Five years ago seven western governors backed a study that revealed that it would be cheaper and much more workable if they just insured everybody in one big package. The problem, it seemed was not the premium cost but the current instances of medical bankruptcies; medical systems that were being shortchanged by insurance companies and unrecouped emergency room costs. They found that the whole system, including better health care, would be better off with a single payer, the state. We already have that system but we’re just too shortsighted to expand it to cover everybody. It’s called Medicare and Medicaid.
The main opponent to a single payer system is the insurance industry, which adds a minimum of 20% and in some cases, up to 50% to the cost of the system. Add to that, all the complications, obfuscations and cheating they do and the additional cost can go has high as 70%. Neither the patient, the hospital, nor the taxpayer, gets anything for that additional cost. The only ones who benefit by it are the stockholders of the insurance companies and their management, in the form of extra bonuses.
On This Week, With Whoever Shows Up, Bill Kristol, right wing talking head, when asked about how the Republican Party is getting ready to destroy the country over their need to kill Obamacare, instead of addressing the question, went on a rant about how the party has come back from disarray after the election. He doesn’t seem to understand that no one cares about that; no sane person cares about anything but keeping the government open in the face of radical extremist behavior by the GOP. Then he gets in way over his head by starting an argument with Paul Krugman over delaying the mandate, an argument in which Krugman is forced to point out that Kristol doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.
But that wasn’t enough for the open mouth, inset foot Kristol. Next Krugman was forced to instruct him on the meaning of the word negotiation. It is, he pointed out, when we give you something you want and you give us something we want and we come to agreement on some third point as a result. The GOP wants the Dems to give them something, the end of ACA and for that they are wiling to reopen the government, but that benefits them just as much as it does the Democrats, to say nothing of the American people. Where is the quid pro quo? Krystol didn’t seem to understand this.
The main point that has just now started to be made is that the GOP, always against big government, wants to destroy the ability of any government to function at all, and the way they have chosen to do that is by taking a law that has been passed by both houses of congress, signed into law by the president and approved by the Supreme Court and get rid of it because their small minority in the House doesn’t like it. It is a law that has been firmly backed by the American people through two presidential elections and which has withstood over 40 attempts to overthrow it by a small, fanatical, bigoted, fascist element of a party, that is in complete chaos. Still they want to bring the government to a halt in order to get their way. If they do, it will be the destruction of the democratic system.
If we can’t pass laws and have them stand even in the face of opposition by the party that lost the argument, if we can’t finally have a law stand that has passed all its legal challenges, then we can’t have laws at all and that results in chaos and anarchy. If that’s what the far right wants, then they are not the patriots they claim to be. They are anarchists and traitors.
Ted Cruz was on Meet the Press, recently, demanding that the senate come back in session to consider the bill the house has passed which reiterates the same old garbage that we have gone over ad nauseum. It’s a non-starter so why bother? He did a lot of talking the other night from the Senate floor but he never mentioned that while he was vomiting out his lies and half-truths, over two hundred Americans died because they couldn’t afford health care. Cruz works very hard to make his point but the problem is that his argument is all based on lies:
Millions are hurting under ACA-a lie
Americans are against Obamacare- a big lie
People are losing their jobs because of ACA-the biggest lie
The president will shut down the government- the whopper. It’s the House under Boehner
that has shut down the government
Cruz says he doesn’t want to repeal the law; he wants to defund it. This shows either his
basic cynicism or his overriding stupidity, because to defund is to de facto repeal the law. If he thinks we are too ignorant to realize this he is even dumber than I thought and if he is stupid enough to think we don’t see what he is doing, he shouldn’t be in the senate, he shouldn’t even be employed.
Cruz says; the facts are clear, Obamacare doesn’t work. What facts. He wouldn’t recognize a fact if it bit him in the ass. In fact Obamacare does work and it will work a lot better if the GOP stops holding up funding and just gets out of the way. It might even help to make it better if they stopped trying to stop it and tried to help fix it.
The GOP’s, seemingly tunnel visioned approach to this, appears to say, we aren’t really against this law, that’s why we can’t be bothered trying to fix it. What we are really against is the source of the law, Barak Obama and since we can’t get him out of office we are willing to sacrifice the nation’s well being to attack that which he has created. These people are traitors.
Cruz keeps repeating that the American people reject Obamacare- a lie- how do we know it’s a lie other than the fact that his lips are moving? The Times survey this week, granted, not always 100% accurate, says that 56% are in favor of keeping it. Add to that the usual number of those who have no opinion and you have a small number that are against it. Then, of course, there’s the fact that Obama won two elections with Health care as his primary platform.
