Two Americas Express Their Gratitude

If there’s any good to come out of the last 9 miserable years, it will be what I’ve been reading recently and what your toon demonstrates, Pat: the corporate interests on one side and American citizens [with or without a job because we're all hanging by fingernails] on the other.  Whether the issue is healthcare, bank bailouts, cap & trade, war, etc, the Great Awakening is slowly suggesting, revealing that this has little to do with Left or Right, Democrat or Republican. 

It has everything to do with Corporate/governmental interests vs the American public. It serves oligarichical interests to have us tearing at one another: Left, Right; middle-class, poor; working class, professional [creative class]; white, black; natives, immigrants because it diffuses the national focus on the powers that be–the real guys pulling the strings behind the curtain,

There are two Americas.  But it’s not as John Edwards would have had us believe.  It’s far more sinister. And dangerous.

All you say is true.  Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of posts leave out certain facts.  For instance, your health care bill is going to get larger in whatever system is adopted.  This health care bill doesn’t come close to solving that problem.  The fact that certain entities and / or persons make out better than others is status quo….and part of a capitalistic system.  Capitalism wasn’t designed for all to be equitable.  If, in the other hand, you would like the sophistication of your medical care to equal that available in 1948, then you can rest assured your costs will go down….we’ll put you on the list of those who don’t want up to date diagnostic processes involved in your care.  And we’ll list you as a non-participant in available therapies for cancer and cardiac illnesses. My grandfather died of a heart attack in bed at his house without benefit of any life-saving technology.  We can put you on that list…in fact, maybe that should be a choice.  I’ll bet, that would be a short list.

The point is that medical cost continue to spiral upward.  One of the primary reasons for the slope of that graph is that there is no word of tort reform.  Everything you use (pills, tests, devices, procedures) in this process must be insured to the hilt because the legal profession believes that literally everything has liability and someone has to be guilty for everything that goes awry.  No more ‘shit happens’!  The administration hasn’t done anything to curtail this.  

Yes, the insurance companies are getting a gift as are the pharmaceutical companies.  Some patented drugs have as much as a 60-fold mark-up!  Are you aware of that?  Our elected officials are courted by and in bed with these companies.  And so is the administration.  The present health care bill is a windfall for all of these companies.  Why else would this be such a difficult bill to modify?  The government also is in business and owns the military.  This is one of the chief issues in why Nelson caved rather than standing by his prior commitments.  STRATCOM could be moved from Nebraska easily.  The new VA here could be aborted.  This is worth a lot of money in this state.  

Chicago politics alive and well in Lincoln and Omaha.  And that….simply…is the issue.  But none of the fixes addresses all of the issues.  Costs will go up.  Clearly one could opt out of modern medicine…..I dare you.  But you won’t….most just want it free.  And that is not an achievable end.  And, by the way….I haven’t personally seen a single horror story of the type that is advertised.  

The long term result of the mess in medicine is going to be a downgading of expertise, a loss of outreach clinics and specialty care and a return to 1948 medicine until the public realizes that this is not going to be free under any bill.

Gratitude?  Brother, can you spare a dime?

THERE IS A WHOLE ARTICLE ABOUT THIS SCAR AND MORE HERE:

http://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/obamas-nasty-scar/#more-761

There are two stories that I have read a number of times and I thank the NQ writers for helping us understand this Health “reform” but I am still not sure I get this.  In order to GIVE to the insurance industry the government must take from the providers, innovators AND the states that have been trying to expand coverage on their own. 

As for the last one I wonder if some states are going to be able to survive this “help” unless they reduce their level of services to Alabama’s version of Medicade, raise state income taxes to the level of federal taxes or hope that by adopting the service cutting measures of the first part of the above paragraph they may survive.  Here are the two articles that got my attention

Wall Street Journal:  What Doctors and Patients Have to Lose Under ObamaCare.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254604574613992408387548.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read#articleTabs%3Darticle

It all starts with the sweeping power that the Senate bill gives to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The agency will be given the authority to unilaterally write new rules on when medical devices and drugs can be used, and how they should be priced. In particular, the Obama team wants to give the agency the power to decide when a cheaper medical option will suffice for a given problem and, in turn, when Medicare only has to pay for the least costly alternative.

New York Times:  States With Expanded Health Coverage Fight Bill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/health/policy/27states.html

But the roughly 20 states that have already expanded coverage in some form will pay a greater proportion of their new Medicaid costs under the bill than those states, largely in the South, that until now have covered relatively few of their poorest residents. .. governors in the states that have done more to broaden coverage are now lobbying their Congressional delegations to eliminate the discrepancies as the two chambers reconcile the bills. ..“We are, in a sense, being punished for our own charity,” Gov. David A. Paterson of New York said last week.

hello

fresh

I am typing this as a test of our new comments software to see if we can recreate the problem that some users are having.  Let’s see if we can recreate. i am typing I am typing I am typing I am typing I am typing I am typing I am typing i am typing i am just typing with eastan on the telephone and we’re trying to duplicate the issue that some readers have had with auto-refresh.  

I am typing I am typing test

i am typing I am typing a test — Pat, so sorry to invade your post with our test of the comments software.  Please forgive us.  We are trying to cure an issue for our readers.  This is only a test.  This is only a test.  

test 2

maybe my comment was too long. 

Oh- forgot to meantion- Mon is of course on Medicare- and lives in MAssachusetts- where her supplemental ins costs more than $400 a month.
That MA universal health care will be another whole post- good luck finding a provider in MA if you are on the MassHealth program!

Congrats Pat! You couldn’t have drawn a more fitting cartoon to end this dismal year.  It’s funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Maybe it’s because I am getting older and feel my age more, but I don’t see anything on the horizon that gives me hope.  I know, I used both the words “hope and change”.  Ironic isn’t it?
Maybe, just maybe we can elect more responsible representatives, but most people these days only see what the media dishes out. 

I am going to kick back, enjoy my golden years, and leave politics to the younger generation.  Mine has done it’s duty.

love the toon Pat

Wonderful cartoon, but there is nothing really new. 
 
Every government program takes money and redistributes it according to what part of society government wants to help and influence.  For example the food stamp program benefits a segment of the public and also benefits grocery stores, farmers, the trucking industry and so on.  The assistance to housing benefits people who need a place to live, but also apartment building owners, the utility company, and others. 
 
So this is not new, but business as usual.  Money will be taken from all of us to help some and in the process business or in this case the insurance companies will benefit. 
 
The fact that people are losing their homes and are given food stamps or food hand- outs as a consolation prize, while the bankers who caused the problem that caused people to lose their homes in the first place get richer, is the only part that is really sad.
 
Rich

this POS h/c bill will put hundreds of thousands of people on medicaid (obamas version of the public option).   very few doctors even take medicaid as its pays md’s something like $12 per visit.  so good luck even finding a doctor to see you.  not only do we have to pay for this crap for 4 years before it goes into effect, but we will continue paying for all those new people under medicaid as its paid for by the govt. (me and you)