State plans won’t work for very long bc the cost will be too high.

Thank you, Jon, this is very good news indeed. “…it is important that there are prominent political voices in the Democratic Party advocating progressive reform rather than defending the poorly designed and highly unpopular Affordable Care Act.”

This is exactly the sort of news that needs to reach the eyes and ears of of flesh and blood human beings, for it suggests the possibility of something better … and not merely the old, failed, song and dance routines so beloved by the conventional media. One wonders, infact, just how much useful coverage that conventional media will provide this news?

DW

OT: I saw your reference to that book about O’s mom & possible CIA connections, etc. Thanks for the tip! It sure seems like those apocraphyl stories we used to hear about the Soviet KGB “salting” the US with “sleeper agents,” who grew up Stateside but then suddenly starting plotting & spying, etc.

The more things go forward with the O Admin, the more it seems like the old Soviet Union, imo.

Agree with you vis the State approach to health care, although I salute Schweitzer for his efforts.

This is likely true, the main value is as example, eCAHN.

That Canada was used as the inspiration suggests broader example, successful example, as well.

On edit: as well, eCAHN, i join onitgoes in appreciating your CIA refernce.

DW

CIA or State Dept. Macht nichts. Either way, O was in the net for PTB before he was born.

canada’s single payer system started as a province based system that spread to others than became national.

I hate that arguement. We’re paying the costs ALREADY, they’re just hidden. All hospital bills for the insured are increased to pay for the uninsured that the hospitals are required to treat.

So instead of paying a greedy insurance company, we’ll be paying a greedy government. The end result is the same.

I don’t understand why large businesses aren’t in favor of single payer. They’re the ones paying for the uninsured currently.

Boxturtle (Single payer with drug reimportation solves a LOT of problems)

If nothing comes out of this, it’s worth the effort just to hear what comes out of DC called a “pack of crap.”

Agree that example is important. Keeping single payer on the radar.

As near as I can gather, the “success” of single payer in other developed countries involves getting stakeholders together to “negotiate” fees for medical services, or to have some sort of regulatory regime which holds prices down, since there is no market mechanism that will do that.

Doing that on a nationwide basis can work bc medical providers unlikely to move to other countries to get more money. But doing it on a state basis means that state will experience outflow of medical providers over time, or bankrupting the state if they don’t hold prices down.

See my 9 for more detailed explanation.

LOL Obama’s one great accomplishment…..Epic Fail

My first reaction was, what took you so long, right next door! But my second is more positive – this should hearten the young people assembled in New York because timing is everything and what they are doing is having an effect on the public dialogue. That is huge.

certainly appears that way. interesting; chilling. ugh

I don’t understand why large businesses aren’t in favor of single payer. They’re the ones paying for the uninsured currently.

Yes, I’ve often pondered that. When one hears about the INSANE charges (I mean – crazily & ridiculously high fees for almost nothing) associated with health care, esp with hospital stays of any kind, you know it’s because those who are insured are subsidzing those who are not. I get that, but I don’t “get” why so many businesses go along with this nonsense…. other than that they’ve all agreed in backroom deals to scratch each others’ backs. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

Combine that with the fact that more and more businesses are making their employees pay for their health insurance out of their salaries… so why should the fat-cat CEO give a sh*t about the insanely high cost of health care?? Add that to the fact that’s why these uber-wealthy Overlords are shipping as many jobs as possible overseas where the serfs simply don’t get health care at all… yadda yadda.

What??? Single payer??? Where’s the profit motive in that???

Hey lets run this guy for President

What would help is if we could get more consistent publicity on what Max Baccus did in Montana and half of his state is already receiving Universal Health Care.

Hope Monatan starts by negotiating lower Rx costs. Just so as to stick it in Obama’s ass.

I disagree. You’re assuming that the savings will come from screwing the providors. I’m assuming the savings come from taking the insurance companies out of the mix and drug reimportation. If anything, we need to INCREASE the amount we’re paying to the hospitals and Doctors.

