shape than we are, with a nation that needed rebuilding and a colonial system that was falling apart. Their challenges were formidable, yet they still chose to make universal healthcare a national priority. It. worked out fine. Jeez, if we hadn't had the revolution, we'd all be covered.
...And that's different from us how?
That's exactly my point. We are no different. If they could do it, facing the problems they face, then we can do it, too. To claim that now is not an opportune time is just so much excuse making. Just a ruse to provide more riches to the insurance companies.
fire Blackwater and Hailburton KBR. Bring the troops home from Iraq
there you got your Health Care money right there
PG13
Bingo! Give that man [or woman] a Kewpie doll. One of the most trenchant comments written regarding this post. What Obama, that [alleged] former anti-war candidate will never acknowledge, is that the wasteful and bloated military budget should be cut at least in half and by doing that it would then provide much needed money for health care, infrastructure, education, libraries, etc. Cutting the military budget would also eschew the need for a stimulus package which is simply going to add to the national debt which would then have to be paid by future generations.
One wonders when someone in the mainstream media will ever point out to Obama that an American has a greater chance of being hit by lighting than he or she does by getting killed from a terrorist. The U.S. would have a far lesser need for a super military if it did not have to engage in such needless aggressive actions around the world as in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. It would also have more money to spend on more worthwhile items [as the Preamble notes, for the General Welfare of the citizens] if did not provide bombs and missiles and F-16 fighter planes to Israel which then uses those weapons of destruction to wreak havoc upon the people of
Gaza.
as i said ! but they might listen to you !
and I have seen the fallout directly from lost access or a lack
of access to health insurance and healthcare. In the end, we all pay more when people are not assisted in keeping themselves healthy and we pay in every way that you can possibly imagine. I have seen people who lost their coverage and could not afford their blood thinners and suffered strokes and heart attacks. It certainly would have been cheaper to provide the blood thinners rather than pay for a month of intensive care.
Krugman is right, it may not be popular or pretty, but something must be done. I'm always amazed at how many individuals would like to portray this as a Christian nation, but ignore the teachings of Christ with respect to the poor, sick and disadvantaged.
.
is a major part of problem.
That will be much tougher to fix than health care.
I completely agree. I guess that was the point I was trying to make. I've always found it ironic (specifically in light of my driving around Las Vegas today and noticing all of the personalized license plates that made referenct to God/Jesus) that many of my fellow citizens love to wax on and on about how much they love God/Jesus and what good Christians they are, but really appear to have lost the sense of the movement.
Screw Healthcare, just give Wall Street CEOs billions more with no regulation.
H.R. 676.
Pass it immediately. Let the health insurers look for honest work, like carrying bedpans in hospitals.
It's the only way to tackle this #1 priority and do it correctly without unintended consequences and actually SAVING money rather than just spending it.
I'm dubious about H.R. 676's chances, however, especially after John Podesta of the Obama transition team said single payer is pretty much not being considered by Obama. Does that mean he wouldn't sign it if it passed both houses? Well, he'd probably sign it. But he won't help it sail through.
I think this is going to have to happen at the state level.
www.healthcareforall.org
Well...if Congress passes HR-676 then Obama will be forced to consider it.
Why do machines get better preventative care than the machinists?
...we value machines more than people?
on the bottom line
like all other industrialized nations including my own, is following the IMF plans. The IMF is telling governments what to do globally to cure this worldwide problem, without dealing with the cause. All in the media are repeating the same mantra: "it's consumer lack of confidence that is doing this"....want to restore confidence? Tell the IMF to go to hell, and investigate, prosecute, and punish the financial rapists that did this to the world. What am I saying *smacks head*. They are bailing them out. Over and over.
They go into a country and say they are helping by giving loans, then they attach draconian measures to the loan like telling the country to cut social spending.
The IMF is just another conduit to enrich the rich while pauperizing the citizens.
The IMF virtually destroyed any nation that has listened to them. Oh and those wildcat strikes in France, are now happening in England. The wave is coming.
Dawn of new age of industrial unrest as wildcat strikes spread across UK
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busines...
Oh man, is this going to be an ugly year.
possibilities!
btw, my grandparents came from Canada, I have many relatives there and they all love their healthcare. Sure, there is waiting for elective surgery but for the most part you have a much better system.
One of my grandfathers came from Canada, Nova Scotia. He was trying to escape from a first wife. He hopped a freight train, and the train dicks caught him in Texas and threw him off. So I'm the product of an illegal alien from North of the Border.
However, our family was here even earlier in the original 13 colonies. An ancestor was appointed by King George III to be a royal governor of one of these states. But apparently,well after my ancestor's decease, they were Loyalists who all buggered out to Canada during the Revolution.
tell too many that story or next they'll be building a fence on the border to stop Canadian illegals!!