But the real numbers that put the lie to Cruz’ statement are those that bombarded the exchanges when they opened the other day, flooding them in such a wave that they shut down the system. Even the plan’s most optimistic backers had not expected this kind of reaction. Forget polls, this is the proof that America does want the ACA. It is an unassailable statement.
Cruz, in his interminable diatribe in front of the nation the other night, made the statement that they had to stop Obamacare now, or it would be impossible to ever stop it. What he meant was that once people get it, they will like it and they won’t want to lose it. The man is actually dumb enough to sabotage his own position.
The biggest lie is that the ACA is a job killer. Actually the previous GOP administration was the biggest job killer since 1929 and the subsequent House has tried its best to continue that policy. But the notion that Obamacare is causing companies to cut back on hours in order to make employees part time and get them off health care, shows a basic misunderstanding of the level of greed exhibited by some major corporations in this country.. It isn’t the law, it’s the greedy managements that have found an excuse to do that. They have found a loophole and are using it to cut back on employee’s hours so they can avoid paying for the employee’s healthcare, that they were already providing, usually because of obligations incurred during union negotiations for full time employees. This is management’s way of getting around it, and the cowardly unions are letting them get away with it instead of fighting these greed inspired cutbacks.
Cruz points to workers at UPS and Sea World and claims they have had their spouses benefits canceled as victims of Obamacare. This is typical of his twisted point of view. Those spouses are the victims of the same heartless management that is cutting hours to make loyal employees part time so they can be cut from the healthcare rolls. These companies are not in trouble. They are just trying to increase their dividend and bonuses at the expense of their workers.
On the other hand there are admirable companies like Disneyworld that are adding to employee’s hours just so that they will be eligible for employer provided healthcare. These are the kind of corporate operations that understand what it means to be American and exemplary. They have a moral sensibility that allows them to recognize the right thing and understand how to accomplish it. Cruz has the moral sensibilities of a hyena.
Of course no one seems to mention that the problems of cheap companies that won’t pay for coverage or cowardly unions that won’t fight for their members would be solved by a single-payer system. Single-payer, full Medicare for all with free choice of doctor and hospital has been a majority choice by Americans for decades, even doctors and nurses favor it but those big lobbies paid for by the insurance companies have congress by the short hairs, and thus far have been able to brow beat or buy them into voting the insurance way instead of the people way.
Everybody is saying that the GOP wants to shut down the government. They actually don’t, but they are willing to do it, to get their way. So instead of being reasonable and accepting the fact that getting rid of the ACA will not happen, they say that the Democrats want the government to shut down so the right will look bad. Yes, they will look bad and they will deserve to look bad because they have taken a faulty path to getting what they want. Instead of trying to fix the law they have; they have, over 40 times, tried to get rid of it. One would think that by now they would have realized that this isn’t going to happen. (See definition of insanity).
Actually many Republicans do realize this and have said so, but the Tea Party nuts refuse to accept that their way is not the right way and like the infants that they are, they are stamping their feet and holding their breath until they get what they want. The solution is to let them hold their breath and when they suffocate, elect reasonable men to their jobs.
Jon Huntsman, ® Utah, has pointed to the proper path. “We have a law, we aren’t going to repeal the law, so the thing to do is watch what happens when the law is implemented, and see what we have to do, to make the law better.”
This from a man who ran for the GOP nomination in the last election and was wiped out by the fanatic right that favored such eminent thinkers as Michele Bachman and Rick Perry. Huntsman was the only candidate other than Romney who didn’t appear certifiably insane.
American health care pre-ACA is a disaster. Yes, we have some of the best facilities in the world for specialties but we also have over 30,000,000 Americans with no coverage. This is a national disgrace. The Canadian system of full national participation costs less than half, per capita of the American system. Other health systems, around the world, operate efficiently and provide excellent health care to all for a fraction of what our insurance company led system provides. Most logical thinking legislators have agreed that single-payer is the best system but have also noted that the corporate forces against it cannot be overcome. THE CORPORATE FORCES? What we are talking about are the greedy insurance companies who increase the cost of medical insurance and still don’t allow those with existing illnesses to join the plan. Is that what the Tea Party wants? To make insurance companies richer and to watch their own voters die for lack of care?
The results of the first day of open exchanges, was seen by America. By overwhelming numbers we see that people are flocking to these exchanges, in the states that have them, to find out about how they can get affordable health care. The numbers were staggering and show that when the system is in full sway America will have proven that everything the GOP has said about the plan is false, that despite the Right’s lies, universal health care is necessary, desired and functional. It will also find out that those governors who have blocked its implementation in their states will see the results of their stupidity at the next election.