The only way to bankrupt a state under this is to refuse to make revenues match expenses. Like we’re currently doing at the federal level. Business will save a LOT if we do this, taking some of that back in taxes just makes sense. I have a large deduction on my paycheck for healthcare, it wouldn’t matter to me if some (or all) of that went to the single payer program.

Boxturtle (The problem of raising taxes on political contributors is carefully glossed over)

Single payer will be tried once every other asinine proposal has been tried. Per Winston Churchill, “The Americans will always do the right thing… after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.”

A-yep. And the costs for not doing it are quite high and will only get higher.

Biz dropping med benies as fast as they possibly can. Why waste political capital for something you don’t intend to keep anyhow.

You are so right. I too can not understand why the corporations are not raising hell about insuring the country. They like money and dropping all of us would really give them a boost. When my 21 year old son had surgery, their was a problem with my husbands insurance because he had registered for college and should have continued with the coverage but when he had the surgery, the hospital assumed that he was not covered. When he received the bill a large amount was deducted because he qualified for the “no insurance” rate. Once my husbands employer straightend out his eligibility with the insurance company and he was reinstated, the hospital raised the bill. So he ended up paying for those uninsured.

We need intel on this guy these moves are all talk they won’t pass. However smart politicians jump onto popular political issues to get power.
Is he smart or is he like Obama? Obama follows the African American Chicago pol model promise everything to get elected then once in office do nothing to help people and blame the System, Da Mayor, the GOP for why things can’t get done.
After Obama we need to figure out a way not to get taken.

I’m not assuming anything. What gives medical industry pricing power is knowledge gap bet buyer & seller, plus customer is vulnerable. Taking insurance corps out of loop will merely allow other, smaller players, to charge more on their own.

In the book an “An Anthropologist on Mars ” the author worked in a mental hospital and noted some of his patients would laugh everytime they watched Reagan lie during a tv speech.
Maybe we should vet new Lefty pols for honesty by showing their speeches to people with the disease. I think my copy of the book is in Portland otherwise I would mention the mental disease’s name.
We need access to these people imagine the benefits to society! CEO’s Politicians etc could not lie anymore if we new and told everyone yes they are lying.

Thank you Governor Schweitzer. The high cost healthcare system in the U.S. is an albatross around the economy, the federal budget (Medicare and Medicaid) and the possibility of competitive U.S. manufacturing businesses. Medicare-for-all seems the no-brainer to resolve this problem. Short of that state systems can demonstrate better alternatives as the province of Saskatchewan showed Canada.

There are other state-based plans — hell, there’s at least one city-based one:

http://www.healthysanfrancisco.org/employers/city_option/MRA.aspx

And simple to cure diseases blow up to crisis stage because some can’t afford primary care thereby costing more than a sane payer system pays.

Montana has an older population the young leave to get better paying jobs unemployment is lower because so many young people left and the jobs left are mostly low paying unless your in the energy field the Governor very well might be smart to want to attract young people to his state by giving everyone health insurance.

I have read various articles that refer to the probability of Obama grandparents and parents having had connections to the CIA.
Would be interest to know the title of the book you are referring to.

Why does Montana have to beg (and be denied) permission from Washington. Oh yeah, now I remember. If States had rights they would bring back black slavery and steam boats. Montana should secede.

Seems since raygun was gunned down , in broad daylight, the captain has had a CIA connection, Bushs-no question, Clinton rumored Contra airfield landing the coke that Hassenfuss was supposed to deliver ,now this guy ?

Hysterical…get some of those folks into audiences at appearances, esp the debates. Be like a truth-a-meter. Thanks.

You beat me to it.

I also would like to know the book. I haven’t really followed up on vaguely hearing rumors. I may have to go comb the intertubz.