I guess that would explain my politics. If I'm not the one calling the shots, nor my family, than I don't want anybody to.
If I didn't have so much time on my hands, I probably wouldn't be online, and I would be one of the uninformed masses. Always liked to read, never had the time. Now I have the time, and nothing uplifting to read.
http://www.somervillehouse.org/dvd-images/sto...
Canada would not have survived. It will cushion the economic blow a bit although, England has some similar healthcare systems as Canada, and they are virtually bankrupt. I cross my fingers.
I have never had any problems with my healthcare. Many times I've phoned my doctor and was seen the same day.
They are nowhere near alike.
Canada is mandatory coverage for working people, providers are in business for themselves.
England is more socialized, doctors being employees of the government.
I lived in Canada in the 70's, and paid $26.00 a month for semi-private coverage. I could have saved $2.00 a month by settling for ward coverage.
it is paid at income tax time where I live. Last year it cost me almost $800 for the year.
spend $1,000 or more a month! And then there are the deductibles, and then there is the matter of being denied care for a "pre existing" illness.
$800 a year is only about $67 a month. WOW! What a difference.
...that many people can't get insurance in this country, no matter how much they're willing or able to pay. In Canada or Great Britain, when they take your medical history, it's to determine how to best provide medical care. In the US, they take your medical history strickly for purposes of denying you medical care...care that you've already paid for. In the U.S. the focus is on taking your money and then denying you what you have paid for. In the U.S. profit is all that matters, and if you have to die in order for them to squeeze that profit, they don't see a damn thing wrong with it. It's Murder, Incorporated.
I agree completely Jo
Fri, 01/30/2009 - 17:49 — ConcernedCanuck
Oh and those wildcat strikes in France, are now happening in England. The wave is coming.
Dawn of new age of industrial unrest as wildcat strikes spread across UK
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busines...
Oh man, is this going to be an ugly year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECKziOxmtdI
Michael Moore is covering this issue too.
New push begins for U.S. Single Payer Health Care
Obama has repeatedly said in the primary he believes free markets will solve all our health care issues. on a hopeful note, perhaps he was just lying to distance himself from hillary.
Who hasn't? Lord know I would. Hell, Bill did too!
There is no reason for universal health coverage to cost government big bucks far into the future.
With single-payer, getting insurance companies out of the mix, total costs would come down immediately. Depending on how they decide how to work it, who saves the money is up in the air.
If govt. paid the freight for all of us, and charged us in taxes just what it cost them, we would save whatever we currently pay ins. cos. less the amount our taxes went up.
States would save money from not having to contribute to Medicaid.
Employers would save money from not providing ins. coverage. They would also save in workman's comp because it would no longer be needed for medical costs.
What medical providers charge would come down at least 25% right away just from the savings in presenting claims to ins. companies.
If done the right way, we would all be covered for not much more than half what we're paying now between us.
"and have been paying through the nose for COBRA. (The money's about to run out)"
Unemployed people are not deemed worthy to have savings, COBRA makes people use them up.
stimulus bill gives the unemployed an extra $25/week. Send the money to me, and I will send your prescription drugs. Oh, don't use the post office. They are almost broke and might keep the money.
One way to make this happen is for as many people as possible to bail out of their health insurance. The insurance corporations will go bust and the Fed will be able to put in a place a universal care system without having to fight the lobbyists and their minions (read "congressmen").
I hope we are not stupid enough to think that government is going to fix the problem that it created:
Ehrlichman: "Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …"
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: "… the less care they give them, the more money they make."
President Nixon: "Fine." [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: [Unclear] "… and the incentives run the right way."
See http://www.kaiserpapershawaii.org/kaiserperma...
I like the way you think, noah.
Trouble is, congress would decide to bail out insurance companies by giving them the processing business at inflated costs.
It would be GREAT if they would start focusing on healthcare for U.S. citizens.
/instead of birth control for countries abroad.
Good lord, are you against giving women everywhere a chance to decide if they can support another child? A program to give women access to birth control will actually save money, let alone pain and suffering for so many others.
how about their home countries pay for that?
Hey, some of those foreign broads are pretty hott!!!
Go to this place:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/strongmiddleclass/
And, fill out that handy-dandy form down there on the lower right, say "Single Payer Healthcare". Oh who am I kidding, say whatever you want, you would have anyway.
I'm sure an intern somewhere will be making tally marks. Who knows.
I did. And I reminded Vice President Biden that a healthy middle class needs a one payer health care system.
To the Bush 'one prayer' health care system: Oh lord I hope I don't get sick cause I all I got is shitty HMO insurance and they'd just as soon let me die to save money on ink for their [CLAIM REJECTED] stamps.
