Victory For Health Care Choice: Senate Bill Will Let People Leave Their Employers' Plan For Better Option

Health care is a fundamental human right no different than food, shelter, clothing, clean air and water, and other essentials to life and well-being, not something to be bought and sold as a commodity. --- Universal single-payer coverage is the solution, not America's dysfunctional for-profit model. -- If Obamacare is enacted, it will cost more, deliver less, leave millions uninsured, millions more underinsured and leave a broken system in place. - It will enrich the insurance, drug and large hospital chain cartels at the expense of universal coverage. - It will solidify a class-based system delivering the best care money can buy. - Others will get sub-standard treatment, and for millions none at all. --- The solution is everybody in, nobody out under a universal, single-payer system. - No one should accept less or politicians who won't provide it.

Under the House plan, we will gamble as we choose a plan, decide which corporation will be the best for us, hoping we pick one that is not dominated by corporate bureaucrats focused on rationing care to maximize their profits. Imagine real reform, as simple as adding people ages 55 to 65 years old to Medicare in 2010, 35-55 in 2011, and so on until everyone is included by 2013. If the Democrats can't stand up to insurance companies now, it will be even harder in the future when they have billions in more profits from Americans forced to buy their product.

A Goldman Sachs report projects earnings per share and stock values of the five largest insurance companies under four different health care reform scenarios. It is an excellent example of how vampires think, and shows us which facets of the reform proposals are most frightening precisely because they represent true reform. They are: cuts to Medicare Advantage, regulations that disallow exclusions for pre-existing conditions and recision, and finally, the odious public option.

I'm a doctor of medicine and in 2006 I published the study Crimes and Abuses of the Pharmaceutical Industry. - Last May, WHO changed the official definition of a pandemic -- it changed from a logical definition (a pandemic is an infection of global proportions and with a high mortality) to an illogical definition (a pandemic is an infection of global proportions). -- What are the consequences of this change? -- Under the new definition of "pandemic", the annual [seasonal] flu more than meets the requirements to be one. Are we going to declare a world health alert every fall? Besides absurdity from the scientific standpoint, this has serious financial and policy consequences. -- You don't trust the vaccine. Why? - Unlike the annual seasonal flu vaccine, the influenza vaccine contains such powerful adjuvant substances that they can get the normal immune response to multiply by a factor of 10. In addition, two doses are recommended, to be received after the injection for seasonal influenza, which also contains adjuvants, although less potent. - Never before have these substances been injected three times in a row in the general population, starting with children, the chronically ill and pregnant women. --- What effects can result? - The artificial stimulation of the immune system can cause autoimmune diseases.

In his Washington Post column today, E.J. Dionne claimed that pro-choice lawmakers and advocates are overstating how detrimental the Stupak amendment would be to women’s access to abortion:

Tell Congress to Pass Medicare For ALL...NOW

The Obama administration has endorsed legislation to mandate paid time off for millions of American workers, particularly to come to the aid of those who fall ill from the H1N1 influenza pandemic.

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research. In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

All of the Congressional Democrats and even the successor to George Bush himself recognize that universal single-payer health care (Medicare For All) is the only meaningful solution to the health care crisis in America. But these Democrats have decided that keeping their jobs is much more important than saving the lives of 45,000 Americans. By passing this most cynical piece of legislation they have put their thumbs in the eyes of the American people while the silk tongued oratory of the successor to George Bush will praise this bill even as he delights in the idea of how many people will live in misery.

One of the most alarming aspects of HR 3962, that passed 220-215 (219 Democrats and one Republican voted for it) are the purely evil sections 7203 and 7201. The less evil of these sections, 7203, calls for $25,000 in fines and up to a year imprisonment for “defying” the federal mandate for getting insurance. That's the misdemeanor. The felony? A quarter of a million dollars in fines and up to five years in prison. You read that right. A quarter of a million dollars in fines and 60 months in prison for being put in the position of choosing food or your mortgage over health care that are hardly any cheaper than the bloated rates we’re already paying.

“It's the biggest restriction on abortion funding since the Hyde Amendment. It's the biggest restriction on abortion access in this country in a generation. And if it took a Democratic president, 60 percent majorities in the House and Senate of Democrats in order to get that, I think you can expect Democratic women to sit on their hands at least if not revolt if that doesn't get taken out in conference.”

"On Friday night, for example, according to several news reports, representatives of the USCCB met with House Democratic Leadership to demand that language be included or an amendment to the House health care reform bill be passed effectively banning private insurance companies from covering abortion care. And apparently as a result of these meetings, the House leadership effectively caved to these demands. ... This amendment robs women of the right to private insurance coverage of abortion care even with their own money paying the premiums."

The legislation just passed by the House builds on a deeply flawed system, rather than fixing it. Conor Friedersdorf on how the Democrats missed the boat—and why the GOP is partly to blame.

Robb Kall, OpEdNews.com: Giving a $1.2 trillion gift to the health insurance industry, betraying women's rights, the house gave the white house what it wanted. The question is, will the Democrats wake up with a hangover in 2010, facing a public enraged that the bill has strengthened the very industry that is causing economic pain to families, death to tens of thousands annually and damage to our nation's industries' ability to compete.

Your body is probably home to a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. It’s a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — to the tune of six pounds per American per year. That’s a lot of estrogen.More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike. Now it turns out it’s in our food.

HR676 firmly establishes health care as a Civil Right, consistent with the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution which defines a purpose of government "to promote the General Welfare," now therefore, I HEREBY EXPRESS MY STRONG SUPPORT FOR HR676, SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR WHICH IT STANDS:

"Medicare For All, single payer will enable the working poor to make a stand where they are, and lift themselves out of poverty by organizing for and demanding a greater share of the wealth they produce every day. By removing the dread of financial ruin due to illness or injury, single payer will enable working people to fight for their own collective economic uplift. That's why the struggle for guaranteed and universal single payer, Medicare For All is the real deal right now, the key to unlocking a better life for millions in the near future, a concrete focus of the civil and human rights movements of our time."

Yes, it is still wrong to trade women's reproductive rights so that the rest of the population can have decent healthcare. The only new item we've learned is that not only is it wrong, but it doesn't work. What is far worse than being seen as a bargaining chip worth expending is to be seen as a bargaining chip to be given away for free. Now that the bargaining chip of women's reproductive rights is in the hands of the pro-life community, they plan to use healthcare reform to take away the rights we still have. So much for negotiating with the choice terrorists.

"We're waiting to see if the senator for Aetna is ready to be the senator for the people," explained one protester. Capitol police dragged away nine protesters. After the arrests, five of the remaining protesters stood in the back of the chamber and quietly held up signs reading "Patients Not Profits" and "Insurance $$$ Makes Me Sick." "It's ironic Lieberman is chairing this meeting on corporate crimes," said Medea Benjamin, who characterized the practice of accepting campaign donations from health insurance companies as criminal.