FDL would be the most read blog on the net if we had access to these people and knew when everyone was lying and put video proof on the net. Granted we would not know what they were lying about exactly but from the subject of the talk and the questions we could guess and that would make a great discussion.:)
Kirk Murphy is in the mental health field maybe FDL could pay a patient’s family or his mental hospital for access?
I think it would be the best money FDL ever spent.

Perhaps Montana and VT can lead the way?

TR Reid’s book spells out very well how other successful, less costly, universal health care systems have been set up and run elsewhere for years, if not decades.

Something has to be done. The current national health care scene is severely lacking, even with the recently passed bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/health/15book.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/models.html

http://www.amazon.com/Healing-America-Global-Better-Cheaper/dp/1594202346

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778.html

My (now) ex-husband told me YEARS ago that General Motors’ biggest supplier was not some parts or sheet steel or tire manufacturer, it was Blue Cross/Blue Shield!

While previous research — including studies conducted by Ekman — has shown that people in general have only a 50/50 chance of detecting when someone is lying by their expression or tone of voice, the aphasia patients were able to detect lies cued by facial expression alone 73 percent of the time. The other study groups all had close to 50 percent accuracy in recognizing lies tied to facial expressions. The aphasia patients also did better than the other groups in detecting lies cued by both facial and vocal changes – 60 percent compared with about 45 percent. None of the groups did well in recognizing lies cued by changes in vocal pitch alone.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20000410225320data_trunc_sys.shtml

73% beats 50%

yes. a lot of companies now are dropping benefits. and the unions, as we all duly note, are being pushed to force their membership to pick up more of the tab for their benefits. it’s happening whether private, public, not for profit or unionized workforce. drop benies; force the citizens to pay thru the nose for lousy “health ins” which doesn’t cover stuff, and then citizens with insurance are on the hook, for better or worse, to pay for those without insurance.

but the mega-wealthy, per usual, are out of the loop & don’t pay their fair share. whot a sorprise… not.

eCHAN refered this to me yesterday. I haven’t read it and no little about it. however, it certainly looks very very intersting. fyi…

I can believe that!

My father used to work for what was then called Kaiser Refractories. I think it was a subsidiary of Kaiser Aluminum. Old man Kaiser also started Kaiser Permanente. Although I’m going from my failing memory, I believe the idea was to reign in health insurance costs for the workers of the various Kaiser industries.

Another long-time friend of mine has always told me that *her father* rued the day that businesses decided to put health insurance in the mix. Her dad was an insurance sales person in the 50s – 80s, and he apparently said that Health Insurance was nothing more or less than a big fat boondoggle for the Insur. Industry, and that it did NADA to improve so-called “health care.” Her dad felt that consumers should just pay for their services as they go. Certainly some wisdom in that. Seems to me that the costs have just skyrocketed over the years, and very disproportionately to the cost of living, etc.

here’s the reference again, courtesy of eCAHN. I cannot comment on it, as I haven’t read it yet.

now this guy?

eCAHN and I have had a running “conversation” about O & possible CIA-from-childhood (or at least young adult) brainwashing/whatever connection.

The whole “deal” with O just doesn’t wash somehow. Many of us had our issues with O from the git-go, and all pols LIE big-time on the campaign trail. But the level of deliberate deceit and the actions once in office were, at least for me, more than breath-taking. And despite the nasty drubbing one gets from O-lovers, I have never, ever ONCE seen O do anything in office that remotely resembles something that would fit into the old-school “Democratic party” paradigm.

I’m not naive, nor am I dumb, and I fully & clearly realize how the Dems have been trending NeoLiberal since at least Carter, if not earlier. That said, O’s apparent “defection” from the remaining tattered “standards” of the so-called “Democratic” party were breath-taking to me, and it just seemed really really FISHY.

So… since so much else going on in the USA today *appears* to have been stolen from/modeled on our former Soviet “enemies,” just seemed logical that Obummer was actively & deliberately recruited by the CIA to play this role. Go figure. That’s how I see it.