Fri, 01/30/2009 - 18:31 — Hechicera
Buggered out have we?
not pissed yet ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WRFJwGsbY
Push Push Out The Bush!
I'll give you a real life example of why we need universal health coverage.
Two months ago, my husband came home from work and as soon as he got in the door, he collapsed on the floor. He remained conscious but was in extreme pain and couldn't move. HIs back had seized up and he had other health issues at the time that made this particularly scary. I called his doctor's office, talked to the triage nurse, put my hubby on the line with the triage nurse, listened to him describe his situation to her. Then she asked him to put me back on the phone. She told me, "You have to call 911 and have an ambulance take him to the hospital."
I fought back the tears, agreed to what she said, hung up, and called 911. The tears were not only from worry for my husband, but from knowing that by calling 911 and having an ambulance take my husband to the hospital, we would be incurring a debt we had no way of repaying. Though we were both working, we had no health insurance.
My question to those anti-universal-health-care types is: should I have ignored my husband as he lay there on the floor in extreme pain -- just because we don't have insurance? And the bigger question is: isn't that a criminal act, to ignore a person in need of medical attention? If just let my husband lie there suffering, I'd be committing a crime, right?
Yet this is what our country's health policy is: ignoring people in need of medical attention because they don't have insurance.
Although universal health insurance is preferable to what we now have, it is not enough. Insurance as it is now is inadequate to our needs. We can, as a country, afford quality health care for every loving son and daughter in this land. Having insurance as it stands is no insurance against financial ruin.
Really? I'm your typical middle class sort of person who can't pay the copay, but I'm too rich to qualify SCHIP. Try explaining to my kids why I had to sell my guitar to pay for the copay. Screw them all!
Roads cost "x%" of the GDP. The Army costs "r%" of the GDP, Eleven Carrier Battle Groups (that's how many you morons have!) cost "k%" of the GDP. Police costs "Y%" of the GDP. Firemen cost "z%" of the GDP. Universal Health care costs "a%" of the GDP.
I know you're just Americans, I know you're thicker that two boards nailed together, I know you CAN'T BEAR the PAIN of SOCIALISM...but PLEASE...take a hint from Nike...Just Do It!
Get rid of seven of your Carrier Battle Groups (that will still give you as many as the rest of the world combined) and Bob's your uncle Fanny's your aunt - voila - you're a REAL country without 50+ million men, women and children uninsured or seriously under insured.
Instead of the "United States of America for the Top 10%" you'll be the "United States of America for Every American."
Amen.
Universal Health Care is a win- win situation. Starting a few years ago the medical industry became one of the biggest employers of new job and career seekers. With the aging of the baby boomers for which I am one, all forms of medical staff will be needed and I do not mean bed pan carriers. With all the money put towards health care most of it will be in wages to complete the circle. The health care companies have to be eliminated from the equation. Capitalism and Universal Health Care do not mix. Last a healthy population is more productive and able to use money for other life enriching products and education. You have to eliminate the Corporate Parisites to make it work. They also have to be excluded from any administration of the service. It works here in Canada. I am sixty one and have never had to pay for surgery or visits to the doctor including specialists. Mind you the waits are getting longer because of the shortage in staff.
Where I live, one of the biggest providers of health services is a non-profit charity medical clinic -- I interviewed the founders for an article and found that, although they have the word "Christian" in the name of their clinic, they do not get ANY government funding. They rely on fundraisers and charitable donations (since churches do not pay taxes, I guess you could make the argument that indirectly the gov't helps) but the main thing is: Everyone I interviewed said that the secret to their success is their system, which would become unwieldy and bureaucratic were they to be government-funded. With a $500,000 annual budget they provde $7 million in value to the community.
Their business model has been the blueprint for other sister clinics around the state. If funding was increased for entities like this (it has a 12-year track record) they could do more. Why do the bad guys get the bail-out $$$? All they spend it on is marble fixtures and expensive "commodes."
Wait until COBRA runs out and you try to find an individual policy. If you can find a company that will insure you, your costs will increase dramatically.
This Health Care thing sounds nice, and we all want it, but the flat fact is IT AIN'T GOING TO HAPPEN! The capitalistic market of medical care in the USA has progressed to the point where no doctors or hospitals are going to give up their incredible over-charging because the government says something, and the government KNOWS IT! If you want Universal Health Care you go up head to head with the AMA, one of the most powerful groups in the nation. The $12-for-an-aspirin people and the $1500/hour doctors are NOT gonna give that up. Notice that all the yakking is about "how are we gonna PAY for this?" Rather than the question we SHOULD be asking "How do they get away with these ridiculous fees?"
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