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New "health care reform" legislation - boon for the insurance industry, bad medicine for the American working class...


New "health care reform" legislation - boon for the insurance industry, bad medicine for the American working class:

Tomorrow's episode of Labor Express Radio will focus on analysis of the health care insurance industry bailout, masquerading as health care reform that was signed into law by President Obama last week. Here on Pilsenprole I will provide links to further analysis and ways to get involved in the struggle for universal, single-payer, non-profit health care. La lucha continua!

The leading national organization of activists fighting for single-payer health care is Healthcare Now! (not to be confused with Health Care for America Now an organization which shills for Obamacare)..

http://www.healthcare-now.org/

The leading organization of Doctors pushing for single payer health care, and a leading source of research on the topic is Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP)…

http://www.pnhp.org/

No union has been more in the forefront of the struggle for single-payer health care than the California Nurses Association (CAN) and their national body, The National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), now called National Nurses United

http://www.calnurses.org/

RoseAnn DeMoro, Executive Director of CNA/NNOC National Nurses United, wrote an excellent critique of the new legislation which I quote from repeatedly and liberally on tomorrow’s Labor Express Radio program…

Diary of a Wimpy Health Care Bill

Passage of President Obama's healthcare bill proves that Congress can enact comprehensive social legislation in the face of virulent rightwing opposition. Now that we have an insurance bill, can we move on to healthcare reform?

As an organization of registered nurses, we have an obligation to provide an honest assessment, as nurses must do every hour of every day. The legislation fails to deliver on the promise of a single standard of excellence in care for all and instead makes piecemeal adjustments to the current privatized, for-profit healthcare behemoth…

You can read the rest of DeMoro’s article here… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/diary-of-a-wimpy-healthca_b_510706.html

On tomorrow’s episode of Labor Express I air excerpts from a national conference call organized by Healthcare Now on March 23rd. The conference call included anaylsis from Michael Lighty, Policy Director for National Nurses United, Ajamu Sankofa, founder of Private Health Insurance Must Go! a single payer advocacy group in NY City, and Dr. Patricia Downs Berger, Co-chair of MassCare a single payer advocacy group in Massachusetts. You can listen to the entire conference call here…

http://www.healthcare-now.org/listen-discussing-the-health-bill-and-the-individual-mandate/

I also quote extensively on tomorrows program from the following statement issued by Healthcare Now on March 24th

http://www.healthcare-now.org/medicare-for-all-advocates-say-bill-fails-to-meet-needs-of-people/

Here are some other interesting articles analyzing the new legislation sent to me from a variety of sources. The first is from Bruce Dixon at the Black Agenda Report…

Obama Democrats VS Tea Party Republicans: A Fake Fight Over Fake Health Care Reform…

There are real fights and there are fake fights, engineered to distract attention away from the real deal. The shouting match between Obama's Dems and the Tea party Repubs is one of those fake fights. The health care legislation passed by the Obama Democrats is incomparably worse than anything they could have passed right after the presidential election, and significantly worse than anything Democrats could have passed at midyear 2009. The president and his minions have delayed as long as possible to guarantee the worst, not the best bill for patients, and the best deal possible for Big Insurance, Big Pharma and Big Medicine…

You can read the rest of the article here…

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-democrats-vs-tea-party-republicans-fake-fight-over-fake-reform

This one is from a guy (or women I guess) who calls him/herself “The Pen” at http://discomfit.blogspot.com/...

Once in a while, actually quite frequently lately, a politician will say something so idiotic on its face that it becomes a test of the national credulity.

Harry Reid made such a statement a couple days ago…OK, here is what Harry Reid said, in defense of the fact that NO vote on any kind of public option was being allowed in the reconciliation bill for health care reform.

"I will work to ensure that we are able to vote on the public option in the coming months."

And when exactly would that be, Harry, AFTER the Senate goes back to requiring 60 votes to pass anything? Let us be clear, 51 senators WERE on the record that they supported a public option, even if it were only as weak as the one passed by the House. All they had to do was take a vote on it NOW, and it would have been the law of the

land.

How stupid do they think we are?

You can read the rest here…

http://discomfit.blogspot.com/2010/03/great-american-stupid-test-and-why-we.html

There will be more to come on future posts. Stay tuned!

Comments

  1. In 2003 only 16 percent of health care spending consisted of out-of-pocket expenditures by consumers. The rest was paid for by insurance, public or private. As we'll see, this heavy reliance on insurance disturbs some economists, who believe that doctors and patients fail to make rational decisions about spending because third parties bear the costs of medical treatment. But it's no use wishing that health care were sold like ordinary consumer goods, with individuals paying out of pocket for what they need. By its very nature, most health spending must be covered by insurance.

    The reason is simple: in any given year, most people have small medical bills, while a few people have very large bills. In 2003, health spending roughly followed the "80–20 rule": 20 percent of the population accounted for 80 percent of expenses. Half the population had virtually no medical expenses; a mere 1 percent of the population accounted for 22 percent of expenses.

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