Thank you.

I think it’s possible, onitgoes. What it is, even if only exposure to the culture, will assuredly surface once he is no longer in office. These things always do.

[That's to onitgoes @ 45]

I agree and I remember the little speech he gave at the CIA right after his election that for those that follower the ” lawful legal council” there would be no prosecutions. Just stunning after what was known in the public about torture.

I hope this works. America is truly desperate for a real health care solution.

Well, exactly. That and the whole “look forward not backward” bullsh*t. Spare me: one rule for *us* the “ruling council” (aka Bush Crime Syndicate) or Politburo or whatever you want to term it, and a completely different rule for the serfs/peons/peasants who have to do the time for their crimes.

Seems to me that the stench of Henry Kissinger & Dick Cheney hangs quite heavy around Obama. “Democratic” POTUS?? Don’t think so. At least not by prior definitions of “Democratic Party” and the former standards/norms/etc.

Go look at BT’s lunchtime post about the Congressional Black Caucus and what Clyburn has to say about O… similar to my prior paragraph here. NOT the traditional “standards” of the so-called “Democratic” party, and while the whole SCOTUS selling of the USA to the corporations via Citizens United definitely infested & infected all “Democratic” pols, I feel that O’s “position” (or whatever you want to call it) and allegiances go way beyond anything wrought by Citizens United. JMHO, of course.

To me, it’s yet another coup d’etat (and coup de gras) by the PTB against the dumb-bunny serfs of this once-great nation.

My take is that Brian is an even better and savvier politician than Obama. And, yes, this is a good political move. But unlike Obama, I do see Brian pushing for a national health care plan as President. He drove old people in buses over to Canada way back in 2000 when he ran for the Senate. His role model is Teddy Roosevelt and Senator. So while he is not a “leftie” in many regards e.g. his love of clean coal, he believes in a “square deal” for Americans.

You mean the Libby, Montana side deal?

Sam Smith of Progressive Review mentioned this a few weeks ago. This is probably the first salvo for a possible run. Yes, Obama decides not to run again and Schweitzer steps in to fill the void.

Yes. There was alot of publicity a few months ago. Rachel Maddow featured it on her show as did Larry O’Donnell

They do not wish to cede ground in the war on the public commons.

If for-profit health is questioned, so then might for-profit prisons and for-profit bridges and for-profit fire departments.

canada’s single payer system started as a province based system that spread to others than became national.

Ironically, it was Saskatchewan that started it all in Canada…! ;-)

Not ironically. Brian knows his history.

Privatizing Montana Power brought high electric prices to Montana under Governor Marc Racicot. Montanans are keenly aware that sometimes having a public utility is a good thing. When I made that comparison back in the health care debate, many conservatives saw my point.

BTW Guess what who was considered by the Canadians as the Greatest Canadian Ever in a poll in 2000 if I remember right.
Not a long ruling premier, not a scientist, not a great peace maker but the Governor of that Province Mr. Tommy Douglas who introduced the single payer model.

Our administration had a chance to be either called as Mr. Tommy Douglas of our country by adopting Single Payer (Comparatively Easier Solution) or as Pres. Theodore Roosevelt by doing some serious trust busting, introducing real, hard competition at every level which in my belief will bring costs down even more than Single Payer model but needs someone as scrappy, smart & hard-working as Pres. Theodore Roosevelt to guide it at the helm. Instead they listened to Top Lobbyists and put us on a FAR Right path to Neo-Feudalism with those Individual mandates which every American hates.

Sooner those Individual mandates go out from our society and our political discourse better our society becomes and we can have either a valid model of single payer or true free market competition model which would have been championed by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt which if implemented correctly will bring costs down to such a extent that even a minimum wage person can afford it by themselves by voluntary purchase.

This is how it should be and should have been from the beginning.

Only States shouldn’t have to ‘request’ a waiver from the Federal Government in order to implement their own health insurance system … or any other system